Educational

Day 3 Monday 27th April - Downtown Eastside City Planning

On Monday I was extremely fortunate to be invited to spend the day with Kira, a City Planner with Vancouver City, who's focus is on the DOwntown Eastside of Vancouver City.

We started off the day with an overview of the area in Kira's office down the road from City Hall during which Kira introduced me to a number of initiatives geared towards revitalising what is one the last areas within the city which is still affordable for lower income people and families.

The area has become notorious for its very visible drugs, alcohol and homelessness issues, particularly around Hastings and Main. However, what my day with Kira helped me appreciate was that behind the more immediately visible issues exists a community with history and roots in the area and strong networks. The area is under pressure from gentrification programmes which have visibly improved apearances of areas right next door including Gastown, resulting in high-end condos and retail outlets cheek to jowl with social housing developments. The clear challenge is how to ensure that any revitalisation programme of the eastside area will be sympathetic and in line with the aspirations of the local community, and one of the sessions we attended during the day was a community forum at which community members were invited to comment on proposals for a new height of buildings policy to help manage applications from developers.

It was a fascinating day for me and I'm really grateful to Kira and Earlene for organising it.

Day 5 PRREDS

Scott, a PR Rotarian, introduced me to Powell River Region Economic Development Society, an arms length organisation set up by the municipal government and local community representatives. Scott introduced me to a number of initiatives that are underway in the area to help sustain and develop the local economy which ranged from leisure and cultural initiatives such as the music academy of BC to an innovative new partnership between PRREDS, the local first nations band and third party to buy land from the paper mill (which was the original industry around which the town was originally built) in order to ensure it is sold on to industry and devlopment that will benefit the town and members of the community.

Day 5