Vancouver’s development permit board hasn’t rejected a proposal since 2006. But that streak ended Monday when the board turned down Beedie Living’s controversial proposal for a nine-storey condo building at 105 Keefer St. in Chinatown.
The development industry was shocked.
“(The board) succumbed to political pressures, in the broadest sense of the word,” said real estate consultant Michael Geller.
But the city’s general manager for planning, urban design and sustainability argued the rejection wasn’t about politics, it was about the design not fitting into the historic neighbourhood.
“This is such an important and symbolic site in Chinatown, and there is so much interest in Chinatown heritage right now,” said Gil Kelley, who cast the deciding vote in a 2-1 split. “That combined with my assessment that the developers in this case didn’t really step up the design game in the way that I think this site called for … in terms of having a very contextual design that is appropriate to that (site), without trying to be faux historical.”
The Keefer development has been rejigged five times since Beedie’s initial proposal for a 13-storey building in 2014. Located on an empty lot at Keefer and Columbia streets, the proposal met with fierce resistance from Chinatown activists who argued it would gentrify the working-class neighbourhood, and was more like the modern highrises in downtown south than the historic buildings in Chinatown.
You’re Canadian or you’re not Canadian, if you want to identify primarily as some other race or culture and expect never ending apologies from every generation of Canadians you can f**k off back to where your forefathers came from."
Lost...but not Leased
"We have 3rd and 4th generation Chinese still whining, when the reality is if their ancestors had not come here, they would still be subsistence farming in a rise paddy under a Communist Gov’t.
Racist….is another way of saying the truth hurts."
history:
"No, Quality allowed Chinese to move to Vancouver to experience what its like to live among a higher civilization, clean, relatively pollution free, so that you could go back to China and begin the process of raising your civilization to our standard.
This isnt bullshit
.you may not like the Delivery, but
Your sino navel is a disgusting mess, you know that now, now gety’all back to Chine and fix n clean up your sh**hole."
Abdul Lahazi:
"You can’t compare Canada to China on any level. Canada is a civilized country with environmental controls and the rule of law and order with the citizenry acting in a (more or less) civilized manner. China, not at all. China actually causes air pollution in North America. Think about the level of pollution belching out from that country."
You’re Canadian or you’re not Canadian, if you want to identify primarily as some other race or culture and expect never ending apologies from every generation of Canadians you can f**k off back to where your forefathers came from."