Arbutus Housing Proposal Folds After Community Backlash
(Image courtesy of CBC)
A contested Kitsilano supportive housing proposal was quietly shut down in April, which was revealed publicly by Mayor Ken Sim on Tuesday. This was due to a court order quietly released in the month prior and came as a response to fierce local community opposition to the project, stemming from concerns about the location and operations of the proposed housing.
On April 30, the BC Supreme Court, on behalf of the City of Vancouver and the community organization Kitsilano Coalition for Children and Family Safety, enacted a consent order which was filed by the Coalition. The order legally rescinded the approved rezoning and eliminated the development permit and housing agreement as well.
An Upset Community
(Image courtesy of CBC)
In a statement provided to Coastal Front, the City of Vancouver relayed all the necessary information about the housing project and the reasons for its cancellation.
“The City of Vancouver, in partnership with BC Housing and the MPA Society, proposed a 13-storey social housing development at 2086 and 2098 West 7th Avenue and 2091 West 8th Avenue,” the statement read. The development would have provided almost 130 homes for the unhoused population, with support like meals and healthcare, as well as “life skills training” for half of the homes.
The housing complex was meant to be supportive, which is different from a social housing model. Supportive housing is meant to be a low-barrier process, with on-site support focusing on those who are at risk of homelessness or can’t live independently without care.
The project was approved in July 2022 by the City Council. The Kitsilano Coalition vehemently opposed this development, Coastal Front reached out to spokesperson Cheryl Grant for comment to learn more about the development.
“85 percent of the community opposed the development,” Grant explained, discussing how the community opposed the development since it was initially approved.
Grant outlined the main reasons the Kitsilano Coalition opposed the development: the building itself was oversized for the plot of land it was on, and didn't need to be more than 60 people, according to professionals Grant had consulted with, like Dr. Julian Somers. There were also concerns that the current proposal wouldn’t amount to successful treatment due to the conditions and environment of the supportive housing building.
Low-barrier access to housing and the proposed building’s open drug use policy also sparked concerns from the Kitsilano community, as the building would’ve been right by an elementary school and the Sancta Maria House, which is an abstinence-based women’s recovery centre. This prompted concerns of rampant drug use or unpredictable behavior being introduced around a concentration of vulnerable demographics.
Grant alternatively recommended that the project be rescaled into a 60-person, social, mixed housing unit, with different kinds of residents to avoid “siloing” people, as she says happens sometimes in pure supportive housing complexes. She also recommended that local stores be set up for those housed to participate in the local economy.
Changing Attitudes
The proposal eventually evolved into a lease partnership between the city and the Provincial Rental Housing Corporation (BC Housing) to develop the building, which still faced strong opposition from the Kitsilano Coalition.
A scandal erupted over a prior 2020 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the City and the province that was revealed through a Freedom of Information request (FOI) filed by the community, being unable to access it before, despite it being a vital document to the rezoning process.
“The MOU wasn’t made public, but officials still referred to it during the hearing,” Grant said. “It stated what the actual use of the land would be and the condition on the housing,” which had been agreed to by the City and BC Housing.
Coastal Front obtained confidential emails and documents from an FOI request filed by the Kitsilano Coalition. It is an internal memo from IdeaSpace, a public relations firm, which was addressed to James Forsyth, a director in BC Housing. The memo listed the usual goals for community engagement that you would expect, but one line stood out in particular: “Reduce risk of public outrage resulting in project delays/changes.”
BC Housing was accused of partnering with IdeaSpace to manipulate and exert control over the public feedback to the Arbutus housing proposal, as a result of the internal documents being obtained by the Kitsilano Coalition.
During this time, the BC government introduced Bill 26: the Municipal Enabling and Validating Act. This bill allowed for municipal projects to proceed despite ongoing legal challenges and proceedings. The bill was fiercely challenged, and in December of the prior year, the BC Court of Appeals ruled that it was unconstitutional, violating the constitutional principle of separation of powers for the legislative and judicial branches of government to function independently.
The quashing of this bill meant that the housing proposal could not proceed as planned, resulting in a significant victory for the Kitsilano Coalition and its goals of opposing the project.
The tide also turned in the municipal government. In their statement, the City of Vancouver accepts that the public hearings for the Arbutus housing project were procedurally flawed. “As a result, the City has agreed to enter into a consent order, quashing the rezoning and the resulting development permit,” the statement continued, “the City will work with the Province and BC Housing to consider next steps.”
With the consent order from the Supreme Court quashing the development of the Arbutus supportive housing project, it is unclear if the municipal or provincial governments will continue to pursue developments in the Kitsilano area. Coastal Front reached out to the office of Minister of Housing and Municipal Affairs Ravi Kahlon for comment, but received no reply.
