Month: January 2016

Master’s thesis on gentrification in Grandview Woodland

It has just come to our attention that a Paul Kasman wrote his Master’s thesis (Public Administration) in 2007 on gentrification of Grandview Woodland. The thesis is available for download here.

This is the abstract:

​The Grandview Woodland local area of Vancouver, British Columbia, is an area in transition. Retail, demographic, residential occupancy, and changes to built structures indicate that gentrification has escalated in the past seven years. Long standing impediments to gentrification, including industrial manufacturing, social housing, and crime, are not deterring change in this area to the extent they once did. This thesis examines how public policy has affected these changes in Grandview Woodland.

Public policies embodied in laws and regulations have the capacity to either encourage or dissuade gentrification; however, other variables also influence gentrification making it difficult to determine the importance and influence of public policy in the process. This thesis uses semi-structured interviews and a document review in a case study of Grandview Woodland, to gain a better understanding of how public policies can influence gentrification in a local area where gentrification was previously impeded.

The findings from this study suggest that public policies can have a substantial, but not autonomous, effect on gentrification in such an area. In Grandview Woodland, policy makers facilitate gentrification through city-wide and province-wide policies, including zoning changes, the Strata Title Act, and the Residential Tenancy Act. While these public policies have streamlined the advance of gentrification in Grandview Woodland, the iv catalysts for gentrification are the wider national trend of increased popularity of inner-city living, and the middle class moving eastwards in search of affordable homes in response to the massive property value increases in Vancouver’s West Side.

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Community Forums on the New St. Paul’s

In February and March, Providence Health Care, in partnership with Vancouver Coastal Health, will host a series of
community forums open to everyone to discuss the new St. Paul’s hospital, the health campus and health services in
your neighbourhood. We welcome you to attend one or more community forums to discuss the new St. Paul’s and health
services in your neighbourhood.

Your feedback will be used to inform decision making for our clinical plan for the new St. Paul’s. In these
progressive dialogues, we’ll consider your feedback from the first sessions in each neighbourhood and tailor the
following sessions to include previously discussed ideas, issues and concerns.

Please register for the community forums online at http://thenewstpaulsforum.eventbrite.ca or by calling 604.714.3779.

Defending the Hood’ – How some people have been making a difference!

Public meeting Grandview-Woodland Area Council – ALL ARE WELCOME
Monday, February 1st @ 7:00 pm
The Learning Resource Centre, Britannia Community Centre

Dispatches from struggles against displacement by aggressive developers, City plans and real estate speculators.
Discussion of strategy & tactics, effective East Van organizing & what works.

Speakers:

1. Arielle Yip – Joyce Area
Residents Association. Organizing to defend the working class character of an affordable neighbourhood in the face of
overwhelming, market-driven development plans

2. Jennie Wang – Friends of Garden Park
A group that spontaneously formed in response to City plans that would radically change Grandview Woodland

3. TBA – Broadway-Commercial Neighbours
residents who rallied together when they saw a clear threat to their neighbourhood

4. David Carman – Three Storeys Max
A group that wishes to see gentle densification, safety and the preservation of our neighbourhood.

Parker Street Refugee Sponsorship Initiative Requests Donations

The Parker Street Sponsorship Initiative (PSSI) is a group of Parker St. neighbours (and friends of neighbours) that have gathered together to address the current refugee crisis by sponsoring and supporting a family through the process of resettling in Vancouver. The group is fortunate to have motivated individuals with diverse experience and expertise to ensure that the initiative is a success. Although still in its early stages, the group has located housing in the neighbourhood at a reduced rent for two women.  (Even better: the housing is a furnished and previously unused basement suite, so no existing housing is being taken off the market.)

PSSI also has the support of MOSAIC BC, a multilingual non-profit organization located in Grandview-Woodland dedicated to addressing issues that affect immigrants and refugees in the course of their settlement and integration into Canadian society. PSSI will be relying on MOSAIC to access other resources available to assist with refugee sponsorship and to provide overall guidance and support when needed.  

Each sponsoring group must raise enough money to support the refugees it sponsors for a year.  PSSI is actively fundraising, has a donation website set up on Chimp.net, and has raised over $8,700 so far, primarily from its founding members.  However, this is still far short of what is required to support two people for a year, so PSSI is asking for additional donations of cash from the community.

GWAC supports integrating refugees into the community and encourages neighbourhood residents to help if they are able.  People can learn more about PSSI and donate at the following link, which will issue a tax-deductible charitable receipt.  Click here for the PSSI  link on Chimp.net, or go to https://chimp.net/groups/parker-st-sponsorship-initiative.  For those who want to contact the group directly, the email address is:  ParkerStreetSI@gmail.com.