‘Thank you for not giving up’: Council unanimously backs $2.16M Uplifting Chinatown Action Plan

Help is on the way for Vancouver’s Chinatown after city council approved a $2.16-million action plan to revitalize the neighbourhood.

The Draft Uplifting Chinatown Action Plan was presented to council Tuesday in response to an urgent motion in November directing staff to develop one, and received a unanimous vote of support.

Mayor Ken Sim, the city’s first Chinese-Canadian leader, thanked everyone in Chinatown following an emotional response to the presentation in City Hall.

“Thank you for not giving up on Chinatown. I want to be clear that Chinatown is in our hearts and minds,” said Sim, who was dressed in a red Tang suit in honour of the upcoming Lunar New Year.

“For us, this is personal. We will work fast and we will work hard on this neighbourhood. We won’t give up.”

NEW CITY OFFICE IN CHINATOWN

One of the standout recommendations included in the report is for a new, street-level satellite city office in Chinatown, which would be staffed with two new full-time positions.

Ben Pollard, the author of the report, says $110,000 of the budget proposed for 2023 is reserved for those staffers’ salaries—though the details of the job position have yet to be established.

“We don’t want to have only one person in there for staff safety,” Pollard explained when asked why monitoring the Chinatown pilot was a two-person job.

Staff have identified three potential locations for the new office, which is estimated to take six months to establish.

Pollard says the workers stationed there could assist with graffiti clean up or the Safe Walk program that the city plans to establish with Chinatown BIAs.

BOLSTERING CURRENT SUPPORTS

The proposed budget includes $500,000 for all 22 BIAs in Vancouver for “graffiti abatement strategies and placemaking,” with $50,000 reserved for Chinatown alone.In the cleaning and sanitation pillar, staff recommend the continuation of one-time funding in the wider Downtown Eastside, including Chinatown and other areas.

“While this is broader than Chinatown, this is important to the prospective work there while respecting that these communities are also facing cleaning and sanitation challenges,” Pollard told council. 

Keeping the washroom and comfort station located at the intersection of Main and Hastings streets open 24 hours a day is one recommendation that staff believe would address the problem of human waste on sidewalks and streets.

Staff are not recommending changes to graffiti bylaws in Chinatown because those rules apply city wide. Instead, the plan includes more financial supports for BIAs to clean up graffiti, and plans are in the works to have a designated area for graffiti artists to use.

BUSINESS OWNERS PUSHED TO THE BRINK

While Sim and city councillors commended staff for quickly putting together a plan, some community members expressed feeling forgotten during the public meeting.

Ryan Diaz, the owner of Diaz Combat Sports on East Pender Street, became emotional while listing examples of violence, crime and vandalism in the neighbourhood.

“It’s just so hard because we’ve been through so much over the last three years and it feels like no one’s helping us,” Diaz said. “Help us by helping those that need help—the homeless and those addicted to drugs and those that need mental health help. We need to help them while keeping our businesses safe and letting them thrive.”

He grew more distressed while describing memories of eating dim sum with his family at New Town Bakery every Sunday as a child, and playing hide and go seek in Sun Yat-sen Gardens.

“That’s the Chinatown I remember: This magical and wonderful place. It wasn’t too long that this was a potential UNESCO site,” Diaz said, referring to B.C.’s bid for a UNESCO World Heritage site designation for Vancouver’s Chinatown. “You look at it now, you’d never know that.”

He added that free parking will help revitalize the neighbourhood, a measure that staff plan to address in a separate report in the near future.

Now that funding has been approved as part of the overall city budget, staff will begin implementing the draft plan in the second quarter of 2023.

Coun. Sarah Kirby-Yung, who authored the motion calling for urgent action, noted the significance of the draft plan passing in the same week that the Lunar New Year Parade is returning from a three-year pandemic hiatus.

“The message council wants to send is ‘Help is coming.’ We know there is more we need to do. These are tangible measures to bring immediate relief,” said Kirby-Yung, adding the neighbourhood has been “on life-support.”