Tenants from the Myron Manor Collective and their supporters showed up in force to a July 16 city council hearing regarding a rezoning application that threatens to turn their homes into an Airbnb-style “tech hotel”. Over 300 tenants and supporters signed up to speak at the hearing.
“We know that this [city] council is not on our side and we know that even the ones who claim to be on our side are often voting for redevelopments and displaced tenants,” said Syd, an organizer with the Vancouver Tenants Union, “So regardless of [the vote], I want everyone to promise that we won’t get discouraged. We know that capital is fickle, and [that] sometimes something that seems financially viable one minute [isn’t] after we put up a struggle and a fight.”
Instead of keeping to the original schedule, city council pushed addressing the proposed rezoning to the end of the agenda. By the time this item was to be heard, there was only time left for one speaker. City council then moved to continue the item in a hearing a week later.
When the rezoning application was first made by Nicola Wealth and Lotus Capital Corp, the working class residents were initially informed by NestWell Tenant Relocation Services, the contractor managing their eviction, that the public hearing would take place in 18 to 24 months.
The City Planning Department Staff also confirmed that timeline. However, just last month, tenants found out that they had expedited the rezoning process and that their hearing would be held sooner than they were initially told.
“We have had to do 18 months of organizing in half the time,” exclaimed one of the tenants, Michael Cook. Cook expressed gratitude to the VTU for providing critical support by assisting with door-knocking, garnering allies and supporters, and organizing community efforts to fight back. Cook began a hunger-strike in protest of the proposed rezoning on July 16.
With a deepening affordability crisis, working-class Vancouverites are increasingly losing their homes to the profit-driven redevelopments backed by city council.
“The city has passed some extremely dangerous policies for affordable housing for the working class,” says Cook. “They have created loopholes over the past nine months that would allow developers to replace rental housing with hotels in dozens of neighbourhoods in this city.”
“To them, we are just a number. To them we are just a financial transaction.” says Simon Daniels, who has lived at Myron Manor for over 25 years.
Daniels says the building’s proximity to basic services and necessities has allowed working class families and seniors like him to live a dignified life. “We came [to City Hall] so that you can see the faces of the people who live in that building.”
Crystal, a tenant of 20 years, added, “If this application goes through, we have nowhere to return to. There is nothing in the tenant rental protections that guarantees us comparable affordable housing.”
Ally of Anakbayan BC, a grassroots Filipino youth organization, noted a cruel irony in the situation. She highlighted that the city has proposed the construction of a Filipino cultural center in Mount Pleasant while facilitating the displacement of Filipino workers, who make up a third of Myron Manor tenants, from that very same neighbourhood.
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