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Vancouver’s new mega-development is big, ambitious and Indigenous

286 points by luu 3y ago

diebeforei485 3y ago
This is awesome. For what it's worth, it should also be allowed to build more housing even on non-Indigenous land.
shmageggy 3y ago
The cut-down title hides the whole point and contents of the article, which is a really interesting piece about indigenous sovereignty. Original title: "Vancouver’s new mega-development is big, ambitious and undeniably Indigenous"
- dang 3y ago
  Ok, we've put that up there now. Thanks!
lisper 3y ago
I think this is terrific. It's high time the indigenous people reclaimed their sovereignty. The idea that "When you’re building 30, 40-storey high rises out of concrete, there’s a big gap between that and an Indigenous way of building" is just ridiculous. Who the fuck are you, white man, to say what is and is not consistent with an "Indigenous way of building"? You aren't living the same lifestyle and building the same buildings that your ancestors were hundreds of years ago, why should they? I say: more power to the (Indigenous) people! (P.S.: I'm a white guy.)
- stavros 3y ago
  It was a woman, actually. Your point is valid, I just don't like how "white man" has become a slur.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - badcppdev 3y ago
    I think the quote is from a white man called Gordon Price. Full quote to assist you. "In 2022, Gordon Price, a prominent Vancouver urban planner and a former city councillor, told Gitxsan reporter Angela Sterritt, “When you’re building 30, 40-storey high rises out of concrete, there’s a big gap between that and an Indigenous way of building." "White man" can be used in that form when the white man appears to be telling a different culture what they can or cannot do or be.
    - chrisco255 3y ago
      Sure if you want to be racist. The shoe on the other foot, replace White man with Black man, Red man, etc and its clear that its racist.
      - ivan_gammel 3y ago
        “White man” is not racist, it is a self-describing short term for Eurocentric supremacy and a quote from Kipling. As such it is not replaceable by Black/Red etc. Everyone can use it in such context as a metaphor, not as a racial reference. Edit: previously my message included some poor choice of words, which I will keep here for history and an example of accidental bias: “White men are absolutely allowed to use it as a slur towards other white men.”
        gambiting 3y ago
        >>White men are absolutely allowed to use it as a slur towards other white men. What kind of nonsense is that, the mental gymnastics to not call it what it simply is - racism - is just unbelivable.
        ivan_gammel 3y ago
        Feel free to suggest another term for a person of European origin and Eurocentric education who is lecturing indigenous people on how to live. Modern discourse isn’t about physical characteristics at all, even it does have roots in old racial theory. It’s certain views, it’s identity and culture. If someone behaves like in Kipling’s poem, he is the white man, not because of his race, but because of his actions.
  - skywhopper 3y ago
    I wouldn’t call it a slur. To the extent it’s an effective insult, it’s due to centuries of behavior by white men. If someone uses “white man” to call out certain behavior, it might be worth their target considering why they got called out. Maybe sometimes it’s unfair to the white man to be called out, but often it isn’t. For folks who find it troublesome or disturbing to not receive the benefit of the doubt about their intentions as a white man, consider how much benefit of the doubt is given in everyday contexts to pretty much any individual who is not a white man.
    - stavros 3y ago
      Aren't you worried about the consequences of supporting generalizations over a group from the actions of their members? I learned at an early age that that's not OK, but it seems to be changing again, as long as the target is in a specific group.
    - soupbowl 3y ago
      I wouldn’t call it a slur. To the extent it’s an effective insult, it’s due to centuries of behavior by black men. If someone uses “black man” to call out certain behavior, it might be worth their target considering why they got called out. Maybe sometimes it’s unfair to the black man to be called out, but often it isn’t. For folks who find it troublesome or disturbing to not receive the benefit of the doubt about their intentions as a black man, consider how much benefit of the doubt is given in everyday contexts to pretty much any individual who is not a black man.
- zmgsabst 3y ago
  That’s people’s objection to “woke” views on ethnicity: You’ve returned to the world of racial essentialism, the most debunked form of racism, where you argue nonsense about what kinds of buildings people should make based on their ancestry. No matter how you dress it up in the language of civil rights, the racialized views promoted by the institutional left (eg, academia, media, and government) are built upon that racism — which we see articulated in your quote. But if you touch grass, you’d know people consistently build with the best technology available to them — and have throughout history.
  - mschuster91 3y ago
    > You’ve returned to the world of racial essentialism, the most debunked form of racism, where you argue nonsense about what kinds of buildings people should make based on their ancestry. No matter how you dress it up in the language of civil rights, the racialized views promoted by the institutional left (eg, academia, media, and government) are built upon that racism — which we see articulated in your quote. If anything, the person you're replying to rejected this kind of crap, they argue (like the article) that it should be the right of the Indigenous Nations to determine on their own what they want to build on their own land.
- EnigmaFlare 3y ago
  Find out what you're complaining about before getting race-baited into hating someone. The context of his statement might have made it perfectly reasonable. This article is obviously trying to paint everyone and their dog as a racist so don't trust it to be open about the context.
  - badcppdev 3y ago
    I think you need to provide some links with context because the article makes a compelling case that people are trying to block an indigenous group from exercising their agency.
    - trimethylpurine 3y ago
      Do we know that it's not a small few wealthy deal makers selling the land out from under people that wanted to preserve it? I'm not Canadian, so I have no clue. But that would be my immediate suspicion based on experience in real estate and movies I saw on TV.
      - badcppdev 3y ago
        I agree that's absolutely a possibility. Also not a Canadian. But I will point out that superficially there doesn't seem to be opposition to development on the land. The opposition appears to be based on what is being built rather than where.
        kareemm 3y ago
        I am Canadian and lived a literal stones throw from the site in question for 4 years. The real issue is that Vancouver is full of NIMBYs who want sightlines, low density, and “character” preserved. It’s basically encoded into the zoning laws for the municipality. Those groups will use whatever tactics at hand to prevent density at a scale they don’t approve of from being built.
    - EnigmaFlare 3y ago
      I couldn't find the context so, given the tone of the article, I think it's a safe assumption that the author isn't being charitable and is trying to mislead.
- sgt 3y ago
  You're being downvoted because of statements like "Who the fuck are you, white man" What if you said (in a different setting, where it would technically make sense): "Who the fuck are you, eskimo?" I bet you wouldn't, because you've been programmed by woke media.
- trimethylpurine 3y ago
  I think I missed the meaning of the quote. Skyscrapers are not an indigenous lifestyle. I suppose that's not okay to bring up in this context? If someone put skyscrapers on the last Hawaiian island I'd be pretty upset about it. The entire population of the Earth should be. Can't we leave one thing undeveloped? But okay, maybe there is plenty of land to go around in Canada that looks the same as this land, so I could see that... How does any of that relate to indigenous people using granted land to build them? Does Canada have some law about that? I guess I don't see why this quote has any bearing for or against the development. It feels entirely out of place in the article. Just seems like an unrelated fact.
  - timmytokyo 3y ago
    In a city completely inundated with skyscrapers, it's odd -- and maybe a bit telling -- that some people become concerned for the first time in their lives only once an indigenous nation decides to build a skyscraper.
    - trimethylpurine 3y ago
      I'm not sure you understand my question. I don't see from the quote that there is any concern. Where are you drawing that from?
    - kareemm 3y ago
      There’s been tons of opposition to building up in Vancouver, especially outside of downtown. Opposition isn’t unique to indigenous builders. What is unique is that nimbys have a new arsenal of tactics to use as to why this isn’t a good idea eg “concrete skyscrapers aren’t the indigenous way so you shouldn’t build your project.”
    - comeonbro 3y ago
      In a thread full of people with weird preconceptions talking past each-other, this is the most perfectly wrong statement anyone has made. The people you're talking about would strangle this entire country to death (and have) before allowing a single 3-story building to be built outside of the small areas that were already been zoned for it 80 years ago. The Canadian Indigenous identity issues tied up in this project are the only force that have ever been powerful enough to bludgeon them into submission, just this one time.
- verticalscaler 3y ago
  > Who the fuck are you, white man, to say what is and is not consistent with an "Indigenous way of building"? Who the fuck are you, white man, to say "It's high time the indigenous people reclaimed their sovereignty"? You're foisting your notions of sovereignty and time unto them, which is racist. P.S.: I'm indigenous ;)
  - refurb 3y ago
    How is sovereignty and time in any way subjective?
    - verticalscaler 3y ago
      According to CNN being on time and indeed, daylights savings time, are forms of white supremacy. Although prior to being informed of this all I saw when glancing at my wrist was Mickey Mouse. Did not occur to me the rat bastard was out to get me. I suppose whether I am being rescued by my white saviors espousing this new age philosophy or tormented and infantilized is a subjective matter. It is important for us to remember not to judge a man until you've walked three full moons in his moccasins. ;)
- coldtea 3y ago
  >Who the fuck are you, white man, to say what is and is not consistent with an "Indigenous way of building"? A person univolved with the colonization of Canada, not even from there or living there, that still believes that? >You aren't living the same lifestyle and building the same buildings that your ancestors were hundreds of years ago And that's bad in a lot of ways too. Not all modernization is for the better. It can turn a vibrant community into a gentrified Starbucks shitscape, for example.
  - astrange 3y ago
    Gentrification has nothing to do with Starbucks. Gentrification is caused by blocking infill development.
- FredPret 3y ago
  You’re so virtuous
- trallnag 3y ago
  Unhinged
- faeriechangling 3y ago
  Hating/liking this project is going to fall on age lines more than racial ones, the age demo of hacker news is likely to almost universally LOVE this project.
  - lisper 3y ago
    Not only am I a white guy, I'm an old white guy. (I'm 59.) Even worse, I'm rich too, so I am solidly in the demographic of the person I was quoting. But despite the fact that I am a rich old white guy, I don't consider rich old white guys to be my tribe. I look at the history of what rich old white guys have done (and in many cases are still doing) to racial minorities and it fills me with deep shame that I am one of them. So I genuinely love seeing racial minorities stand up for themselves. I particularly admire what the Maoris have accomplished in New Zealand. And I especially love it when it ends up annoying the rich old white guys that the racial minority is starting to do the exact same thing that the rich old white guys have been doing for centuries. Seeing the irony and lack of self awareness lets me tell myself that no, I am not one them, despite the fact that I look like them. BTW, the flip side of that is, "I am one of them despite the fact that I don't look like them." Which, it seems to me, is what we ought to be striving for.
lwansbrough 3y ago
Land back policy could be a very interesting win-win loophole for allocating new land for the purposes of redevelopment without consulting NIMBYs. A sort of accidentally leftist eminent domain. Of course, thats a bit insensitive and would be asking indigenous groups to fall on our sword for our political gain. In exchange for billions of dollars of land. And that would be bad? Unless..?
- kjkjadksj 3y ago
  In some cities in the west like Palm Springs the reservation already owns like half the city in a sort of checkerboard pattern. Despite the fact this is expensive palm springs you still see the same old “reservation” style development of a casino and couple story hotel rather than big huge towers of hotels and condos like in miami beach. Maybe there really is no market for something like that in palm springs, or, there are larger forced that put a thumb on what these reservations are allowed to do with the land under their domain.
VeejayRampay 3y ago
given the price of real estate in Vancouver and the fact that this is in Kitsilano (one of the hippest / priciest neighbourhoods in the city), I don't even want to know the kind of money involved
- ovi256 3y ago
  The average condo sold in Greater Vancouver was 827k CAD in Feb 24. So the 6000 units here should be worth at least 4.8B CAD
  - mynameisvlad 3y ago
    I wouldn’t use GVRD/Metro Vancouver as an estimate; things get quite a bit cheaper in the other cities.
    - dukeyukey 3y ago
      But isn't this development entirely within Metro Vancouver, and apparently in an expensive part of it too?
      - mynameisvlad 3y ago
        Sorry, I think I was unclear in that original comment once I read the replies and read it back. GVRD/Metro Vancouver encompasses Vancouver and surrounding cities, as far east as Langley and Port Moody. The prices decrease quite a bit as you get further away from Downtown Vancouver and the city in general. “Other cities” in my original comment meant these outlying ones, not ones outside of the GVRD. The prices in False Creek are going to be much higher than the GVRD average.
    - mjr00 3y ago
      This development is being built on the waterfront across False Creek from downtown; it is prime real estate. Given that + being brand new, units will sell far above the Vancouver average. As a guess, studio units in this complex will start at 750k, 1 beds at 1m and 2beds at 1.5m. Maybe higher.
Erikun 3y ago
It’s a pretty interesting development. I wonder what the legal framework for someone living there will be if they’re not a First Nation citizen? From the article: “ But Indigenous nations are accountable, first and foremost, to their own citizens. That could mean temporarily barring access to traditional lands, as in Joffre Lakes. It could also mean maximizing the economic potential of their property, to provide housing and funds to support education, health care and community growth. ”
- lwansbrough 3y ago
  In terms of land/home ownership, what it has meant in other parts of the metro area, is leaseholds. You can “buy” a property at a slightly reduced cost which will be reclaimed after several decades (100 years?), usually starting from the time of development. In terms of laws, policing is handled by the local police force, ie. VPD. While there is rhetoric about sovereignty, practically speaking much of the challenging problems are still handled by the Crown’s government and not by tribes.
  - Erikun 3y ago
    Sounds like it wouldn’t be any different from home ownership or renting in any other part of Vancouver then.
    - potmat 3y ago
      Really? Seems very different. There are some leaseholds on reservations near my cottage and "owning" one does not mean what you think it means. On a normal property as long as you pay your taxes it's yours in perpetuity, and the value tends to rise over time. With a leasehold it's never "yours" and can be taken away at a future date. The value approaches zero as the lease approaches its end date, since there's no guarantee it will be extended, so the property depreciates over time. This also has the effect of making any buildings on the property fairly dilapidated as the end-date nears, as the buildings can/will be confiscated with the lease (there's no incentive for the owner to maintain them).
  - vivekd 3y ago
raverbashing 3y ago
While NIMBYs of all different types (boomers, degrowters wining about "affordability", 'ecologists' and people talking about "character of the area" about some parking lot waste everybody's time) glad to see someone is actually doing stuff
slily 3y ago
It will be interesting to see if this project ends up being seen as a success or a failure as things evolve, hopefully it inspires zoning reforms if it works out. I expected the article to be race-baity because of the gross comments here but no, it's pretty fair overall and apparently HN isn't above bringing up anti-white rhetoric unprompted.
api 3y ago
Let me see if I got this. 1. Settlers colonize indigenous lands, drive indigenous people into small parcels and reservations and try to exterminate their culture. 2. Settlers decide to start refusing to build enough housing for themselves because they don’t want to alter the “character of the neighborhood” after… uhh… very much doing that. 3. Indigenous people build housing on their remaining bits of land for settlers, make tons of money off it. K, yeah, I think I got it. Maybe there’s a solution for California in here: decolonize! Who were the indigenous people who inhabited the Bay Area? If they’re still around, push a big decolonizing movement to return some land to them. Place looks like Tokyo in 20 years. “Okay, okay, we suck, you can have your ancestors land back. Just can you let me reserve a condo when they go on sale?” Then watch all the Bay Area lefty 60s homeowners suddenly become white nationalists. Their ideology is probably downstream of their home equity.
- onlypassingthru 3y ago
  The Bay Area indigenous land movement is finally starting to see some wins. Shellmound in Berkeley is a big win for the Ohlone tribe. [0] [0]https://www.berkeleyside.org/2024/03/12/berkeley-shellmound-spengers-lot-sogorea-te-settlement https://www.berkeleyside.org/2024/03/12/berkeley-shellmound-...
  - api 3y ago
    Shh. Make sure the tribe’s leadership knows to stay quiet for a while until they can pick up a few more parcels before unveiling their plans to exceed the height of the Burj Khalifa. I’m obviously half joking here. No intent to be insensitive. Even if they don’t build anything it’s better than a parking lot.
    - onlypassingthru 3y ago
      When they rip up the asphalt and find no significant bones or artifacts in the marsh underneath, any plans for a cultural interpretive center are going to turn into a mural and some bronze sculptures in the middle of newly designed Ohlone Towers.
freitzkriesler2 3y ago
The fact that the PNW is as expensive as the Bay area or even SoCal is a travesty. At least the first nation people figured out how to break the planning commission nonsense and took charge in their own communities. So long as they keep out the foreign hot funny money that made the regular cities too expensive they'll do just fine.
- faeriechangling 3y ago
  I wouldn’t be so optimistic about this not getting bankrolled by foreign investors, especially if you consider Canadians foreign investors, but they’ll do fine regardless.
- dukeyukey 3y ago
  To be fair the PNW still has pretty good weather, gorgeous nature, good infrastructure (natural and man-made) and a varied economy. It'd be weird if it _wasn't_ expensive.
  - r3d0c 3y ago
    artificially more expensive because of outdated and backwards zoning laws keeping housing expensive
    - dukeyukey 3y ago
      Also that, but bad zoning laws exist all over the place, and the PNW is still pretty expensive (on both sides of the border).
- ipaddr 3y ago
  Hong Kong changing hands created a huge wave of freign. This project captures some of it
  - r00fus 3y ago
    Foreign what? bodies? cash? That cash is busy going everywhere else too.
brabel 3y ago
Everyone is really happy to concede some power to another group as long as that group is seen as completely harmless, and they continue to do that out of guilty, knowing that they completely replaced the other group. It really gets interesting is when the other group starts to gain power and assert its power, as being done here. At some point, tables may turn and said group may become again the top dog. It probably won't happen in our lifetime, but these things do happen over centuries - to the point people actually forget who the powerful group was before. A simple example: the Tatars in Krimea (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_Tatars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_Tatars). Once, they invaded and took it over from its original inhabitants (descendants of Greeks and Sarmatians, a very different people). Over a long time, however, they become minority again, specially after they were mostly removed by the Soviets and today they are a minority group (the Eurovision winner in 2016, Jamala, for Ukraine, sang about the Tatars: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamala https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamala).
- faeriechangling 3y ago
  The indigenous population is gradually increasing over time, which is a curious thing in a country whose leader who has confessed to presiding over an active genocide against them. It would take many generations of this trend happening for the Indigenous to become big players, but also not THAT long, maybe a couple hundred years.
  - switchbak 3y ago
    I don't believe Justin Trudeau ever admitted to _presiding_ over an _active_ genocide. He was referring to the deaths of those in residential schools. Those were effectively shut down in the 80's - when Mr. Trudeau was still a child. I think it would be more accurate to say that he acknowledged that there were tremendous harms inflicted by both the government and the church both before and after confederation, and that those harms rise to the level of what he considers to be genocide. There still exist wrongs that are being done to First Nations today (by the Liberal government no less), but there's no way that Mr. Trudeau would categorize those as genocide, full stop. Also a reminder that as of yet, none of the mass grave sites of the last few years have been excavated, and ground-penetrating radar is insufficient to make a claim of a mass grave site. There is copious evidence of barbarous acts taking place at residential schools, however the media furor over these specific reports were premature, and we simply don't have solid data for these sites.
guardiangod 3y ago
The native nation, Squamish Nation, used to own the entire parcel of land immediately north of the 10 acres land mentioned in this article as a reservation granted by the former-colonial government (a native village stood in Vancouver downtown but the colonial gov forced them to move across the inlet). But thru multiple forced relocations and unceded land take over, the reservation was gradually taken over. >Slowly, from 1886 to 1902, Indigenous peoples were removed from their traditional village sites and homes and required to live on reserves. As the City grew around them, legislation was enacted that required all Indigenous peoples on reserve be removed if the population around them exceeded 1,000 settlers. In 1913, this happened at Sen̓áḵw. A barge arrived, and the residents were instructed to board the barge to receive funds from the Indian Agent. Once everyone from the village had boarded the barge, it was pulled from the beach and set adrift into English Bay. The village was then set on fire and burned to the ground. The owner of Cates Tugs, seeing the barge drifting precariously in the Bay, went to the rescue and towed the barge to Capilano Reserve, located in North Vancouver. https://bardonthebeach.org/history-of-senakw/ https://bardonthebeach.org/history-of-senakw/ It was only thru recent lawsuit and legislation that part of the reserve (an awkward T shape in the middle of wide stroads) was returned. The 10acre of land in this article- https://www.google.com/maps/place/Kitsilano+6,+Vancouver,+BC,+Canada/@49.2723714,-123.1429206,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m6!3m5!1s0x548673cb8fb30e4d:0x911f8c71a495ca09!8m2!3d49.2731715!4d-123.1426172!16s%2Fg%2F11c3q1fphl?entry=ttu https://www.google.com/maps/place/Kitsilano+6,+Vancouver,+BC... https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/little-known-history-of-squamish-nation-land-in-vancouver-1.5104584 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/little-known...
- notatoad 3y ago
  Thanks for the context, i did not realize that this was land that had been returned to the squamish nation. The previous reporting i'd seen on this developemnt made it sound like the parcel was the original treaty land.
- comeonbro 3y ago
  I don't know if it's fair to call a bridge a stroad
Yizahi 3y ago
Moderately dense development - good High rise developments enclosed in glass - bad Plants on the skyscraper terraces - sheer stupidity and bullshit, used only for pretty marketing 3D art If they made those high rises a 5-6 floor buildings instead, with no b/s trees on the balconies but instead planted them in the ground, that would be much more boring, cheaper and much more comfortable to live there.
- dangus 3y ago
  There are a lot of examples of successful, affordable, pleasant skyscraper developments across the world. The entirety of the Vancouver city core is an example itself. It seems rather prescriptive to declare tower living uncomfortable when so many people enjoy it. Just look at some rental listings in the South Loop neighborhood of Chicago. You can get a 2 bedroom apartment in a modern glass tower with amenities galore for well under $3,000 a month in the heart of America’s second largest downtown. Imagine living completely car-free in a neighborhood like that and commuting 10 minutes to get to your downtown job. (Walk, bike, and transit score >90) I personally think that’s way more comfortable (and physically safe) than a suburban lifestyle where you’re trapped in your car on a stroad or freeway for every daily need. As far as vegetated skyscrapers, there are widely acclaimed examples like the Bosco Verticale. It’s not a new concept and I’m not sure what the negative is supposed to be. Plants are bad?
  - mistrial9 3y ago
    > successful, affordable, pleasant skyscraper developments that depends entirely on the cultural and social expectations of humans who are supposed to live there
- mjr00 3y ago
  > Moderately dense development - good > High rise developments enclosed in glass - bad Can you explain why you think this?
- mthoms 3y ago
  What's wrong with plants on the terraces and balconies? How would their presence make it less comfortable to live there? And high rise developments "enclosed in glass"? As the article mentions, that's sort of what Vancouver is known for. Is it the material you object to or the building height? I genuinely don't understand your comment. Particularly as a Vancouverite (who can't afford a home).
dangus 3y ago
The critics of this project seem to be outright racist. I don’t think that’s an overstatement. They’re basically saying that Indigenous people aren’t allowed to participate in the modern world. You’re not allowed to be urbanist if you were “less advanced than the white people” three hundred years ago. And they’re butthurt about the development not having the need to comply with Vancouver development rules. Yeah, well, sorry not sorry you weren’t able to steal all the land. Nothing is stopping y’all from changing the rules in Vancouver and building something similar.
- faeriechangling 3y ago
  You might think so but nimby’s hatred of tall buildings is not at all limited to the ones the Squamish nation is building, as evidenced by the lack of buildings this tall. It’d be more racist for them to make an exception to their usual moaning about tall buildings just because it was the Squamish doing the building.
  - inkcapmushroom 3y ago
    >as evidenced by the lack of buildings this tall The third picture shows the development projected onto a wider picture of the city. You can see plenty of other skyscapers, some looking similar height or nearly as tall. Just not any on the side of the river the Squamish are planning on building. I do agree though that NIMBY's will generally whine regardless of the person doing the building. I wouldn't say "[all] the critics of the project are racist" because I don't know all the criticisms, but certainly some of the criticisms in the article had a pretty racist slant to them.
    - singingboyo 3y ago
      > You can see plenty of other skyscapers, some looking similar height or nearly as tall. Just not any on the side of the river the Squamish are planning on building. That's kind of the entire point of Vancouver NIMBYism, at least around Kits/Point Grey. The "backyard" for them is basically "anywhere except the downtown peninsula" (the other side of the inlet in the picture). They won't care too much if someone builds a 20-40 story building on the West End/peninsula. Do the same thing on the west side ([1], off the peninsula) and they'll throw an absolute fit. [1] The West End neighbourhood and the colloquial west side are a solid 10-20 minutes apart from each other, driving time. Geographically - West End is on the peninsula, and the west side is basically the various neighbourhoods across the inlet (False Creek) from it.
ygmelnikova 3y ago
[dead]
camg55 3y ago
Think this is great for Vancouver which needs more housing. The zoning is broken, and far too conservative. Glad to see the Squamish addressing a need that will likely benefit all, and hopefully this encourages the city of Vancouver to do the same on their own accord.
- spxneo 3y ago
  Building more homes in Vancouver will not result in lower prices because this is not a supply problem it is the financial assetization of home equity that drives higher and higher prices. Blue collar workers turned multi-millionaires rely on the continued rise of home prices to purchase cheap credit which they use to speculate on more homes. When they couldn't find anymore locals they turned to the international market to sell their bags. Now these 20k homes ppl are celebrating are NOT going to be sold under market prices no matter how much reddit and hn crowd wants it to be true. It will only stabilize the prices at current inflated levels. Be careful what you wish for. The only type of housing they are building is not white picket fenced backyard with a shed that is being converted to homes but high/low rise apartments primarily for rental, a hotbed for crime. Since David Eby overrode the strata no-rental rules, while not responsible it resulted in huge increase in cases of squatters, petty theft, drug labs and brothels. This does not include what a retired VPD officer describes as an "Amazon of drug labs and brothels" which is familiar to vancouver high rise but now its even easier for criminals. Vice reporters were even reporting on it years ago but now these cases are accelerating since Eby stepped in a populist spirit. I'm all for alleviating housing situation but we need to stop and ask if those people who are demanding/feel entitled to it really have the necessary income to justify it. Often I see people making 60k CAD/year lamenting how they can't find a home to live in. You can't afford anything in developed urban centres except in emerging economies. So I think rather than building more housing we need to ask who really has merit to be here and the biggest determining factor is income not how long you lived in Vancouver like certain demographic of locals are suggesting which is basically dogwhistling to say the market forces should not apply to them because of their skin colour. Simply blaming this on local housing policy failure like reddit does when housing prices has been appreciating all over the world, not just Vancouver, is myopic. There are cities that are far more dense than vancouver and has even more ridiculous real estate prices. They love Vancouver and the blue collar Canadian workers that bought their homes after 6 month of work in the 70s, 80s are not desperate to sell as they have nowhere else to go. Lot of people are being setup for major disappointments if they think vancouver home prices are coming back down to 2012 prices. There is simply no way to force homeowners to sell when they have no urgency or financial stress to do so. over 50% of homeowners in Vancouver do not have mortgages.
systemstops 3y ago
Someone at Westbank is a genius: fund the building of a massive skyscraper project on land that was recently returned to indigenous tribes because of a lawsuit, a project that would never be normally approved because of zoning laws. Then, declare any criticism of the project as racist, thus guaranteeing it will be built. I wonder how much of the money the tribe is actually getting out of this?
- fckgw 3y ago
  What does acceptable use of their own land look like to you? What would meet your specific approval?
  - systemstops 3y ago
    It's acceptable to me - none of my business. But it's corporate money building this project, which we should be clear about. It's just built on native land.
    - Seattle3503 3y ago
      I'm not sure why that matters? If others would offer the tribe a better offer, I'm sure they would accept it.
      - systemstops 3y ago
        I guess the point I was trying to make is that the public is being manipulated by the moral framing of this project. The buildings would not be normally allowed in that area, and the proponents of project are using an explicit racial justice narrative to counteract criticism of their violation of norms. I'm agnostic about whether or not the project is good idea, but I think it's generally bad to manipulate people in this way. What I was implying is that the whole thing seems like a really clever scheme by a real estate developer during a time in Canada when indigenous issues are hugely popular. But, maybe I am being too cynical.
        3y ago
reso 3y ago
I say this all as a YIMBY who is very happy to see 20k new units added to vancouver: something feels off about the plans for the Jericho lands but I can't describe it. I feel like when you have these mega developments where 10 condos go up all at once in the space of a few blocks, they end up as "bedroom neighborhoods", where people sleep but don't do anything else. There are a lot of these happening in Canada right now. There's one on Victoria in Waterloo. Concord place in Toronto is another example. I don't see street life there. I only see people going to or coming from somewhere else. The best neighborhoods are the ones where there is a broad-strokes master plan, but beneath that, some amount of decentralization in implementation. Then you get a diversity of ideas about how to live all in one place. Maybe there are words for this I don't know.
- wnc3141 3y ago
  If it is discontinuous with the broader urban fabric this is definitely a risk. Look up Ørestad in Copenhagen - a massive master planned area that never gained any of the hoped for vitality you would see elsewhere in the city. A decent video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OMxzXsufq8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OMxzXsufq8
  - hdlothia 3y ago
    I think the tough part is it's hard to master plan these thing sometimes. Is it better to limit restrictions and let people put coffee shops and bars where they want?
    - wnc3141 3y ago
      I absolutely think your'e right - given permissive small business landscape
  - jjjjj55555 3y ago
    It seems like it had othe problems apart from being discontinuous from the city. There are lots of areas like this in the US which are contiguous with the city, that still end up as dead zones. Did anyone really believe this was a good idea? I feel like the developers' need to turn a profit and the government's need to impose itself don't leave any good ideas on the table. Instead they focus on packaging up the same bad ideas just with different marketing. When it inevitably doesn't work as promised, they just say oops, and move onto the next project.
jmyeet 3y ago
Vancouver has sky high real estate prices, particularly in terms of local wages. There is limited land as Vancouver is locked between the ocean and mountains (and the border to the United States). But go look at any aerial view of Vancouver and you'll really see why. Downtown is high-density. Across the water it's basically all single-family homes with astronomical prices and none of those people want higher-density development, for obvious reasons (ie it will lower prices). This shouldn't be allowed to happen. This proposed development is on the other side of the water in what is otherwise SFH zoning. That's why some oppose it. NIMBYs strike again.
KWxIUElW8Xt0tD9 3y ago
There is a certain irony in these buildings not using indigenous construction techniques.
- krapp 3y ago
  No there isn't, any more than there's irony in white people not building thatch-roofed huts. Every culture evolves over time.
  - brink 3y ago
    Not people's perceptions of said cultures. Africa is over 62% Christian as it stands today, and yet the Wakandans of hollywood practice ancestor worship (representing ~2% of Africa). There's irony wherever you look. We can't seem to move past the past when it comes to minorities.
    - giraffe_lady 3y ago
      A lot of christians, maybe most globally, also practice veneration of the dead. Sometimes syncretically, but also from an external anthropological viewpoint the communion of saints is indistinguishable from ancestor worship. The christian theological understanding of it is very different, which is probably why we don't use this term for it. But's it's there.
    - mitthrowaway2 3y ago
      I mean, (the fictional nation of) Wakanda is depicted as a very isolationist country, and it's reasonable to expect that Christianity wouldn't have taken root if foreign missionaries were expelled throughout its history. Tokugawa-era Japan may be the closest comparison, where its isolationist policies resulted in fairly high retention of indigenous religions even through to modern times. Today less than 2% of Japan's population is Christian, whereas nearly 30% of South Koreans are Christian.
- bitwize 3y ago
  Indigenous ways aren't incompatible with modern technology. Matter of fact, when settlers came from Europe with muskets, the indigenous people whom they encountered immediately wanted them, and soon developed particular tastes (flintlocks were good; matchlocks produced too much smoke before firing which would give away your position on a hunt or ambush).
ximus 3y ago
It's comforting to see first nations of canada recovering a central role in modern canadian society. However, having lived here for a year a year now, I have observed a concerning aspect of this re-integration, which is mentioned in the article: First nations aren't just propped back up and re-integrated in society, it goes further in that they are given special rights that go beyond what any other class of canadian citizens have access to. In this case it is exemption from zoning laws, but all over the country it's access to mining, lumber and fishing rights. They are exempted from federal quotas on fishing, cutting forests, etc ... On moral grounds, I find it questionable to give some citizens special birth rights greater than others. But on more practical grounds, this is creating a great big loophole for the traditional resource extraction companies to circumvent environment regulation by partnering with first nations on projects.
- stonogo 3y ago
  > On moral grounds, I find it questionable to give some citizens special birth rights greater than others. Kind of the point here is that it was happening the other way for a couple hundred years, so just abrogating current inequality still leaves one party as a disadvantage. The hard part is deciding when these catch-up priveleges have run their course. Since first nations metrics along the lines of economic status are still below the national average, it's clear we're not there just yet.
  - nickff 3y ago
    Complicating this calculation is the way that the 'catch-up rights' are provided via tribal mechanisms, which incentivizes 'chiefs' and 'council members'/'elders' to prolong the inequality so that they can maintain their power & control.
  - e_i_pi_2 3y ago
    This reminds me of the Malcolm X quote > If you stick a knife in my back nine inches and pull it out six inches, there's no progress. If you pull it all the way out that's not progress. Progress is healing the wound that the blow made. And they haven't even pulled the knife out much less heal the wound. They won't even admit the knife is there.
renewiltord 3y ago
This is good. First Nations people showing us how it's done. Good for them.
Tiktaalik 3y ago
The housing itself is badly needed and I'm looking forward to that, but beyond that, as an appreciator of NW Coast Indigenous art, I'm looking forward to the public realm art. This is a fantastic opportunity for the Squamish and other MST nations to showcase art from their best and from young emerging artists in their community.
bitwize 3y ago
Good. Do it. Let's see what they build. I lived in Connecticut when the Mashantucket Pequot tribe successfully sued for the right to build casinos on their land, resulting in Foxwoods, the first of many casino developments on Native land from coast to coast. It was all over the news. Today, Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun are tourist attractions, and the casinos create jobs in Native communities and bring in buttloads of money. Personally, I hate casinos. I'm not too fond of high rises either. But if Native American and First Nations people are doing things with their land that bring autonomy and benefits to their community, we'd be stupid to object -- and that's before bringing up the treaty violations.
Joel_Mckay 3y ago
Good to see a competition for who can sell out to foreign investors first. 57% of Vancouver are renters, and 98.3% of property is mortgaged... a disaster waiting to happen.... lol =)
Tade0 3y ago
6000 apartments on 10 acres translates to a population density of 150k/km assuming there's just one person living in each. With three people per apartment you could pack the city of Lyon into little more than a square kilometre.
anigbrowl 3y ago
Off topic remark on the story drafting... Sen̓áḵw How is anyone supposed to pronounce this if they're not from Vancouver and haven't been exposed to indigenous culture there? You'd think they'd include an English approximation or a link to an audio recording. I don't think the average person has the time or energy to resolve 3 stacked diacriticals and a consonant juxtaposition.
- brailsafe 3y ago
  > How is anyone supposed to pronounce this if they're not from Vancouver and haven't been exposed to indigenous culture there? Same way they do anywhere that isn't English first if it's relevant to them, learn. I'm not so familiar with the language yet, but here's what seems to be a start https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/signs-along-sea-sky-highway-highlight-s%E1%B8%B5wx-w%C3%BA7mesh-history-1.6075470 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/signs-along-...
  - anigbrowl 3y ago
    If only people would read to the end before reacting. I have no plans to ever visit Vancouver or indeed Canada; I'm interested in how the word is pronounced for the purpose of reading the article. It's not worth it to me to spend half an hour figuring out the pronunciation of a single word. I'm already multilingual and familiar with a range of diacritical marks; it might take other people much longer to put it together. That's why it would make sense for the writers of an English-language article to provide some sort of pronunciation pointer.
    - brailsafe 3y ago
      > it might take other people much longer to put it together. Well then they can be upset about it. > I have no plans to ever visit Vancouver or indeed Canada That's a shame, it's a beautiful place, but clearly the article is irrelevant to you. > It's not worth it to me to spend half an hour figuring out the pronunciation of a single word. Well then you don't have to, and the world continues spinning madly on. Took me about 2 mins though, didn't seem like something to be so stressed about. If you already aren't authentically curious or interested in visiting, then that's your business.
sandspar 3y ago
There's no amenities in that neighborhood besides a quiet 4 lane street with some burger places on it. The beach is close by but there's just not that much room to build stuff for all these people to do. It'll be a boring place to live. Vancouver's walkable but the nearest main area is a twenty minute walk up the hill in one way, or a twenty minute walk across a noisy bridge the other way. If you know Vancouver you know that a twenty minute walk to get anywhere is significant. Unrelated, but a mildly interesting tidbit is that this development will be across the street from Lululemon's headquarters.

286 points by luu 3y ago

This is awesome. For what it's worth, it should also be allowed to build more housing even on non-Indigenous land.

The cut-down title hides the whole point and contents of the article, which is a really interesting piece about indigenous sovereignty. Original title: "Vancouver’s new mega-development is big, ambitious and undeniably Indigenous"

dang 3y ago
Ok, we've put that up there now. Thanks!

lisper 3y ago

I think this is terrific. It's high time the indigenous people reclaimed their sovereignty. The idea that "When you’re building 30, 40-storey high rises out of concrete, there’s a big gap between that and an Indigenous way of building" is just ridiculous. Who the fuck are you, white man, to say what is and is not consistent with an "Indigenous way of building"? You aren't living the same lifestyle and building the same buildings that your ancestors were hundreds of years ago, why should they? I say: more power to the (Indigenous) people! (P.S.: I'm a white guy.)

stavros 3y ago
It was a woman, actually. Your point is valid, I just don't like how "white man" has become a slur.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- badcppdev 3y ago
  I think the quote is from a white man called Gordon Price. Full quote to assist you. "In 2022, Gordon Price, a prominent Vancouver urban planner and a former city councillor, told Gitxsan reporter Angela Sterritt, “When you’re building 30, 40-storey high rises out of concrete, there’s a big gap between that and an Indigenous way of building." "White man" can be used in that form when the white man appears to be telling a different culture what they can or cannot do or be.
  - chrisco255 3y ago
    Sure if you want to be racist. The shoe on the other foot, replace White man with Black man, Red man, etc and its clear that its racist.
    - ivan_gammel 3y ago
      “White man” is not racist, it is a self-describing short term for Eurocentric supremacy and a quote from Kipling. As such it is not replaceable by Black/Red etc. Everyone can use it in such context as a metaphor, not as a racial reference. Edit: previously my message included some poor choice of words, which I will keep here for history and an example of accidental bias: “White men are absolutely allowed to use it as a slur towards other white men.”
      - gambiting 3y ago
        >>White men are absolutely allowed to use it as a slur towards other white men. What kind of nonsense is that, the mental gymnastics to not call it what it simply is - racism - is just unbelivable.
        ivan_gammel 3y ago
        Feel free to suggest another term for a person of European origin and Eurocentric education who is lecturing indigenous people on how to live. Modern discourse isn’t about physical characteristics at all, even it does have roots in old racial theory. It’s certain views, it’s identity and culture. If someone behaves like in Kipling’s poem, he is the white man, not because of his race, but because of his actions.
- skywhopper 3y ago
  I wouldn’t call it a slur. To the extent it’s an effective insult, it’s due to centuries of behavior by white men. If someone uses “white man” to call out certain behavior, it might be worth their target considering why they got called out. Maybe sometimes it’s unfair to the white man to be called out, but often it isn’t. For folks who find it troublesome or disturbing to not receive the benefit of the doubt about their intentions as a white man, consider how much benefit of the doubt is given in everyday contexts to pretty much any individual who is not a white man.
  - stavros 3y ago
    Aren't you worried about the consequences of supporting generalizations over a group from the actions of their members? I learned at an early age that that's not OK, but it seems to be changing again, as long as the target is in a specific group.
  - soupbowl 3y ago
    I wouldn’t call it a slur. To the extent it’s an effective insult, it’s due to centuries of behavior by black men. If someone uses “black man” to call out certain behavior, it might be worth their target considering why they got called out. Maybe sometimes it’s unfair to the black man to be called out, but often it isn’t. For folks who find it troublesome or disturbing to not receive the benefit of the doubt about their intentions as a black man, consider how much benefit of the doubt is given in everyday contexts to pretty much any individual who is not a black man.
zmgsabst 3y ago
That’s people’s objection to “woke” views on ethnicity: You’ve returned to the world of racial essentialism, the most debunked form of racism, where you argue nonsense about what kinds of buildings people should make based on their ancestry. No matter how you dress it up in the language of civil rights, the racialized views promoted by the institutional left (eg, academia, media, and government) are built upon that racism — which we see articulated in your quote. But if you touch grass, you’d know people consistently build with the best technology available to them — and have throughout history.
- mschuster91 3y ago
  > You’ve returned to the world of racial essentialism, the most debunked form of racism, where you argue nonsense about what kinds of buildings people should make based on their ancestry. No matter how you dress it up in the language of civil rights, the racialized views promoted by the institutional left (eg, academia, media, and government) are built upon that racism — which we see articulated in your quote. If anything, the person you're replying to rejected this kind of crap, they argue (like the article) that it should be the right of the Indigenous Nations to determine on their own what they want to build on their own land.
EnigmaFlare 3y ago
Find out what you're complaining about before getting race-baited into hating someone. The context of his statement might have made it perfectly reasonable. This article is obviously trying to paint everyone and their dog as a racist so don't trust it to be open about the context.
- badcppdev 3y ago
  I think you need to provide some links with context because the article makes a compelling case that people are trying to block an indigenous group from exercising their agency.
  - trimethylpurine 3y ago
    Do we know that it's not a small few wealthy deal makers selling the land out from under people that wanted to preserve it? I'm not Canadian, so I have no clue. But that would be my immediate suspicion based on experience in real estate and movies I saw on TV.
    - badcppdev 3y ago
      I agree that's absolutely a possibility. Also not a Canadian. But I will point out that superficially there doesn't seem to be opposition to development on the land. The opposition appears to be based on what is being built rather than where.
      - kareemm 3y ago
        I am Canadian and lived a literal stones throw from the site in question for 4 years. The real issue is that Vancouver is full of NIMBYs who want sightlines, low density, and “character” preserved. It’s basically encoded into the zoning laws for the municipality. Those groups will use whatever tactics at hand to prevent density at a scale they don’t approve of from being built.
  - EnigmaFlare 3y ago
    I couldn't find the context so, given the tone of the article, I think it's a safe assumption that the author isn't being charitable and is trying to mislead.
sgt 3y ago
You're being downvoted because of statements like "Who the fuck are you, white man" What if you said (in a different setting, where it would technically make sense): "Who the fuck are you, eskimo?" I bet you wouldn't, because you've been programmed by woke media.
trimethylpurine 3y ago
I think I missed the meaning of the quote. Skyscrapers are not an indigenous lifestyle. I suppose that's not okay to bring up in this context? If someone put skyscrapers on the last Hawaiian island I'd be pretty upset about it. The entire population of the Earth should be. Can't we leave one thing undeveloped? But okay, maybe there is plenty of land to go around in Canada that looks the same as this land, so I could see that... How does any of that relate to indigenous people using granted land to build them? Does Canada have some law about that? I guess I don't see why this quote has any bearing for or against the development. It feels entirely out of place in the article. Just seems like an unrelated fact.
- timmytokyo 3y ago
  In a city completely inundated with skyscrapers, it's odd -- and maybe a bit telling -- that some people become concerned for the first time in their lives only once an indigenous nation decides to build a skyscraper.
  - trimethylpurine 3y ago
    I'm not sure you understand my question. I don't see from the quote that there is any concern. Where are you drawing that from?
  - kareemm 3y ago
    There’s been tons of opposition to building up in Vancouver, especially outside of downtown. Opposition isn’t unique to indigenous builders. What is unique is that nimbys have a new arsenal of tactics to use as to why this isn’t a good idea eg “concrete skyscrapers aren’t the indigenous way so you shouldn’t build your project.”
  - comeonbro 3y ago
    In a thread full of people with weird preconceptions talking past each-other, this is the most perfectly wrong statement anyone has made. The people you're talking about would strangle this entire country to death (and have) before allowing a single 3-story building to be built outside of the small areas that were already been zoned for it 80 years ago. The Canadian Indigenous identity issues tied up in this project are the only force that have ever been powerful enough to bludgeon them into submission, just this one time.
verticalscaler 3y ago
> Who the fuck are you, white man, to say what is and is not consistent with an "Indigenous way of building"? Who the fuck are you, white man, to say "It's high time the indigenous people reclaimed their sovereignty"? You're foisting your notions of sovereignty and time unto them, which is racist. P.S.: I'm indigenous ;)
- refurb 3y ago
  How is sovereignty and time in any way subjective?
  - verticalscaler 3y ago
    According to CNN being on time and indeed, daylights savings time, are forms of white supremacy. Although prior to being informed of this all I saw when glancing at my wrist was Mickey Mouse. Did not occur to me the rat bastard was out to get me. I suppose whether I am being rescued by my white saviors espousing this new age philosophy or tormented and infantilized is a subjective matter. It is important for us to remember not to judge a man until you've walked three full moons in his moccasins. ;)
coldtea 3y ago
>Who the fuck are you, white man, to say what is and is not consistent with an "Indigenous way of building"? A person univolved with the colonization of Canada, not even from there or living there, that still believes that? >You aren't living the same lifestyle and building the same buildings that your ancestors were hundreds of years ago And that's bad in a lot of ways too. Not all modernization is for the better. It can turn a vibrant community into a gentrified Starbucks shitscape, for example.
- astrange 3y ago
  Gentrification has nothing to do with Starbucks. Gentrification is caused by blocking infill development.
FredPret 3y ago
You’re so virtuous
trallnag 3y ago
Unhinged
faeriechangling 3y ago
Hating/liking this project is going to fall on age lines more than racial ones, the age demo of hacker news is likely to almost universally LOVE this project.
- lisper 3y ago
  Not only am I a white guy, I'm an old white guy. (I'm 59.) Even worse, I'm rich too, so I am solidly in the demographic of the person I was quoting. But despite the fact that I am a rich old white guy, I don't consider rich old white guys to be my tribe. I look at the history of what rich old white guys have done (and in many cases are still doing) to racial minorities and it fills me with deep shame that I am one of them. So I genuinely love seeing racial minorities stand up for themselves. I particularly admire what the Maoris have accomplished in New Zealand. And I especially love it when it ends up annoying the rich old white guys that the racial minority is starting to do the exact same thing that the rich old white guys have been doing for centuries. Seeing the irony and lack of self awareness lets me tell myself that no, I am not one them, despite the fact that I look like them. BTW, the flip side of that is, "I am one of them despite the fact that I don't look like them." Which, it seems to me, is what we ought to be striving for.

lwansbrough 3y ago

Land back policy could be a very interesting win-win loophole for allocating new land for the purposes of redevelopment without consulting NIMBYs. A sort of accidentally leftist eminent domain. Of course, thats a bit insensitive and would be asking indigenous groups to fall on our sword for our political gain. In exchange for billions of dollars of land. And that would be bad? Unless..?

kjkjadksj 3y ago
In some cities in the west like Palm Springs the reservation already owns like half the city in a sort of checkerboard pattern. Despite the fact this is expensive palm springs you still see the same old “reservation” style development of a casino and couple story hotel rather than big huge towers of hotels and condos like in miami beach. Maybe there really is no market for something like that in palm springs, or, there are larger forced that put a thumb on what these reservations are allowed to do with the land under their domain.

VeejayRampay 3y ago

given the price of real estate in Vancouver and the fact that this is in Kitsilano (one of the hippest / priciest neighbourhoods in the city), I don't even want to know the kind of money involved

ovi256 3y ago
The average condo sold in Greater Vancouver was 827k CAD in Feb 24. So the 6000 units here should be worth at least 4.8B CAD
- mynameisvlad 3y ago
  I wouldn’t use GVRD/Metro Vancouver as an estimate; things get quite a bit cheaper in the other cities.
  - dukeyukey 3y ago
    But isn't this development entirely within Metro Vancouver, and apparently in an expensive part of it too?
    - mynameisvlad 3y ago
      Sorry, I think I was unclear in that original comment once I read the replies and read it back. GVRD/Metro Vancouver encompasses Vancouver and surrounding cities, as far east as Langley and Port Moody. The prices decrease quite a bit as you get further away from Downtown Vancouver and the city in general. “Other cities” in my original comment meant these outlying ones, not ones outside of the GVRD. The prices in False Creek are going to be much higher than the GVRD average.
  - mjr00 3y ago
    This development is being built on the waterfront across False Creek from downtown; it is prime real estate. Given that + being brand new, units will sell far above the Vancouver average. As a guess, studio units in this complex will start at 750k, 1 beds at 1m and 2beds at 1.5m. Maybe higher.

Erikun 3y ago

It’s a pretty interesting development. I wonder what the legal framework for someone living there will be if they’re not a First Nation citizen? From the article: “ But Indigenous nations are accountable, first and foremost, to their own citizens. That could mean temporarily barring access to traditional lands, as in Joffre Lakes. It could also mean maximizing the economic potential of their property, to provide housing and funds to support education, health care and community growth. ”

lwansbrough 3y ago
In terms of land/home ownership, what it has meant in other parts of the metro area, is leaseholds. You can “buy” a property at a slightly reduced cost which will be reclaimed after several decades (100 years?), usually starting from the time of development. In terms of laws, policing is handled by the local police force, ie. VPD. While there is rhetoric about sovereignty, practically speaking much of the challenging problems are still handled by the Crown’s government and not by tribes.
- Erikun 3y ago
  Sounds like it wouldn’t be any different from home ownership or renting in any other part of Vancouver then.
  - potmat 3y ago
    Really? Seems very different. There are some leaseholds on reservations near my cottage and "owning" one does not mean what you think it means. On a normal property as long as you pay your taxes it's yours in perpetuity, and the value tends to rise over time. With a leasehold it's never "yours" and can be taken away at a future date. The value approaches zero as the lease approaches its end date, since there's no guarantee it will be extended, so the property depreciates over time. This also has the effect of making any buildings on the property fairly dilapidated as the end-date nears, as the buildings can/will be confiscated with the lease (there's no incentive for the owner to maintain them).
- vivekd 3y ago

raverbashing 3y ago

While NIMBYs of all different types (boomers, degrowters wining about "affordability", 'ecologists' and people talking about "character of the area" about some parking lot waste everybody's time) glad to see someone is actually doing stuff

slily 3y ago

It will be interesting to see if this project ends up being seen as a success or a failure as things evolve, hopefully it inspires zoning reforms if it works out. I expected the article to be race-baity because of the gross comments here but no, it's pretty fair overall and apparently HN isn't above bringing up anti-white rhetoric unprompted.

api 3y ago

Let me see if I got this. 1. Settlers colonize indigenous lands, drive indigenous people into small parcels and reservations and try to exterminate their culture. 2. Settlers decide to start refusing to build enough housing for themselves because they don’t want to alter the “character of the neighborhood” after… uhh… very much doing that. 3. Indigenous people build housing on their remaining bits of land for settlers, make tons of money off it. K, yeah, I think I got it. Maybe there’s a solution for California in here: decolonize! Who were the indigenous people who inhabited the Bay Area? If they’re still around, push a big decolonizing movement to return some land to them. Place looks like Tokyo in 20 years. “Okay, okay, we suck, you can have your ancestors land back. Just can you let me reserve a condo when they go on sale?” Then watch all the Bay Area lefty 60s homeowners suddenly become white nationalists. Their ideology is probably downstream of their home equity.

onlypassingthru 3y ago
The Bay Area indigenous land movement is finally starting to see some wins. Shellmound in Berkeley is a big win for the Ohlone tribe. [0] [0]https://www.berkeleyside.org/2024/03/12/berkeley-shellmound-spengers-lot-sogorea-te-settlement https://www.berkeleyside.org/2024/03/12/berkeley-shellmound-...
- api 3y ago
  Shh. Make sure the tribe’s leadership knows to stay quiet for a while until they can pick up a few more parcels before unveiling their plans to exceed the height of the Burj Khalifa. I’m obviously half joking here. No intent to be insensitive. Even if they don’t build anything it’s better than a parking lot.
  - onlypassingthru 3y ago
    When they rip up the asphalt and find no significant bones or artifacts in the marsh underneath, any plans for a cultural interpretive center are going to turn into a mural and some bronze sculptures in the middle of newly designed Ohlone Towers.

freitzkriesler2 3y ago

The fact that the PNW is as expensive as the Bay area or even SoCal is a travesty. At least the first nation people figured out how to break the planning commission nonsense and took charge in their own communities. So long as they keep out the foreign hot funny money that made the regular cities too expensive they'll do just fine.

faeriechangling 3y ago
I wouldn’t be so optimistic about this not getting bankrolled by foreign investors, especially if you consider Canadians foreign investors, but they’ll do fine regardless.
dukeyukey 3y ago
To be fair the PNW still has pretty good weather, gorgeous nature, good infrastructure (natural and man-made) and a varied economy. It'd be weird if it _wasn't_ expensive.
- r3d0c 3y ago
  artificially more expensive because of outdated and backwards zoning laws keeping housing expensive
  - dukeyukey 3y ago
    Also that, but bad zoning laws exist all over the place, and the PNW is still pretty expensive (on both sides of the border).
ipaddr 3y ago
Hong Kong changing hands created a huge wave of freign. This project captures some of it
- r00fus 3y ago
  Foreign what? bodies? cash? That cash is busy going everywhere else too.

brabel 3y ago

Everyone is really happy to concede some power to another group as long as that group is seen as completely harmless, and they continue to do that out of guilty, knowing that they completely replaced the other group. It really gets interesting is when the other group starts to gain power and assert its power, as being done here. At some point, tables may turn and said group may become again the top dog. It probably won't happen in our lifetime, but these things do happen over centuries - to the point people actually forget who the powerful group was before. A simple example: the Tatars in Krimea (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_Tatars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_Tatars). Once, they invaded and took it over from its original inhabitants (descendants of Greeks and Sarmatians, a very different people). Over a long time, however, they become minority again, specially after they were mostly removed by the Soviets and today they are a minority group (the Eurovision winner in 2016, Jamala, for Ukraine, sang about the Tatars: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamala https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamala).

faeriechangling 3y ago
The indigenous population is gradually increasing over time, which is a curious thing in a country whose leader who has confessed to presiding over an active genocide against them. It would take many generations of this trend happening for the Indigenous to become big players, but also not THAT long, maybe a couple hundred years.
- switchbak 3y ago
  I don't believe Justin Trudeau ever admitted to _presiding_ over an _active_ genocide. He was referring to the deaths of those in residential schools. Those were effectively shut down in the 80's - when Mr. Trudeau was still a child. I think it would be more accurate to say that he acknowledged that there were tremendous harms inflicted by both the government and the church both before and after confederation, and that those harms rise to the level of what he considers to be genocide. There still exist wrongs that are being done to First Nations today (by the Liberal government no less), but there's no way that Mr. Trudeau would categorize those as genocide, full stop. Also a reminder that as of yet, none of the mass grave sites of the last few years have been excavated, and ground-penetrating radar is insufficient to make a claim of a mass grave site. There is copious evidence of barbarous acts taking place at residential schools, however the media furor over these specific reports were premature, and we simply don't have solid data for these sites.

guardiangod 3y ago

The native nation, Squamish Nation, used to own the entire parcel of land immediately north of the 10 acres land mentioned in this article as a reservation granted by the former-colonial government (a native village stood in Vancouver downtown but the colonial gov forced them to move across the inlet). But thru multiple forced relocations and unceded land take over, the reservation was gradually taken over. >Slowly, from 1886 to 1902, Indigenous peoples were removed from their traditional village sites and homes and required to live on reserves. As the City grew around them, legislation was enacted that required all Indigenous peoples on reserve be removed if the population around them exceeded 1,000 settlers. In 1913, this happened at Sen̓áḵw. A barge arrived, and the residents were instructed to board the barge to receive funds from the Indian Agent. Once everyone from the village had boarded the barge, it was pulled from the beach and set adrift into English Bay. The village was then set on fire and burned to the ground. The owner of Cates Tugs, seeing the barge drifting precariously in the Bay, went to the rescue and towed the barge to Capilano Reserve, located in North Vancouver. https://bardonthebeach.org/history-of-senakw/ https://bardonthebeach.org/history-of-senakw/ It was only thru recent lawsuit and legislation that part of the reserve (an awkward T shape in the middle of wide stroads) was returned. The 10acre of land in this article- https://www.google.com/maps/place/Kitsilano+6,+Vancouver,+BC,+Canada/@49.2723714,-123.1429206,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m6!3m5!1s0x548673cb8fb30e4d:0x911f8c71a495ca09!8m2!3d49.2731715!4d-123.1426172!16s%2Fg%2F11c3q1fphl?entry=ttu https://www.google.com/maps/place/Kitsilano+6,+Vancouver,+BC... https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/little-known-history-of-squamish-nation-land-in-vancouver-1.5104584 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/little-known...

notatoad 3y ago
Thanks for the context, i did not realize that this was land that had been returned to the squamish nation. The previous reporting i'd seen on this developemnt made it sound like the parcel was the original treaty land.
comeonbro 3y ago
I don't know if it's fair to call a bridge a stroad

Yizahi 3y ago

Moderately dense development - good High rise developments enclosed in glass - bad Plants on the skyscraper terraces - sheer stupidity and bullshit, used only for pretty marketing 3D art If they made those high rises a 5-6 floor buildings instead, with no b/s trees on the balconies but instead planted them in the ground, that would be much more boring, cheaper and much more comfortable to live there.

dangus 3y ago
There are a lot of examples of successful, affordable, pleasant skyscraper developments across the world. The entirety of the Vancouver city core is an example itself. It seems rather prescriptive to declare tower living uncomfortable when so many people enjoy it. Just look at some rental listings in the South Loop neighborhood of Chicago. You can get a 2 bedroom apartment in a modern glass tower with amenities galore for well under $3,000 a month in the heart of America’s second largest downtown. Imagine living completely car-free in a neighborhood like that and commuting 10 minutes to get to your downtown job. (Walk, bike, and transit score >90) I personally think that’s way more comfortable (and physically safe) than a suburban lifestyle where you’re trapped in your car on a stroad or freeway for every daily need. As far as vegetated skyscrapers, there are widely acclaimed examples like the Bosco Verticale. It’s not a new concept and I’m not sure what the negative is supposed to be. Plants are bad?
- mistrial9 3y ago
  > successful, affordable, pleasant skyscraper developments that depends entirely on the cultural and social expectations of humans who are supposed to live there
mjr00 3y ago
> Moderately dense development - good > High rise developments enclosed in glass - bad Can you explain why you think this?
mthoms 3y ago
What's wrong with plants on the terraces and balconies? How would their presence make it less comfortable to live there? And high rise developments "enclosed in glass"? As the article mentions, that's sort of what Vancouver is known for. Is it the material you object to or the building height? I genuinely don't understand your comment. Particularly as a Vancouverite (who can't afford a home).

dangus 3y ago

The critics of this project seem to be outright racist. I don’t think that’s an overstatement. They’re basically saying that Indigenous people aren’t allowed to participate in the modern world. You’re not allowed to be urbanist if you were “less advanced than the white people” three hundred years ago. And they’re butthurt about the development not having the need to comply with Vancouver development rules. Yeah, well, sorry not sorry you weren’t able to steal all the land. Nothing is stopping y’all from changing the rules in Vancouver and building something similar.

faeriechangling 3y ago
You might think so but nimby’s hatred of tall buildings is not at all limited to the ones the Squamish nation is building, as evidenced by the lack of buildings this tall. It’d be more racist for them to make an exception to their usual moaning about tall buildings just because it was the Squamish doing the building.
- inkcapmushroom 3y ago
  >as evidenced by the lack of buildings this tall The third picture shows the development projected onto a wider picture of the city. You can see plenty of other skyscapers, some looking similar height or nearly as tall. Just not any on the side of the river the Squamish are planning on building. I do agree though that NIMBY's will generally whine regardless of the person doing the building. I wouldn't say "[all] the critics of the project are racist" because I don't know all the criticisms, but certainly some of the criticisms in the article had a pretty racist slant to them.
  - singingboyo 3y ago
    > You can see plenty of other skyscapers, some looking similar height or nearly as tall. Just not any on the side of the river the Squamish are planning on building. That's kind of the entire point of Vancouver NIMBYism, at least around Kits/Point Grey. The "backyard" for them is basically "anywhere except the downtown peninsula" (the other side of the inlet in the picture). They won't care too much if someone builds a 20-40 story building on the West End/peninsula. Do the same thing on the west side ([1], off the peninsula) and they'll throw an absolute fit. [1] The West End neighbourhood and the colloquial west side are a solid 10-20 minutes apart from each other, driving time. Geographically - West End is on the peninsula, and the west side is basically the various neighbourhoods across the inlet (False Creek) from it.

ygmelnikova 3y ago

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camg55 3y ago

Think this is great for Vancouver which needs more housing. The zoning is broken, and far too conservative. Glad to see the Squamish addressing a need that will likely benefit all, and hopefully this encourages the city of Vancouver to do the same on their own accord.

spxneo 3y ago
Building more homes in Vancouver will not result in lower prices because this is not a supply problem it is the financial assetization of home equity that drives higher and higher prices. Blue collar workers turned multi-millionaires rely on the continued rise of home prices to purchase cheap credit which they use to speculate on more homes. When they couldn't find anymore locals they turned to the international market to sell their bags. Now these 20k homes ppl are celebrating are NOT going to be sold under market prices no matter how much reddit and hn crowd wants it to be true. It will only stabilize the prices at current inflated levels. Be careful what you wish for. The only type of housing they are building is not white picket fenced backyard with a shed that is being converted to homes but high/low rise apartments primarily for rental, a hotbed for crime. Since David Eby overrode the strata no-rental rules, while not responsible it resulted in huge increase in cases of squatters, petty theft, drug labs and brothels. This does not include what a retired VPD officer describes as an "Amazon of drug labs and brothels" which is familiar to vancouver high rise but now its even easier for criminals. Vice reporters were even reporting on it years ago but now these cases are accelerating since Eby stepped in a populist spirit. I'm all for alleviating housing situation but we need to stop and ask if those people who are demanding/feel entitled to it really have the necessary income to justify it. Often I see people making 60k CAD/year lamenting how they can't find a home to live in. You can't afford anything in developed urban centres except in emerging economies. So I think rather than building more housing we need to ask who really has merit to be here and the biggest determining factor is income not how long you lived in Vancouver like certain demographic of locals are suggesting which is basically dogwhistling to say the market forces should not apply to them because of their skin colour. Simply blaming this on local housing policy failure like reddit does when housing prices has been appreciating all over the world, not just Vancouver, is myopic. There are cities that are far more dense than vancouver and has even more ridiculous real estate prices. They love Vancouver and the blue collar Canadian workers that bought their homes after 6 month of work in the 70s, 80s are not desperate to sell as they have nowhere else to go. Lot of people are being setup for major disappointments if they think vancouver home prices are coming back down to 2012 prices. There is simply no way to force homeowners to sell when they have no urgency or financial stress to do so. over 50% of homeowners in Vancouver do not have mortgages.

systemstops 3y ago

Someone at Westbank is a genius: fund the building of a massive skyscraper project on land that was recently returned to indigenous tribes because of a lawsuit, a project that would never be normally approved because of zoning laws. Then, declare any criticism of the project as racist, thus guaranteeing it will be built. I wonder how much of the money the tribe is actually getting out of this?

fckgw 3y ago
What does acceptable use of their own land look like to you? What would meet your specific approval?
- systemstops 3y ago
  It's acceptable to me - none of my business. But it's corporate money building this project, which we should be clear about. It's just built on native land.
  - Seattle3503 3y ago
    I'm not sure why that matters? If others would offer the tribe a better offer, I'm sure they would accept it.
    - systemstops 3y ago
      I guess the point I was trying to make is that the public is being manipulated by the moral framing of this project. The buildings would not be normally allowed in that area, and the proponents of project are using an explicit racial justice narrative to counteract criticism of their violation of norms. I'm agnostic about whether or not the project is good idea, but I think it's generally bad to manipulate people in this way. What I was implying is that the whole thing seems like a really clever scheme by a real estate developer during a time in Canada when indigenous issues are hugely popular. But, maybe I am being too cynical.
      - 3y ago

reso 3y ago

I say this all as a YIMBY who is very happy to see 20k new units added to vancouver: something feels off about the plans for the Jericho lands but I can't describe it. I feel like when you have these mega developments where 10 condos go up all at once in the space of a few blocks, they end up as "bedroom neighborhoods", where people sleep but don't do anything else. There are a lot of these happening in Canada right now. There's one on Victoria in Waterloo. Concord place in Toronto is another example. I don't see street life there. I only see people going to or coming from somewhere else. The best neighborhoods are the ones where there is a broad-strokes master plan, but beneath that, some amount of decentralization in implementation. Then you get a diversity of ideas about how to live all in one place. Maybe there are words for this I don't know.

wnc3141 3y ago
If it is discontinuous with the broader urban fabric this is definitely a risk. Look up Ørestad in Copenhagen - a massive master planned area that never gained any of the hoped for vitality you would see elsewhere in the city. A decent video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OMxzXsufq8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OMxzXsufq8
- hdlothia 3y ago
  I think the tough part is it's hard to master plan these thing sometimes. Is it better to limit restrictions and let people put coffee shops and bars where they want?
  - wnc3141 3y ago
    I absolutely think your'e right - given permissive small business landscape
- jjjjj55555 3y ago
  It seems like it had othe problems apart from being discontinuous from the city. There are lots of areas like this in the US which are contiguous with the city, that still end up as dead zones. Did anyone really believe this was a good idea? I feel like the developers' need to turn a profit and the government's need to impose itself don't leave any good ideas on the table. Instead they focus on packaging up the same bad ideas just with different marketing. When it inevitably doesn't work as promised, they just say oops, and move onto the next project.

jmyeet 3y ago

Vancouver has sky high real estate prices, particularly in terms of local wages. There is limited land as Vancouver is locked between the ocean and mountains (and the border to the United States). But go look at any aerial view of Vancouver and you'll really see why. Downtown is high-density. Across the water it's basically all single-family homes with astronomical prices and none of those people want higher-density development, for obvious reasons (ie it will lower prices). This shouldn't be allowed to happen. This proposed development is on the other side of the water in what is otherwise SFH zoning. That's why some oppose it. NIMBYs strike again.

KWxIUElW8Xt0tD9 3y ago

There is a certain irony in these buildings not using indigenous construction techniques.

krapp 3y ago
No there isn't, any more than there's irony in white people not building thatch-roofed huts. Every culture evolves over time.
- brink 3y ago
  Not people's perceptions of said cultures. Africa is over 62% Christian as it stands today, and yet the Wakandans of hollywood practice ancestor worship (representing ~2% of Africa). There's irony wherever you look. We can't seem to move past the past when it comes to minorities.
  - giraffe_lady 3y ago
    A lot of christians, maybe most globally, also practice veneration of the dead. Sometimes syncretically, but also from an external anthropological viewpoint the communion of saints is indistinguishable from ancestor worship. The christian theological understanding of it is very different, which is probably why we don't use this term for it. But's it's there.
  - mitthrowaway2 3y ago
    I mean, (the fictional nation of) Wakanda is depicted as a very isolationist country, and it's reasonable to expect that Christianity wouldn't have taken root if foreign missionaries were expelled throughout its history. Tokugawa-era Japan may be the closest comparison, where its isolationist policies resulted in fairly high retention of indigenous religions even through to modern times. Today less than 2% of Japan's population is Christian, whereas nearly 30% of South Koreans are Christian.
bitwize 3y ago
Indigenous ways aren't incompatible with modern technology. Matter of fact, when settlers came from Europe with muskets, the indigenous people whom they encountered immediately wanted them, and soon developed particular tastes (flintlocks were good; matchlocks produced too much smoke before firing which would give away your position on a hunt or ambush).

ximus 3y ago

It's comforting to see first nations of canada recovering a central role in modern canadian society. However, having lived here for a year a year now, I have observed a concerning aspect of this re-integration, which is mentioned in the article: First nations aren't just propped back up and re-integrated in society, it goes further in that they are given special rights that go beyond what any other class of canadian citizens have access to. In this case it is exemption from zoning laws, but all over the country it's access to mining, lumber and fishing rights. They are exempted from federal quotas on fishing, cutting forests, etc ... On moral grounds, I find it questionable to give some citizens special birth rights greater than others. But on more practical grounds, this is creating a great big loophole for the traditional resource extraction companies to circumvent environment regulation by partnering with first nations on projects.

stonogo 3y ago
> On moral grounds, I find it questionable to give some citizens special birth rights greater than others. Kind of the point here is that it was happening the other way for a couple hundred years, so just abrogating current inequality still leaves one party as a disadvantage. The hard part is deciding when these catch-up priveleges have run their course. Since first nations metrics along the lines of economic status are still below the national average, it's clear we're not there just yet.
- nickff 3y ago
  Complicating this calculation is the way that the 'catch-up rights' are provided via tribal mechanisms, which incentivizes 'chiefs' and 'council members'/'elders' to prolong the inequality so that they can maintain their power & control.
- e_i_pi_2 3y ago
  This reminds me of the Malcolm X quote > If you stick a knife in my back nine inches and pull it out six inches, there's no progress. If you pull it all the way out that's not progress. Progress is healing the wound that the blow made. And they haven't even pulled the knife out much less heal the wound. They won't even admit the knife is there.

renewiltord 3y ago

This is good. First Nations people showing us how it's done. Good for them.

Tiktaalik 3y ago

The housing itself is badly needed and I'm looking forward to that, but beyond that, as an appreciator of NW Coast Indigenous art, I'm looking forward to the public realm art. This is a fantastic opportunity for the Squamish and other MST nations to showcase art from their best and from young emerging artists in their community.

bitwize 3y ago

Good. Do it. Let's see what they build. I lived in Connecticut when the Mashantucket Pequot tribe successfully sued for the right to build casinos on their land, resulting in Foxwoods, the first of many casino developments on Native land from coast to coast. It was all over the news. Today, Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun are tourist attractions, and the casinos create jobs in Native communities and bring in buttloads of money. Personally, I hate casinos. I'm not too fond of high rises either. But if Native American and First Nations people are doing things with their land that bring autonomy and benefits to their community, we'd be stupid to object -- and that's before bringing up the treaty violations.

Joel_Mckay 3y ago

Good to see a competition for who can sell out to foreign investors first. 57% of Vancouver are renters, and 98.3% of property is mortgaged... a disaster waiting to happen.... lol =)

Tade0 3y ago

6000 apartments on 10 acres translates to a population density of 150k/km assuming there's just one person living in each. With three people per apartment you could pack the city of Lyon into little more than a square kilometre.

anigbrowl 3y ago

Off topic remark on the story drafting... Sen̓áḵw How is anyone supposed to pronounce this if they're not from Vancouver and haven't been exposed to indigenous culture there? You'd think they'd include an English approximation or a link to an audio recording. I don't think the average person has the time or energy to resolve 3 stacked diacriticals and a consonant juxtaposition.

brailsafe 3y ago
> How is anyone supposed to pronounce this if they're not from Vancouver and haven't been exposed to indigenous culture there? Same way they do anywhere that isn't English first if it's relevant to them, learn. I'm not so familiar with the language yet, but here's what seems to be a start https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/signs-along-sea-sky-highway-highlight-s%E1%B8%B5wx-w%C3%BA7mesh-history-1.6075470 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/signs-along-...
- anigbrowl 3y ago
  If only people would read to the end before reacting. I have no plans to ever visit Vancouver or indeed Canada; I'm interested in how the word is pronounced for the purpose of reading the article. It's not worth it to me to spend half an hour figuring out the pronunciation of a single word. I'm already multilingual and familiar with a range of diacritical marks; it might take other people much longer to put it together. That's why it would make sense for the writers of an English-language article to provide some sort of pronunciation pointer.
  - brailsafe 3y ago
    > it might take other people much longer to put it together. Well then they can be upset about it. > I have no plans to ever visit Vancouver or indeed Canada That's a shame, it's a beautiful place, but clearly the article is irrelevant to you. > It's not worth it to me to spend half an hour figuring out the pronunciation of a single word. Well then you don't have to, and the world continues spinning madly on. Took me about 2 mins though, didn't seem like something to be so stressed about. If you already aren't authentically curious or interested in visiting, then that's your business.

sandspar 3y ago

There's no amenities in that neighborhood besides a quiet 4 lane street with some burger places on it. The beach is close by but there's just not that much room to build stuff for all these people to do. It'll be a boring place to live. Vancouver's walkable but the nearest main area is a twenty minute walk up the hill in one way, or a twenty minute walk across a noisy bridge the other way. If you know Vancouver you know that a twenty minute walk to get anywhere is significant. Unrelated, but a mildly interesting tidbit is that this development will be across the street from Lululemon's headquarters.