By Former CRAB Park Residents and Ayx Community Bus Members

The City of Vancouver calls its new Downtown Eastside (DTES) Plan a “revitalization.”

But for people who live and organize here, it feels less like renewal and more like removal—displacement dressed up as progress.

Jason, a former CRAB Park resident, puts it plainly: “They’re trying to get rid of us in the most inefficient way possible.”

Under the city’s newly approved framework, long-standing protections for truly affordable housing have been weakened.

The previous 2014 Downtown Eastside Oppenheimer District Plan required 60 percent of new housing to be non-market. The new plan quietly erases those requirements, replacing them with far lower targets while opening the door to high-profit development.

The plan, described by the city as a significant change in strategy, lowers the required share of social housing in new projects in the Downtown Eastside Oppenheimer District from 60 percent to 20 percent when the city provides the land at no cost, with........

© Georgia Straight