Opinion: The DTES plan isn’t renewal; it’s erasure |
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........