Latest news with #PeterMeiszner
Global News
2 days ago
- Business
- Global News
Vancouver to offer up land in bid to move SROs from Granville Entertainment District
Vancouver city council has unanimously approved an amendment to the city's 20-year Granville Street Plan aimed at shaking up SRO housing in the area. The amendment directs staff to work with BC Housing and the province to offer up city-owned sites to replace existing single room occupancy (SRO) and supportive housing units in the non-residential Entertainment Core area with 'modern, dignified, self-contained housing, with robust wraparound services.' Tabled by ABC Coun. Peter Meiszner, the amendment relates to publicly-owned buildings between Smithe and Davie Streets in the Granville Entertainment District (GED). 4:00 Vancouver bar owners ask for help to deal with SRO damages 'The city will come to the table with some free land,' Meiszner told Global News in an interview Wednesday. 'We're looking for provincial and federal government funding to transition these units off of Granville Street.' Story continues below advertisement The initial report to council on the Granville Street Plan proposed restricting new residential uses in the three-block Entertainment Core where current SROs 'will be replaced over time and SRO and tenant relocation would be secured off-site.' Get daily National news Get the day's top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day. Sign up for daily National newsletter Sign Up By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy According to the City of Vancouver, there are eight Single Room Accommodation (SRA) buildings containing roughly 600 rooms on the Granville Strip. Many are privately owned, while others are social and supportive housing projects owned by the city and the provincial government. Those living in the old Howard Johnson at 1976 Granville Street, which was purchased by the province in June 2020 and transitioned to temporary supportive housing during the COVID-19 pandemic, said they've endured chaos inside. 'It's horrible,' said Luugat resident Debora Taylor. 'My next door neighbour, who is in the mental hospital now, she set a fire in my room and after that, two floods.' 'This building's got to be knocked down because there's so much flooding,' said Stephen Keith Walsh. Walsh, who said he is on two wait lists for housing, is currently sleeping outside Aura Nightclub, which is on the ground level of the former Howard Johnson building. Aura has experienced constant flooding from the units above it, and even Walsh, whose ex-partner lives in the Luugat supportive housing, questions the decision to move people from encampments into the former hotel. Story continues below advertisement 'Why would they, BC Housing, pick up all these people off the street and put them in a brand new building when these people haven't even (gone) through any kind of screening or anything,' Walsh told Global News in an interview. 'They just throw them into a place — half of these people, you see the rooms, they're destroyed.' 2:33 SRO resident rescued from Vancouver nightclub air duct As to when the Howard Johnson rooms will be decommissioned, B.C.'s housing minister said the challenge is always where to move people. 'From the BC Housing perspective, we go to wherever there's an opportunity,' said Ravi Kahlon. 'If the council decides that there (are) better locations and they are able to approve them for us, we certainly will consider those options, but at this point we have to go with what we have.' Tyler, who lives in the Dominion Hotel SRO in Gastown and declined to provide his last name, said buildings to house vulnerable people have to go somewhere. Story continues below advertisement 'It can't all be downtown East End, or in that one on East 2nd Avenue, it's got to be all over the place, people got to have somewhere safe to go,' Tyler said. After dealing with more than 200 floods in the last five years from the former Howard Johnson rooms above his club, Aura owner Alan Goodall has a suggestion for the design of any new supportive housing builds. 'They need to have rooms that are basically tiled with a drain in the middle of it because as sure as you're born, the sprinkler heads are going to go off,' Goodall told Global News. 'They need rooms that are almost bomb-proof.'
CTV News
2 days ago
- Politics
- CTV News
Motion to bring back Vancouver renter office defeated in tie vote
Vancouver City Hall is seen in Vancouver, on Saturday, Jan. 9, 2021. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck A Vancouver city councillor's push to restore the city's tenant advocacy office — and crack down on bad-faith landlords — was voted down by council Wednesday afternoon. Coun. Lucy Maloney, who was elected in April's byelection on a platform focused on housing rights, brought forward the motion, arguing the city must do more to support renters — particularly those displaced by redevelopment tied to the Broadway Plan. 'Renters don't feel like the city has their backs,' said Maloney. 'They don't feel like they're being listened to.' The tenant advocacy office was a city-run service that provided support and resources to renters. It was shut down in 2023 by the ABC-majority council. Coun. Peter Meiszner defended the decision to close the office, citing low usage. 'They were receiving less than one call a day,' he said. 'So what we decided to do at the time, was to transition the funding for that city renters office to a non-profit that can handle those inquiries more effectively.' Funding was redirected to the Tenant Resource and Advisory Centre, and Meiszner also pointed to the provincial Residential Tenancy Branch as the appropriate channel for dealing with landlord-tenant disputes. Maloney argued the city should provide additional protections beyond the province's scope, particularly in areas impacted by the Broadway Plan, where many renters are expected to be displaced through the city's Temporary Relocation and Protection Policy. 'We're going to have increasing volumes of people being moved out of their homes as the Broadway Plan progresses,' said Maloney. 'We need to make sure that we're focused, that we've got the resourcing and staff needed.' Meiszner responded that existing city staff are already working to support renters through these transitions. 'So we're building thousands of new rental units in the Broadway corridor, and there are some tenant relocations that need to happen,' he said. 'But we have staff already within the city working on that.' In addition to reinstating the advocacy office, Maloney's motion also called for exploring stronger penalties for landlords and developers who act in bad faith. Ultimately, the motion was narrowly defeated in a tie vote, with the four present ABC councillors voting against the motion. After the vote, Maloney said she will continue to fight for Vancouver renters, vowing to one day bring the tenant advocacy office back to city hall. A separate motion by Coun. Sean Orr — declaring housing as a human right — was passed unanimously.
