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Demolition begins at Little Mountain

Protesters gathered Friday morning to try to block demolition activity slated to knock down at least two buildings at the Little Mountain social housing site at Ontario and 33rd Avenue in East Vancouver.

Heavy equipment was moved onto the site before 7 a.m., according to Barry Growe, a neighbor of the site since 1982 and a spokesperson for Community Activists for Little Mountain (CALM).

“The first building has been knocked down already,” Growe told The Tyee in a phone interview, “and it looks like they are prepping the next one.”

Growe said there were 25 protesters at Little Mountain at 9:30 a.m, “and more coming.” He said some protesters were prepared to commit civil disobedience and court arrest by blocking entrances if any more equipment seemed poised to move on or off the property.

Dale McMann, Vancouver Coastal regional director for BC Housing, said he hoped there would be no blocking of access to the site.

“If, however, that does occur, we will take whatever steps we think appropriate so work can continue,” he said.

Most of the 700 low-income residents who formerly lived at Little Mountain moved out months ago.

Little Mountain was British Columbia's first social housing project, and has been the focus of passionate debate since BC Housing announced in 2008 a deal to demolish the existing buildings to make way for a much denser development of primarily market housing.

BC Housing has said the developer, the Holborn Group, will replace the social housing units destroyed when it builds out the thousands of market priced condominiums planned. Some observers have estimated that this new construction will be completed over the next two years. The profits from selling Little Mountain to Holborn, the provincial government has promised, will go into funding social housing in Vancouver and across the province.

A CALM press release said a community “visioning process” sponsored by the city had called for a maximum height of four stories for any new development at Little Mountain. Referring to public discussion by Mayor Gregor Robertson of high density development on the Little Mountain land, the activist group says that the city, province and developer have betrayed commitments for an extensive public consultation process to occur before development begins.

BC Housing’s McMann said that such protests are premature, as the developer hasn’t yet begun the public consultation process.

“We’ve tried to minimize disruption,” McMann said. “Our policy has always been ‘residents first.’”

Tom Sandborn reports for The Tyee.


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