[caption id="attachment_9641" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="Walking the streets of Marpole. Photo courtesy of Ren Thomas."][/caption] [Editor's Note: We are happy to present the first of a three InDepth Features covering a trio of special Jane's Walk neighbourhood tours around Marpole, Grandview-Woodland, and the West End. These were organized as a unique partnership between the City of Vancouver, Museum of Vancouver and Spacing Vancouver, in light of the ongoing Community Plan process currently happening in each important district. This will be followed by podcasts of the tour, if you missed the Walks, and a final dialogue event on June 19th. Stay tuned for more information.] This year, the City of Vancouver will be starting community plans for three neighbourhoods: Marpole, the West End and Grandview-Woodlands. In addition to the usual open houses and community meetings, the City has been using its new Public Engagement Division (within its Communications Department) in innovative outreach. On May 6th the City, Museum of Vancouver, and Spacing Vancouver partnered with local residents and designers to hold walking tours of the three neighbourhoods as part of Jane’s Walk. The Marpole walk was hosted by landscape architect and urban designer Margot Long, and local resident Jo-Anne Pringle. Lil Ronalds, the City planner working on the Marpole plan, and City Councillors Heather Deal and George Affleck also attended. [caption id="attachment_9643" align="alignright" width="360" caption="Some of the residential streets within Marpole have significant tree canopies. Photo courtesy of Ren Thomas."][/caption] One of the oldest neighbourhoods in Vancouver, Marpole is economically and socially diverse. Primarily a residential neighbourhood, it is bounded by 59th Avenue, Ontario Street, the Fraser River and Granville Street. This massive area is intersected by several major arterials—including Oak Street, 70th Avenue, and Marine Drive—which contribute commercial and industrial land uses, but have also led to physical and social barriers within the neighbourhood. The legacy of streetcar routes and a branch rail line from Steveston to Vancouver are also evident in the existing land use and street patterns: the Metro Theatre being the last reminder of a thriving commercial hub generated by the interurban rail line.

  [caption id="attachment_5188" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="The Joe Wai Special. Image courtesy courtesy of Jen Eby and Reg Dick."][/caption] Since it's first appearance in 1965, the Vancouver Special has become a ubiquitous fixture of Vancouver's urban landscape. With their flat fronts, boxy shapes, and low pitched roofs, these homes are unique to Vancouver. Vancouver Specials were initially targeted for immigrant families looking for an affordable, modern home to enjoy the North American quality of life and designed to optimize the use of a 33 foot wide city lot. The original plans could be purchased at City Hall for $65. Given their stock nature and frequency of use, permits were issued quickly. It was not unusual for a Special to be built in a few weeks time. By 1985, there were an estimated 10,000 Vancouver Specials throughout the city. Amid the seas of Vancouver Specials, there are a sub-section of extra-special' Specials nestled inn Vancouver's Strathcona neighbourhood. The story of these houses dates back to the late 1960s and a dark episode in Vancouver's urban history. At this time, the City had expropriated large swathes of Strathcona in the name of urban renewal. The city had planned on building two public housing projects and using the rest of the land for a freeway. The housing projects and freeway were ultimately scrapped, but not before several blocks of old homes had been razed. In the early 1970's, the Strathcona Property Owners and Tenant Association - a major player in the fight against the City's urban renewal scheme - created the Strathcona Area Housing Society to begin filling in the gaps created by the earlier demolition of housing. One of the team members who were pulled together to design and build affordable housing for the neighbourhood was Joe Wai, then a young architect working for Thompson Berwick, Pratt and Partners. Together the team built 51 units. Mr. Wai based the plans for some of the detached houses on the Vancouver Special, but had to adapt the stock plans to fit the narrow, 25 foot Strathcona lots and unique needs of the community.

With the Vancouver Mayoral Election heating up, one of the city's major campaign issues has become affordable housing. Vision Vancouver is indeed declaring it this election's central issue.  With Vancouver having the nation's highest real estate prices housing affordability has taken centre stage.  "Affordable housing" is a phrase we will hear uttered regularly for what remains of the election, and I recommend asking your political party how they define it, and therefore a measure of success in achieving it.  Specifically interesting is Vision Vancouver's inclusion of market rental housing under its umbrella of 'affordable housing'.  With no form of rent control in place, landlords are free to charge a price as high as renters will pay.  With no limits I set out to answer what is the potential for affordability?

[caption id="attachment_4158" align="alignnone" width="600" caption="A selected image from the Spacing Vancouver Flickr pool. Part of a photo by Philip Tong."][/caption] When I found out that CBC was opening their audience for Wednesday night's mayoral debate between Robertson and Anton, I immediately slotted it into the week's schedule after Sunday's "Last Candidate Standing" and Monday's "Connecting People and Places" without much thought. After being herded into the studio and sitting through the mic checks, however, it was clear that any new information was going to be thoroughly squeezed through the television tube. If you want the definition of manufactured story, check out CBC's own coverage entitled "Occupy Vancouver dominates CBC mayor's debate." No mention, naturally, that the format was specifically designed to give Occupy the entire first third, with housing and transportation fighting for the scraps.

[caption id="attachment_3632" align="alignnone" width="600" caption="A selected image from the Spacing Vancouver Flickr pool. Image courtesy of Matt Magnan."][/caption] You might have noticed some rather contradictory information swirling about lately on the homelessness front of the municipal election. However, the numbers consistently referred to (yes, on both sides) come from the same sources, like the Greater Vancouver Regional Steering Committee on Homelessness as presented in the 2011 Homelessness Count. The back-and-forth spin takes quite a bit of effort to untangle, but here's roughly how it breaks down: Last Friday, Incumbent Vision Mayor Gregor Robertson held a press conference to point toward "the first year-over-year decline" in street homelessness "since counts started being made." Indeed, there was an 82% drop in the unsheltered count from 815 in 2008 to 145 in 2011. The rest of the Metro region managed a drop of 23%, but now finds itself responsible for 80% of the unsheltered homeless instead of just under half. On Monday, NPA Challenger Suzanne Anton fired back that the numbers actually show homelessness is an "increasing problem" in Vancouver. The count's section on total homelessness (street and sheltered) found a slight uptick from 1580 to 1605 in Vancouver proper. Regionally, it was a slight drop from 2660 to 2623. Both changes are less than 2%. The numbers are key, representing the apparent success or failure of a rather significant promise regarding homelessness from the previous campaign. The promise Robertson made was, however, to end street homelessness - not homelessness as a whole - by 2015, a policy goal still in place and seemingly quite achievable at this juncture.

[caption id="attachment_2033" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="Change federal tax policy for rental-market reform: Maureen Enser, Urban Development Institute. Photo by Marlis Funk."][/caption] [Editor's note: More than a third of Metro Vancouver's households are renters. And urban planners say the region needs some 6,000 new rental units a year to keep up with the number of people moving here. But construction is falling far short. Previous installments in this reader-funded Tyee Fellowship series investigated Vancouver's rental housing crisis from the standpoint of tenants, landlords, and the provincial agency in charge of settling disputes between the two. In her final report, journalist Jackie Wong explores what veterans of the rental wars say needs to change to make sure Vancouver's renters and landlords both get a fair shake.] When I meet Martha Lewis in the downtown office of the Tenant Resource & Advisory Centre (TRAC), her exhaustion is obvious. "I'm feeling fed up today," she sighs. Adding to her weariness, she's just heard about federal budget estimates that predictably project a further drop in federal investment in housing and homelessness programs. TRAC distributes free information on residential tenancy law in 18 languages. Its staff holds regular legal education workshops and advocacy training sessions.

[Editor's note: Half of Metro Vancouver's households are renters. Private property owners provide most of the apartments they live in. If either side has a complaint about the other, the dispute is likely to end up before the provincial government agency in charge of landlord-tenant issues. What happens next is anybody's guess. In this latest installment of her Tyee Fellowship series on Vancouver's rental housing crisis, Jackie Wong gets a rare glimpse inside the Residential Tenancy Branch.] Every business day, dispute resolution officers working for the Residential Tenancy Branch (RTB) -- the arm of the provincial government that polices landlord-tenant conflicts -- convene arbitration hearings across the province. What goes on in them is difficult to know. Even seasoned veterans say the agency is shrouded in mystery. "The RTB is Fort Knox," tenant activist Christine Ackermann tells me. "You can't get in. You can't get information. They won't release it."

[caption id="attachment_1991" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="For years, tenants at The Seafield fought with landlords Gordon and Nelson before the building was sold in 2011. Photo by Marlis Funk."][/caption]   [Editor's Note: As many as half the households in the city of Vancouver, and thousands more across Metro, rent rather than own their accommodation. But for some, freedom from a mortgage comes with mounting insecurity over whether they'll face eviction. Meanwhile, finding an affordable place to call home can mean a nail-biting search. In yesterday's installment of our latest reader-funded Tyee Fellowship series, journalist Jackie Wong heard from tenants who blame the crisis in Vancouver rental housing on grasping landlords. In this report, she hears from landlords -- and gets a different take on the situation.] A vintage road bike leans against the wall outside the Gastown headquarters of Gordon Nelson Inc. (GNI). The office door is inscribed with "Internet Gaming Partners," the name of the online gaming company brothers-in-law Jason Gordon and Chris Nelson own in addition to their namesake rental property management firm. Gordon, 39, is dressed in black tie evening wear -- a holdover from last night's festivities at the father-daughter dance he attended with his young daughter, Lucy, who accompanies us on the interview.