City of Vancouver staff outline $2 million urgent relief plan to support Chinatown

Jan 12 2023, 10:37 pm

Two months after being directed by the new Vancouver City Council to come up with an urgent relief plan to support the struggling historic Chinatown district and its businesses and cultural organizations, City of Vancouver staff have returned with their initial measures.

The proposed “Uplifting Chinatown Action Plan” package of back-to-the-basics measures carries a total cost of about $2.2 million over the course of 2023, with some of these programs also having a broader benefit to the adjacent Downtown Eastside, given the growing spillover of the area’s social issues into Chinatown.

The Chinatown area-specific measures include $150,000 for graffiti removal, $50,000 for a safewalk program, $65,000 for installing 15 additional garbage cans and their associated operating costs, $125,000 for a neighbourhood clean-up program, $120,000 to increase micro-cleaning activities from nine to 13 times per week, and $80,000 to expand a feces collection pilot program.

There would also be $110,000 to fulfill Mayor Ken Sim’s promise of establishing a satellite City office within Chinatown. This is intended to be a space for Sim and City Council to work in to better understand the issues facing the area. City staff is proposing to place this office — between 1,200 sq ft and 1,600 sq ft in size — within the City-owned Chinatown Plaza building.

Other spending measures that would have an overlapping benefit to both Chinatown and the Downtown Eastside entail $670,000 for enhanced day-time cleaning and feces collection, and $280,000 to increase access to public washrooms, which is intended to reduce the volume of feces found on storefront entrances, sidewalks, laneways, and other public spaces.

There have been requests from Chinatown businesses and property owners to change the bylaw to remove or waive fines for the untimely removal of graffiti on private property, but City staff are instead recommending “discretionary non-enforcement” of existing regulations within Chinatown and elsewhere on the downtown peninsula.

The action plan’s execution will be directly overseen by the City Manager’s office.

As for other measures to support the economic and community vitality of Chinatown, City staff will return to City Council with options in late 2023.

City Council is scheduled to deliberate on City staff’s proposed short-term Uplifting Chinatown Action Plan next week. Its implementation also requires including the program’s budget in the City’s overall 2023 operating budget, which is not expected to be finalized until March. This would put the start of implementation at the second quarter of 2023 at the very earliest.

Effective and meaningful municipal support for Chinatown was a key civic election promise for the governing ABC Vancouver party.

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