Between The Bridges – October 3

The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation on September 30 has passed, but the work toward true reconciliation continues.

To help us on our way, Bob Joseph, whose previous book, 21 Things You May Not Know About The Indian Act (2018, Page Two Books) did much to foster understanding among settlers of the scope (and destructiveness) of the Indian Act, has a new book: 21 Things You Didn’t Know About Indigenous Self-Government, sub-titled A Conversation About Dismantling The Indian Act. (2025, Page Two Books).

Vancouver hosts 53 housing co-ops on publicly owned land, and five of these are in False Creek South. In the late 1970s and 1980s, co-ops were built with the help of CMHC at a time when every co-op prepaid its lease with costs based on land prices and lease length. 

In False Creek South, RePlan first spoke to City Council in 2012 about lease renewal for all enclaves and future planning for False Creek South. The challenge for co-op lease renewal was to redesign a new lease formula in light of an enormous increase in land value. 

In 2021, the City developed a lease formula centered on income levels instead of land value. It is a complicated formula based on the City’s bottom line for the yearly revenue it would receive from the co-ops. In the initial discussion between the Co-op Housing Federation of BC, CHF argued that the co-ops’ housing charges were set at levels that low and middle-income people could afford; if housing charges were to be significantly raised, there would have to be a transition period to allow co-ops to retain their current residents. The resulting lease formula was agreed upon and received Council approval in 2021.

However, the challenge for the City and the co-ops is still difficult. The City’s complex lease terms and City revenue requirements will reduce the number of low-income earners to 15% of the members (it’s currently closer to 30%) and push many middle-income earners out by the end of the transition period. 

This challenges a basic assumption of housing co-ops: that they include an income mix of low, mid, and higher income earners. It raises a question of city policy that identifies the purpose of public land as revenue over social purpose. 

Added to this is the fact that co-op leases are based on complex formulas which are difficult to apply in the real world. To date, very few co-op lease negotiations elsewhere in Vancouver have been completed.

One of the co-ops in False Creek South, Creekview (pictured above), with 104 units, has agreed to an Overholding Agreement as an interim lease, pending the upcoming City Planning Phase II for False Creek South. This co-op will be limited in its capacity to sustain the costs of building repairs, as it will be difficult to get a bank mortgage or loans. The outcome of these negotiations seems as difficult as the negotiations themselves.

Ann Gillespie, False Creek Co-op, writes: 

The care and attention you take with the BtB really shows. I think some people outside of FCS really enjoy it as well. It reveals what a vibrant and involved community this is!

The humorist, Fran Lebowitz, has advice for visitors to her beloved New York when they complain about the crowded streets, the traffic, the noise, and private lives spilling over onto public spaces. “Pretend it’s a city”, she says.

Leg-In-Boot Square is a far cry from New York, but not from Vancouver. It’s in the middle of the city, evident to all who would look northward across the watery part of the Creek. Will they see the blue remembered hills, the spires and farms that the poet Housman pined for? They will not.

But if they look up - way up - their eyes will settle on some pretty tall buildings; a lot of them. And if this is not a significant clue that we live in the middle of the third largest metropolis in Canada, perhaps, like Fran, they can pretend that it is, indeed, a city.

That settled, we should note that living in a city means also living in a “soundscape”, something Wikipedia defines as “the acoustic environment”. 
 
Not every neighbour in the three stratas that surround Leg-In-Boot Square eagerly accepts its present soundscape. I used to live on the Square and can attest that it’s a bit of an echo chamber, enclosed as it is by those three buildings. In past years, even as benign an activity as kids playing tag on summer afternoons attracted complaints from some. 

In the 1970s City planners envisioned the then-new False Creek South neighbourhood as an urban village, the heart of which was to be the Square, alive and vibrant. 

It’s been a long time coming. For decades activities in the Square were sporadic and limited to special occasions. Most days the Square revealed itself as a dead zone with virtually no seating and no real reason for people to congregate. And though it must have torn at the hearts of those  planners who designed the walkable, bikeable neighbourhood, the inescapable reason for the lack of traffic was, well, the lack of traffic - specifically, private cars. Businesses reliant on customers beyond the Creek languished and closed because those people wanted to drive to their destinations.

The pendulum swings again, many people forego car ownership, Uber is a thing, and a core of neighbours have emerged to enliven the Square. If the soundscape changes and ups the urban vibe, those who live around the Square will, hopefully, pretend they live in a city.

I know Daniela Elza as a neighbour and also as a smart, dynamic, outspoken, creative force who rolls up her sleeves to support the community she calls home. Recently, I also had a glimpse into her creative working life.

I knew she was working on a poetry collection around housing. Curious, I attended her launch of SCAR/CITY, which packed a room of over 60 people in the Montalbano Theatre at the Vancouver Public Library. 

The book explores themes of belonging, urbanity and housing. I was not prepared to come away from the reading and audience dialogue feeling exhilarated.  And I sensed I wasn’t the only one; as if the poetry had uncovered a lively hunger for conversation on ideas Daniela’s poems so elegantly presented;  the complexity of our living spaces, the dynamics of the city, and the ways they are steadily being eroded. I experienced that rare magic when an author reads certain words together, and the audience inhales those words and breathes out a collective hmmmm.  You know those words have captured an essence of truth, inspired a new way of seeing or have touched a yearning heart. Genius!

The evening made me reflect on how the work of poets can be so transformative. Toni Cade, American writer and filmmaker said, “the role of the artist is to make the revolution irresistible."  In a world where words become dark holes, and communication is manipulation, the act of creating is, “…Spun from the raw material of our lives, fragile yet unbreakable, necessary as breath. We do not create for ornament, but for survival. Without the act of making, we too would unravel.” (“Entangled” by Advaya, online newsletter)

In a recent interview, Examining the life of a city: Poet Daniela Elza explores community and belonging, Daniela said, “Poetry sometimes [can] be turned into a niche thing, and it forgets the big job it has to do.” In her birth country, historically the poets were also revolutionaries. Daniela carries this tradition on. “To me, revolutionaries, in a good way, and the writer-poet are inseparable,” she says. This moniker Daniela has certainly earned in her work with the community around housing. Maybe we can appoint her our community's poet laureate?

Daniela is doing other readings around town. She is also launching a collection of essays at the same time called, “Is This an Illness or an Accident?” (Caitlin Press, 2025).

On Thursday, October 16th, Heritage Vancouver will celebrate the 25th anniversary of its Top10 Watch List – and you’re invited. 

This annual list, highlighting places and important topics around social history, meaning, and the diverse cultural identities in Vancouver, draws wide public awareness, discussion, and thinking. 

False Creek South has been featured several times [Link 1] [Link 2]. In 2023, following his death, long-time RePlan Project Manager Nathan Edelson became the first individual to ever be featured on the list in recognition of the values he embodied and his unique approaches to community planning, which he put to good use in False Creek South.

The October 16  event will feature a conversation with Robyn Chan, current RePlan Project Manager, JP Catungal, and Amy Robinson, all community members from recent Top 10 Watch List sites. Together, they'll explore what heritage means in our city, why certain places deserve attention, how Top 10 recognition helps raise awareness, and what people can do to engage with heritage conservation.

Also featured will be Vancouver paintings by visual artist Mark Prosser and a special performance by Guzheng virtuoso Michelle Kwan.

In our last issue, Susan Wright (Henley Court) described her then-upcoming venture, Circles In The Square,  as “a community gathering space” – and it very soon became the space she had envisioned. If the first weeks are any indication, Circles appears to be a response to an unmet – and even unspoken – community need.

Until now, neighbours have concentrated mainly on various enclaves to share their meeting space. Co-ops, however, understandably place restrictions on room rentals to non-members. Stratas with meeting rooms also have their own policies, and some stratas have no meeting rooms at all. The False Creek and Creekside community centres are important venues for large gatherings, but less so for housing the small get-togethers that can define a community. 

Apart from Circles’ value in its own right, its location along the entrance to Leg-In-Boot Square can’t help but add to long-sought efforts to make the Square truly the heart of False Creek South, as its originators had intended. (For more about that, see Sometimes Pretending Works elsewhere in this issue.)