In 2014, Vancouver City Council approved the Downtown Eastside Plan, a 30-year blueprint aimed at revitalizing one of Canada’s most complex and stigmatized neighbourhoods. The plan promised a balanced approach: preserving affordable housing, protecting vulnerable residents, and fostering an inclusive community while addressing the area’s social, economic, and historical challenges. Ten years later, however, the plan’s progress—or lack thereof—raises critical questions about its direction, execution, and ultimate feasibility.
Supporters praise the plan’s efforts to stave off gentrification and protect low-income housing, but critics argue that its rigid zoning restrictions and ambitious goals have stalled growth and perpetuated the Downtown Eastside as a deeply impoverished enclave. As Vancouver reaches the first third of the plan’s timeline, it’s time to reflect on what’s working, what’s missing, and what needs to change.
Protection or Paralysis?
A cornerstone of the Downtown Eastside Plan is its unique zoning policy, particularly in the Downtown Eastside Oppenheimer District (DEOD). The policy prohibits condominium developments and requires new residential buildings to include 60% social housing and 40% rental housing. While this approach aims to keep land values low and preserve affordability, critics argue that it has also discouraged investment and innovation.
Jean Swanson, a long-time anti-poverty advocate, sees the no-condo policy as essential to maintaining the area’s affordability. By limiting market-driven development, the city has made it feasible for social agencies and governments to build and acquire affordable housing units. Over the past decade, 22 social housing projects have been completed or are underway, totalling 2,251 units. Yet, only 988 of these units meet the welfare shelter rate, a number far too low to meet the needs of DTES residents.
Opponents of the zoning policy point to its unintended consequences. The neighbourhood remains economically stagnant by restricting homeownership and focusing narrowly on subsidized rental housing. Critics contend that introducing a broader mix of tenures, including condominiums, could generate civic pride and attract amenities that benefit all residents. Without this balance, much of the DTES continues to feel neglected, with vacant storefronts and deteriorating public spaces underscoring the area’s challenges.
Social Housing vs. Mixed-Income Communities
The plan’s heavy reliance on social housing has sparked debate about whether this singular focus undermines the creation of a sustainable, diverse neighbourhood. While social housing is essential to protect vulnerable residents, some argue that the absence of higher-income homeowners limits the DTES’s potential for regeneration.
Mixed-income developments, which combine subsidized housing with market-rate units, have proven successful in other urban centres by fostering economic diversity and reducing stigma. Critics of the Downtown Eastside Plan suggest introducing market ownership could provide long-term stability and bring much-needed investment to the community. Proponents of this approach argue that a more balanced demographic could also support local businesses, which often struggle due to the limited purchasing power of the area’s predominantly low-income population.
However, advocates for maintaining the current focus caution that introducing market housing risks gentrification, potentially displacing the very people the plan was designed to protect. For them, the plan’s success hinges on ensuring that the DTES remains a predominantly low-income neighbourhood with housing that meets the needs of its most vulnerable residents.
Infrastructure and Economic Stagnation
Beyond housing, the Downtown Eastside Plan addresses the neighbourhood’s economic challenges by encouraging small-scale commercial activity and improving public spaces. Yet, a decade later, many storefronts remain vacant, and visible disorder continues to dominate key streets like Hastings and Main. This economic stagnation undermines the plan’s broader goals of creating a livable, inclusive community.
The emphasis on storefront retail serving local residents rather than the city at large has been a double-edged sword. While this policy prioritizes businesses that align with the neighbourhood’s needs, it has also limited growth, as many businesses struggle to remain viable in an area with limited consumer spending power. A more flexible approach that attracts diverse commercial tenants while still serving local needs could inject vitality into the DTES’s struggling economy.
Similarly, the plan’s limited focus on urban infrastructure has left public spaces underutilized or neglected. Critics argue that investments in lighting, cleanliness, and public programming could significantly improve the neighbourhood’s livability, encouraging more pro-social activity and fostering a sense of community pride.
What Has Been Achieved?
After a decade of implementation, the Downtown Eastside Plan has made notable strides toward some of its Social Impact Objectives, though significant gaps remain. Efforts to protect the low-income community from exclusion and displacement have been largely successful through the plan’s zoning policies. By restricting market-driven developments and requiring a 60/40 mix of social and rental housing, the plan has helped maintain affordability in a city where property values have reached unprecedented heights. Over two thousand social housing units have been built or are in development, with nearly half designated for those living on welfare shelter rates—a critical achievement for preserving housing options for the city’s most vulnerable residents.
The plan’s commitment to supporting local businesses and social enterprises has also shown promise. Affordable commercial spaces have allowed some social enterprises and small businesses to thrive, offering low-cost goods and services tailored to DTES residents. Initiatives encouraging local hiring during construction and operations have provided job opportunities, albeit limited in scale. While the plan’s emphasis on maintaining diverse commercial uses has preserved some community-serving businesses, the neighbourhood’s overall economic health continues to struggle due to widespread poverty and limited consumer spending power.
In terms of public realm improvements, the plan has delivered mixed results. There have been efforts to enhance accessibility and inclusiveness, such as upgrades to parks and public spaces. Still, many of these changes remain small in scale compared to the broader challenges of visible disorder and neglected infrastructure. Though highlighted in the plan, community amenities and gathering spaces remain underfunded, with few new developments that adequately serve the needs of the DTES’s diverse population. The preservation of local heritage and culture has similarly been inconsistent, with some progress in celebrating the neighbourhood’s identity but limited resources to expand these efforts.
A Decade of the Downtown Eastside Plan
The first ten years of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside Plan have revealed an uncomfortable truth: while the city has prevented the worst outcomes of unchecked gentrification, it has also failed to deliver on its broader promises of transformation. Instead of a revitalized community where affordability coexists with economic vitality, the DTES remains entrenched in cycles of poverty, visible disorder, and systemic neglect.
The plan’s rigidity—though rooted in noble intentions—has unintentionally created a neighbourhood frozen in time. By prioritizing zoning restrictions and resisting diverse development, the city has safeguarded affordability but at the expense of meaningful growth. What is missing is a dynamic, adaptable approach that welcomes mixed-use spaces, incentivizes investment and tackles systemic issues head-on. The DTES doesn’t need a defence mechanism—it needs an engine for progress that addresses its complexities without sacrificing its core identity.
The next decade must shift focus toward pragmatic solutions: scaling up mixed-income housing to stabilize the neighbourhood, fostering economic opportunities through diverse commercial developments, and significantly expanding health and social services to address the underlying causes of disorder. This isn’t just about tweaking policies—it’s about a mindset shift. The DTES is not a problem to be contained but a community with untapped potential. Vancouver must break free from the limitations of its original vision and embrace a more ambitious, nuanced strategy—one that turns preservation into progress and ensures the Downtown Eastside is a place where everyone can thrive.
Denise is a long-time advocate for affordable and dignified housing in the Downtown Eastside. Having lived in SROs and volunteered in homeless shelters, she brings a personal understanding of the housing crisis and its impact on the community. Her work reflects years of lived experience, frontline work, and commitment to creating better living conditions for DTES residents.
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