April 2021 SRA Meeting Minutes
SRA Meeting April 7, 2001 – Minutes
Safety in the neighbourhood:
Emmanuelle Rousseau, resident of Pender St. and business owner spoke to recent incidences of women being followed. She proposed that the men in the community assist by coming together and brainstorming for solutions on how women can protect themselves from the mental health issues causing these incidences.
Dan Turvill from the Strathcona Community Policing Office (speaking as a civilian) suggested that women who have not yet done so sign up for the Women’s Personal Safety Workshop (Zoom) offered by VPD – this can be done on the CPC website:
The CPC has received reports of seniors and in particular, Chinese Seniors who do not feel safe walking in the neighbourhood. He proposed exploring idea of a neighbourhood safe walk program similar to universities which connects people with a neighbour who has been background checked. He will do some research and report back.
Encampment
Donne Rosa and Sandra Singh supplied answers in advance to questions:
Question: Is the April 30 target date still seem do-able?
Answer: From all we are hearing and seeing from BC Housing, this date is still the target.
Question: Once the camp is down to people who refuse to leave, is the plan to enforce the bylaw?
Answer: Once we have folks who are sleeping in the park and who want housing moved inside, we’ll evaluate the situation. We’ll explore the reasons folks remain in the park and make an offer to move indoors…once we’ve exhausted this, we’ll enforce the by-law and if necessary, seek an injunction.
Question: Is there a date for when that will happen?
Answer: The end of April is the target and like the GM Order on the West side, when the end date arrives, we’ll assess where we’re at. We anticipate the process may extend past the April 30th date however we do not anticipate it will be more than 5-10 days.
Question: How can residents best support that plan?
Answer: Continue to communicate with and work with Park Board staff to animate the west side of the Park.
Question: Once the east side park has been cleared, how long will it take to remediate and reopen it?
Answer: We anticipate remediation will take approximately 3-6 weeks however we haven’t been able to thoroughly evaluate so this may change.
Soil Testing: Dan J. will ask if Donnie has the results.
Media and Decampment: There will almost certainly be a protest in support of the campers; we need to be prepared for that.
Prior St. Working Group – Richard Taplin
The working group met with the City, Park Planning & Transportation re plan for underpass – nothing has moved since the initial plans a few years ago – no design yet, funds are being procured and someone will be hired to design it. Anticipated start date not before 2026. Doubling of train tracks is not happening anytime soon and the plan for removing the viaducts is in Concord Pacific’s hands as they will be paying for all of it.
The new Hospital has put up a website with lots of information – an issue that will come of the construction commencing is the vast amount of dirt that will be removed from the site in Phase 1 or 2. There will be many trucks going in and out of the site – City hasn’t released the truck routing plan, but hospital has indicated they will extend Gore over Prior into the site and Dunlevy as well – and they will create a street for both streets to connect to. The hope is that the trucks will be routed onto Hastings and not Prior as all of our work to calm Prior would be in vain. Richard and Dan will meet with the City on this. If it is Prior, we would need to protest this.
Will provide updates through the new SRA website and encourage everyone to read them to stay informed.
City employees indicate the underpass will most likely be a single lane, not double; in our best interests – will be good for calming.
The current pilot project on Prior is nearly complete – asphalt work by April 16 and curb bulges and road painting to follow, then art trailers will be moved back. Residents have been very patient and tolerant – 2 more bus shelters to come in, painting of crosswalk – limited closure of Hawks Ave. is pending decision by city once they know what St. Paul’s is going to do with their transport. May hear next week. City is on board with Prior being one lane each way. Has really helped thin and slow traffic. Encourage residents to use the parking in front of their property on Prior to assist with calming.
Burrard Inlet Line
Strathcona Village residents approached SRA – the at-grade crossing at Powell/Raymuir – triggers an alarm bell that goes all day and night – they are requesting that the crossing be closed – CN and the Port support this idea – City concerned about connectivity for people and bikes across Powell and under the Raymuir underpass so they will launch a pilot project in next month or so to see what the effect will be of closing the at-grade crossings there.
Parker St. Crossing – used as a truck route for produce row so it won’t be closing in next 3 or 4 years.
Trefor applied to CN to do a connectivity study to see how pedestrians and bikes cross at the tracks particularly at Keefer St. overpass, Mothers of Raymuir overpass and Prior St. overpass. They met with consultants and will be happening in next 3 or 4 months. Knowing how people cross the tracks will help us have some leverage when the real conversation starts happening about how we build the underpass. Union St. Bike lane and peds will use the underpass. The overpass at Raymuir is not the ideal overpass – hopefully connectivity study will make case that more people will use it and we should have a nicer one.
Outreach:
Ghazal (SRA Board Member) has been trying to encourage a more diverse SRA by reaching out to ethnic groups to join in the conversation about changes to the neighbourhood and how they feel about it – she has reached out to social housing folks – some do not have computers so slow process but through the process, a player from the Vancouver Whitecaps got in touch and proposed to work together on project or event – hopefully in the fall –possibly a neighbourhood cleanup. It’s a great opportunity so please provide your ideas through the website.
Air Quality Project – Trefor Smith
Results of the Air Quality survey coming out soon – this project has brought together the environmental team at the Port, the Air Quality people at UBC, Metro Vancouver and the City of Vancouver – to talk about our neighbourhood – they are working together on a plan to purchase and install air quality monitoring equipment – this is a rare occurrence for any City – addressing both environmental and health impacts – Air quality sensors will be installed in the neighbourhood along with low cost sensors available for resident home use along with passive sensors at schools and other places in the neighbourhood – would like to see as much community ownership as possible – the Port has agreed to a joint structure where we are co-leads on the project.
This is a rare opportunity that will potentially impact regulations across Canada – please check the website regularly for updates.
Trefor, Ghazal & Dan (SRA Board Members) are all working on this project. Introduction to Alex, who is new to the neighbourhood and will be joining the group.
Big thanks to Trefor who is responsible for securing and leading this project.
Music in McLean Park:
Highlight of last summer hope it continues – Dan J. will pass on to the organizer.
Safety for users of the Bus Stop 700 Block of Hastings St.
Megan brought this up previously – the hope was that the drinkers congregating on the bench would move to the drinking lounge at Princess and Powell, however it has not happened. The SRA needs to be included in the discussions regarding this issue – which they were previously excluded from. A washroom has gone in at the corner of Hawks and Hastings – open 18 hours a day. Suggested that people use Van Connect to report issues – an app download for your phone and makes it very easy to report – information received from a City staffer is that 3 calls will generate someone to come out and there is no waiting as with the Non-Emergency Line which has a long wait at times.
Meeting adjourned 8:25