Vancouver’s Joyce-Collingwood plan: How will the Filipino community be affected?

While Vancouver council approved this week the massive Broadway development plan, advocates in another part of the city say a different project that passed years ago is already transforming a once-affordable neighbourhood where many Filipino-Canadians settled.

The Joyce-Collingwood Station Precinct Plan was last updated by the City of Vancouver in September 2020.

The area is one where Filipino newcomers settled in decades ago because of its affordable housing, access to traditional food, religious services, and transit. But Hannah Balba, a settlement worker with Collingwood Neighbourhood House, says development demand has rents soaring.

“They’re able to find community in all of these different outlets, and all of that is threatened by projects proposed in the neighbourhood,” she told CityNews.

As a settlement worker, Balba says she works with many elderly members of the Filipino community who have built their lives in the area for, in some cases, decades.

“This community has been a space of refuge and safety and comfort for them, and now when their livelihoods, when their spaces of belonging, and their dwellings are threatened, who are we to take that away from them?” she asked.

Joyce-Collingwood a cluster of cultural assets

All of the cultural assets in the area make the Joyce-Collingwood neighbourhood an important cluster for the Filipino community.

“The clustering of these important spaces for Filipino-Canadian communities makes the Joyce-Collingwood neighbourhood a vital part of what it means to navigate being Filipino-Canadian in the Vancouver context. These spaces are crucial for providing not only basic needs — like food — but also connections to the community and also the ability for folks to be able to connect with the Philippines,” explained John Paul Catungal, an assistant professor in the Social Justice Institute at UBC.

He says not protecting such cultural assets would be a blow to those living in the area.

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The Joyce-Collingwood plan includes building high rises in the area.

One proposed project was set to be built in place of several Filipino-owned businesses in the area. The Joyce Street Action Network says council instructed the developer to re-apply to rezone the site — but that never happened, and community members don’t know if the developer still has plans to take over the area.

Catungal says the area being subjected to the kind of redevelopment that was initially proposed would “affect the viability of the businesses … to be able to operate” as they do now.

“It’s an affordability issue which means that they will be displaced and they will need to find spaces elsewhere. So the clustering of these businesses will be affected and therefore their accessibility to the community will also be affected,” he added, noting implications not only extend to workers and business owners, but to the people who access these spaces.

Businesses worry about relocation

Editha Malang who owns Pampanga’s Cuisine in the neighbourhood says she’d like to stay in the area and has been looking at options. However, that hasn’t been a simple task.

“It’s a big loss for me and my workers as well. It’s not that easy to find a good location here because almost the whole area is now … under (re)zoning,” she explained, adding her business has been a place where the Filipino community can “feel like they’re just at home, just like in the Philippines.”

William Canero with the Joyce Street Action Network wants new policies built into all large-scale redevelopments, including the right of first refusal which offers displaced tenants a space in a new building. It’s similar to the Broadway Plan’s Tenant Protection Policy.

“The fact that this is all in limbo is making everyone anxious,” he said.

However, Canero knows it only takes a blueprint to start transforming a community.

“I understood when I started this work that this city was unaffordable, but to hear it coming from a community I identify wit heartbreaking,” he added.