“One of the finest pieces of empty real estate in Canada”: The Creation of Devonian Harbour Park, 1963–83
Few people in Vancouver have heard of Devonian Harbour Park, which fronts Coal Harbour to the west of Denman Street, even though thousands of motorists pass by it every day on their commute to and from the North Shore. The reason for the small park’s invisibility, or more accurately its anonymity, is that it is an eastward extension of the much larger Stanley Park. The notion that this would be a public space dates back at least as far as 1929 when the first city plan stated that “Coal Harbour, in its present state, is a serious disfigurement of Stanley Park, and every opportunity should be taken to acquire the property on the north side of Georgia Street as far east as the Auditorium,” which was at the north end of Denman Street. Seventeen years later, the 1946 supplement to the city plan reiterated that “The present development in this area is so detrimental to such an attractive and valuable portion of the City that large expenditures would be justified to place it under public control.”1 What was being objected to was what Donald Gutstein in his Vancouver Ltd. describes as “‘rundown’ ship repair yards, ramshackle wharfs, and deteriorating storage sheds.”2 The solution initially fastened upon, however, would not be public ownership but consolidation into the hands of large-scale developers, for – in Gutstein’s words – “There were tremendous profits to be made by redeveloping the three blocks from their industrial uses to high-density residential – commercial-marina uses. The land had all the right qualities: an excellent view, a waterside location, Stanley Park with all its recreational facilities right next door, and the downtown business district close by.”3
1.2 Map showing location of Devonian Harbour Park.
Paradoxically, it was not population growth that brought the pressure for Vancouver’s downtown development in the 1960s and 1970s but the reverse: the number of city residents increased by only 10.8 per cent between 1961 and 1971 and actually declined slightly from 426,256 to 410,188 between 1971 and 1981. This demographic stagnation was the result of a flight to the suburbs caused, in turn, by soaring real estate values and improved commuter highway facilities. The fact that the ratio of the Greater Vancouver Regional District’s population living in the city proper declined from 62 per cent in 1951 to only 43 per cent in 1971, and that the downtown merchants faced increasing competition from suburban shopping malls, only intensified the desire to promote inner-city property development as a countermeasure. Fortunately for Vancouver’s boosters, the expanding forest, mining, and hydroelectric industries were beginning to erect large head-office buildings in the downtown area by the mid-1960s, with the result that the value of the city’s building permits grew from $36,847,190 in 1960 to $71,296,808 in 1970, before mushrooming to $236,357,663 in 1976. The lack of undeveloped land in the peninsular downtown area – hemmed in by the Burrard Inlet to the north, the Georgia Strait to the west, and False Creek to the south – was resulting in the construction of increasingly tall high-rise towers, with the city’s West End becoming Canada’s highest-density residential neighbourhood.4
1.3 Opposite “Four Seasons (All Seasons Park),” by Brian Kent, 29 July 1978.
There was little protest against the destruction of the West End’s aging single-family residences in order to erect those towers, but neighbouring Stanley Park was becoming more valued than ever as a natural retreat and recreation area.5 Thus, when a development permit was issued in 1963 for the block of land on Coal Harbour next to the park’s entrance, there was an outburst of sustained public protest by a surprisingly wide variety of local community and political organizations. The leaders, if not nearly all the members of the neighbourhood organizations, were white and middle class, but women played a prominent role at a time when they were still highly underrepresented in elected office, and there was also support from labour unions and radical youths. Powerful corporations did their best over a number of years to build high-rise hotels and apartment buildings on the very valuable piece of land, but the days of unfettered expansion were coming to an end. Observing that a “gray haze” now often obscured “those breath-taking North Shore mountains,” the Vancouver Sun claimed in 1971 that “Mayor Tom Campbell’s boasts about Vancouver’s growth have become hollow, for some, who wince when he insists the city’s West End will become the Manhattan of the West Coast.”6 In 1976 the last in a series of would-be developers of the contested land at the entrance to Stanley Park was finally thwarted by public pressure groups. In fact, opposition to development had become so strong that after the city council acquired the land that year it was unable to offset improvement costs by adding public amenities. As a result, the site remained a wasteland until an Alberta charitable foundation came to the rescue in 1982.
The First Proposal: Coal Harbour Investments
The first step towards the attempted development of the site was taken in 1962 when Webb and Knapp Canada, owned by the highly successful New York developer William Zeckendorf, assembled all the private properties between Cardero Street and the entrance to Stanley Park.7 The company then formed Coal Harbour Investments to develop the property, which had been rezoned to high-density commercial. The plan it submitted included twelve luxury apartment blocks, ranging in height from twenty to thirty-five storeys, all to be built within ten years. A project of this scale would require the lease of the federally owned water lots as well as infilling them to the high-water mark, thereby adding twenty-three acres to the five that had been purchased.8
The city’s Community Arts Council supported the plan, recommending only minor alterations, but the Vancouver Parks Board (elected by city residents) opposed it and the municipality’s powerful Technical Planning Board – made up of the department heads involved with planning, assessment, and engineering – expressed strong reservations.9 The board conceded that a “very run-down” residential area close to downtown would be rebuilt “in a most attractive way”; that with modifications to provide for more waterfront commercial facilities the development would “enhance the attractiveness of Vancouver for both tourists and residents at large”; that views and access to the waterfront would be improved; and that the city would benefit from additional taxes. For the plan to be approved, however, the Technical Planning Board argued that it would need significant improvements, including preservation of the waterfront for marine activities and designation of approximately five acres for tourism-related facilities. The board’s opinion was also that the density requested – 50 per cent higher than in the neighbouring West End – was “grossly excessive” given that it would accommodate 6,500 to 9,500 people. In fact, the density was “equal to over 60% of all the purpose-designed apartment buildings now located in the West End.” The proposal would therefore delay the planned replacement of the more than a hundred acres of aging houses in the West End. The Technical Planning Board’s report also suggested that it was doubtful that Georgia Street would be able to handle the extra traffic, even with the relief of pressure from the Lions Gate Bridge that would follow the anticipated (but never built) third crossing over Burrard Inlet.10
Coal Harbour Investments replied that the density should be based on the entire 28.1 acres,11 much of which was then underwater and controlled by the National Harbours Board (NHB). Furthermore, the Downtown Business Association protested that, “If downtown Vancouver is going to survive, the density of the population in the area, particularly in the West End, must be increased, and to set a limit of 65,000 people far understates the potential.”12 The progrowth Non-Partisan Association (NPA), which had controlled the municipal council since 1940, thought along the same lines.13 Mayor Bill Rathie, whose election slogan had been “Let’s Get Vancouver Moving,” rather predictably declared that he was “very disappointed” with the “negative thinking” of the Planning Board. “Sure we’ll ask for their advice and take whatever part of it is good for the city,” he added, “but we are not going to allow them to destroy the constructive thinking of private developers.” Equally outspoken, but in opposition, was Harry Rankin, the high-profile lawyer and former member of the Communist party who was president of the Central Council of Ratepayers. Perhaps not surprisingly, then, when the rezoning application went forward for a public hearing at the Playhouse Theatre in June 1963, the meeting attracted 600 people.14 “The audience became so vociferous in opposition to the proposed plan,” it was later claimed, “that Mayor Rathie threatened to close down the hearing and expel them.”15
Without a ward system for civic elections, Vancouver residents relied to a considerable degree upon neighbourhood organizations to make their wishes known. Thus, speaking against the Coal Harbour Investment project were representatives of the Kitsilano Ratepayers’ Association, the Fairview Ratepayers’ Association, the Sunrise Ratepayers’ Association, the West End Ratepayers’ Association, the West End Downtown Association, the West End Community Council, and the Northwest Point Grey Home Owners’ Association. Beyond the neighbourhood level, the Apartment and Lodginghouse Association, the Central Council of Ratepayers, the Community Planning Association of Canada, and the Vancouver Committee of the Communist Party of Canada also registered their objections to the development plan. The Communists, however, were alone in arguing that the rezoning was premature given the lack of a plan for the city’s port facilities at a time when Pacific trade was projected to double or triple within the next decade. The Vancouver Town Planning Commission – an advisory body appointed by council to represent community interests – suppoted the proposal but only on condition of lower density, the creation of a more attractive and defined public waterfront walkway, protection of views, and so on. Otherwise, the only collective voices of support came from the Vancouver Board of Trade, the Downtown Business Association, and the Community Arts Council.16 This did not stop the developer-friendly city council from giving its stamp of approval three days after the public meeting;17 the Coal Harbour Investments proposal would, however, go no further.
The Second Proposal: Harbour Park Developments
The following year, in 1964, Webb and Knapp’s financial difficulties forced it to sell the Coal Harbour Investments holding to Harbour Park Developments, established by Montreal’s Power Corporation and a syndicate of local businessmen.18 Coal Harbour Investments had not formally acquired the water lot leases that were a condition of the rezoning granted them, but – with its substantial resources and strong Liberal connections – Harbour Park Developments was quick to resolve that issue under very favourable conditions, namely a sixty-three-year lease at six cents a square foot.19 In 1965 the company submitted a rezoning application for fifteen high-rise buildings (an increase of three from the Coal Harbour Investments plan), ranging from fifteen to thirty-one storeys in height, with no town houses but more square footage for apartment development and double the former amount for commercial purposes. Also added was ground level parking for 317 cars (there had been none in the previous plan), but the landscape setback along Georgia Street was reduced.20 The Technical Planning Board felt that the new plan was generally an improvement because it would “create a greater sense of openness,”21 but the Community Arts Council withdrew its support, criticizing the uniformity and spatial grouping of the buildings, the greater obstruction of views, and the insufficiency of open green areas. Should the developers not revert to the superior plan approved two years earlier, the Arts Council argued, the city should “acquire the said land with a view to its use as a park and as a site for a museum – art gallery complex.”22
The public ownership option was, in fact, gaining in popularity. For example, the West End and Downtown Ratepayers’ Association submitted a brief in March 1965 requesting that a plebiscite be put to the ratepayers in D.L. 185 (the area between Burrard Street and Stanley Park) for the acquisition of 28.1 acres of Coal Harbour (23.1 acres of which were foreshore controlled by the NHB), “for the public use and welfare for all people and for all time.” The brief noted that under the new federal urban renewal legislation Ottawa would pay 50 per cent and the province 25 per cent of the cost to acquire and clear industrial slums. This would leave only $1 million for the city to pay, which was a relatively small amount, the brief argued, compared to the two to three million dollars worth of land the council had recently offered Stafford Smythe to build a hockey coliseum on the assumption that it was “for the common good.” The proposed plebiscite would even ask the West End ratepayers if they alone would be willing to pay the city’s share of the cost. The Ratepayers’ brief concluded that the extra tax for a typical home on a thirty-three-foot lot would be only $20 per year, which was “considerably less than the cost of the paved lanes which, for the most part were forced upon the ratepayers of the westend by the council.”23
A hint that a motive for the urban park initiative might have been to maintain local property values can be seen in the Ratepayers’ complaint that 223 acres in the West End had been up-zoned for apartments, but only seventy-eight acres had apartment buildings on them. Further reflecting an over-supplied property market was the fact that there were 1,800 unoccupied suites, with 5,300 coming onto the market within the next few months. An additional 3,200 apartments in Coal Harbour, with its unobstructed views and low-cost land rental from the NHB, would obviously make it more difficult for West End proprietors to sell their land for the purposes at which it was being taxed. The West End and Downtown Ratepayers’ Association was anxious, however, to forestall charges that its brief was motivated by the economic self-interest of a few. It claimed that its plan had “the heartfelt, positive and unanimous backing of the West End Community Council which is composed of two official delegates from each and every political party, every church, and every worthwhile organization such as the P.T.A., Royal Canadian Legion, [and] the Non-Pensioned Widows’ Association of Canada.” Moreover, it reminded the city council, “we have the support of the elected Vancouver Parks Board members – elected by the same electorate as yourselves.”24
At the public hearing held in April 1965 the Ratepayers’ Association submitted another brief, this time pointing to the trend toward increased leisure time and increased delinquency, coupled with the worldwide population explosion. Rather than high rises and a hotel, it argued, there should be “a redesigned bigger entrance to Stanley Park, a San Francisco style fisherman’s wharf … marina, tourist information centre, permanent industrial exhibits, West End Community Centre, and a Senior Citizens home.” As for the claim that the apartment houses would bring additional municipal taxes, the brief concluded, “This is completely fallacious reasoning because what would be gained here in buildings would be lost elsewhere to the West End and balance of Vancouver.”25
Hyperbolic as the West End and Downtown Ratepayers’ brief may have been, the corporate property developers had clearly gone too far by increasing the density of the project. City council referred the plan to its design panel of architects and engineers, which declared, “The number of towers will result in a palisade, no matter how they are placed.”26 Despite this opinion, when the developers agreed to minor changes and asked in June 1965 for approval of only the first stage, the Planning Department and the council complied.27 Instead of pursuing the development, however, Harbour Park Developments then sold the block east of Denman Street to the US-based Marwest Hotel Company for a million dollars more than had been paid for the entire property. Owners of the nearby Bayshore Inn, Marwest proceeded to gain permission to build two office towers, a convention centre and merchandise market, as well as a second hotel. The remaining two blocks to the West of Denman Street were leased by Harbour Park Developments to Four Seasons Hotels of Toronto, though the federally owned foreshore, almost half of which was still under water, would not be transferred until 1971.28 Finally, the city-owned half acre at the end of Gilford Street was sold to the federal government with the intent that it would be leased to the developers.29 This minor technical manoeuvre would ultimately prove to be the ace in the hole for those who opposed the development.
The Third Proposal: Four Seasons Hotels
The Four Seasons project, announced in May 1969, consisted of a $40 million complex with less ground coverage but more overall height than the preceding one. It would include a 600-room hotel adjacent to Stanley Park; 1,000 apartment units in three thirty-storey apartment towers at the east end of the site; 300 units in buildings two storeys to eight storeys high located in the centre of the site; and seventeen townhouse units. There would also be a restaurant, small retail shops, and a small marina, as well as public walkways from Georgia Street and along the waterfront (see figure 1.4).30 The city’s design panel again expressed concern about the site coverage of the project but agreed with the location of the hotel, which would prove to be a sore point with the public. In late August the rezoning bylaw was approved by the Technical Planning Board and the Town Planning Commission but subject to a revised scheme that would retain the view of the harbour, set aside a space of slightly less than an acre for public use, and address the impact on traffic and transportation by paying for the north-side widening of Georgia Street when required by the city.31
Such revisions did not placate the Park Sites Committee of the Vancouver Parks Board, chaired by outspoken high-school teacher George Puil.32 Puil submitted a report to August public hearing that strongly encouraged the city to acquire the block next to Stanley Park, valued at $500,000. The report argued that this would give the city the right to lease the NHB water lots, and allow for a public park of 195,410 square feet. This land, it further claimed, would be needed for a new bus loop, a public marina, a fisherman’s wharf restaurant, a tourist information centre, and other amenities. If the developer refused to cooperate by selling the block, Puil claimed, the city could refuse to provide a development permit.33
1.4 “How Would Entrance to Stanley Park Look If Four Seasons Development Goes Ahead?” by Brian Kent, Vancouver Sun, 9 March 1971.
Public resistance to development of the foreshore remained stronger than ever, for opponents to the Four Seasons development plan included some of the city’s most affluent citizens, such as members of the West Point Grey Civic Association34 and Vancouver’s Save Our Parkland Association – whose honorary directors included prominent figures such as provincial cabinet minister Grace McCarthy, who had served six years on the Vancouver Parks Board. The Save Our Parkland Association submitted a letter, presumably to be read at the August public meeting, supporting the parks board plan and claiming that “Citizens and tourists alike enjoy looking at the Park as much from the outside as from the inside – from Kitsilano, from the North Shore, and as we approach the park on Georgia Street. A ‘bottleneck’ entrance at Denman Street would be atrocious.”35 Influential women such as McCarthy took an active role in the opposition, for a brief was also submitted by the Vancouver Council of Women protesting that Harbour Park Developments had failed to meet the conditions of its development permit when it sold part of its holding, including the federally owned water lots, to the owners of the Bayshore Inn. This sale, the brief claimed, “vindicated the charge originally made that they [Harbour Park Developments] merely intended to speculate with the concession granted them.”36
The aggressively prodevelopment mayor, Tom Campbell of the NPA, was not moved by these objections, nor were the majority of councillors. The same day as the August public hearing, council voted in favour of the first stage of the project estimated at $20 million.37 Conditions included a $1 million performance bond to guarantee completion within four years plus payment by the developer to the federal government of $165,000 for the lot at the end of Gilford Street. When Four Seasons objected to the bond amount, it was subsequently reduced to only $200,000.38
Although the civic opposition party known as the Electors’ Action Movement (TEAM) had been recently established by young professionals who favoured a limit to development,39 it supported the project proposal. This did little to appease the public, however, and TEAM councillor Art Phillips was repeatedly shouted down when he defended the council’s case at a West End meeting called by the parks board in November 1969.40 A series of letters from city residents protested against the “Eastern-based” development, particularly because it would detract from the beauty of Stanley Park but also because it would block the view of the North shore and create traffic gridlock at the Georgia Street entrance to the causeway. One woman added,
Things are bad enough already with the high-rise eye-sore currently under construction at the Bayshore Inn and the West End is filled up with enough unlovely apartment buildings to keep the realtors happy – we certainly do not need others along Coal Harbour. I urge you to preserve this invaluable, irreplaceable area, to encourage the small businesses and the yachtsmen and fishermen they cater to, and to co-operate with the Parks Board in their proposal for development of the block adjacent to Stanley Park. You can surely provide interest and pleasure to a great many people if you were willing to realize the potential of the area in question as a tourist area similar to Victoria’s Inner Harbour and it would be a waste not to do so!41
Another woman wrote, “if we can talk of spending $165 million to carry more cars over another bridge (or whatever) then surely the taxpayers will gladly support the plan of their Parks Board to beautify the Coal Harbour area of the park entrance.”42 Most of the letters were, in fact, written by women, and in the case of a typed letter submitted by a man, his wife added in pen, “I agree with everything in the above letter, only I would have put it more strongly.”43
The members of the Canadian Daughters’ League Assembly number 1 also submitted a letter,44 and prominent women – such as Phyllis Ross, the mother of federal justice minister John Turner – joined antidevelopment groups in lobbying the federal government. As a result, national fisheries minister Jack Davis, who represented the North Shore Capilano riding and who was responsible for the NHB, delayed having the sublease signed. Furthermore, Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau had informed the parks board that he was concerned about the development.45 In an attempt to undermine the growing opposition, Harbour Park Developments (acting for its lessee, Four Seasons) employed a public relations firm but its strategy to bring the labour unions onside backfired when the twenty union business agents who were invited for drinks at the Bayshore Inn refused to approve a motion approving the project. According to Vancouver Sun columnist Allan Fotheringham, they were irritated with this tactic and decided to call their own meeting a week later when they would invite opponents to the scheme to make their case. Pointing to the low rate and long term negotiated for rental of the publicly owned water lots, Fotheringham declared, “The whole thing gets down to one simple question: Should private developers be allowed to make a profit from Crown land?”46 Opposition to the project was strengthening, for eight of the organizations fighting it soon joined to form the Save the Entrance to Stanley Park Committee (SESPC).47 All twenty-seven of the briefs presented at the public meeting held on 31 March opposed the project and urged council to buy the land for public use.48
The Communist Party had been quick to weigh in against the development proposal, and now the Vancouver and District Labour Council declared that the labour movement “was not so selfish as to push for any available development which might mean jobs without consideration of the environmental consequences … Nature has endowed Vancouver with a setting unrivalled anywhere in the world. We can build a city appropriate to its setting or we can commit ecological rape by allowing spontaneous building guided by the profit motive.” Despite the Labour Council’s reference to ecological concerns, they were not foremost at the time, but the Sierra Club of BC and the Society for Pollution and Environmental Control (SPEC) did submit requests to appear at the meeting, which lasted four hours.49 Finally, Harry Rankin – now a councillor representing the recently formed left-wing civic party known as the Committee of Progressive Electors (COPE) – moved that a city-wide plebiscite be held to determine whether the hotel–apartment complex should proceed.50 Wealthy former lieutenant-governor Frank M. Ross proposed the same idea in a telegram submitted to the meeting, but John Stanton of the New Democratic Party (NDP) Vancouver-area council went further by challenging the municipal councillors to call an election on the issue, adding that “A new council could bring Vancouver out of the 19th century, a century of real estate rip-offs a la CPR.”51
Rankin’s motion was tabled, however, and city council assured the federal transport minister that the public meeting was for information purposes only and that it had no intention of dropping the bylaw. As a result, the long-delayed water lot leases covering ten acres were signed by the NHB the following day. The NHB’s hands had been tied because it had stated clearly that it was up to local municipalities to set zoning regulations on federal land use.52 The BC University Liberal Federation complained, nevertheless, that “This is another slap in the face of the people of B.C. by the Eastern-dominated federal government.”53
Grace MacInnis, prominent NDP member of Parliament for Vancouver-Kingsway, shifted the blame back to the city council by stating that its support for the development had left the federal agency with no other choice. Harbour Park Developments had, in fact, filed a writ with the province’s Supreme Court to compel the NHB to hand over the leases or pay full compensation. MacInnis lamented, however, that “Instead of the smell of flowers and grass, we’ll have the smell of money for a few – and the smell of automobile exhaust fumes for the rest of us.”54 On a similar note, the young internationally honoured architect, Arthur Erickson, declared that the proposed high-rise buildings “show a complete indifference to the environment, almost a hostility in the way they oppose and confront each other.”55 Finally, federal consumer affairs minister Ron Basford, whose riding was Vancouver Centre, also expressed his concern about the density of the development before announcing that he was sending questionnaires to 42,000 Vancouver households, asking “Would you like the Vancouver City Council to hold a plebiscite on the Harbor Park – Four Seasons development?”56 Basford had stated earlier that “if a plebiscite were held and the people of Vancouver decided to buy out the tenant’s assets I am sure the federal authorities would assist carrying out any decision like that.”57 The results of his questionnaire are not known but a public opinion poll conducted by the Vancouver Sun in late April resulted in 3,320 votes against any form of commercial development at the site and only 282 in favour. For the 374 who added notes, the main concerns were traffic congestion and the impact on Stanley Park.58
Sensing the strength of the opposing tide, the president of the NPA had already released a statement declaring somewhat disingenuously that the association had “no view on the desirability or undesirability of the Four Seasons project” because it was not a political party and “did not get involved in controversial political matters.”59 Mayor Campbell finally bowed slightly to public pressure by proposing that the hotel, which was originally to be built 120 feet from the Stanley Park boundary, should be moved 215 feet further back to near Gilford Street.60 Campbell’s professed aim was to avoid the plebiscite that would ask if voters wanted the city to purchase the land, a plebiscite that he and the NPA councillors had recently proposed and voted for, yet that he now claimed would be a waste of money as it would certainly be defeated.61 Three parks board commissioners, including George Puil, had apparently formulated the hotel setback compromise with Campbell, but Puil later claimed that it was only to be a last resort, if all else failed. In fact, he now referred to it as “the greatest sellout in the history of Vancouver.”62 The president of Four Seasons subsequently rejected the compromise on the grounds that the parks board needed to be involved in any new negotiations and concur with any changes. He suggested, however, that he would be willing to reduce the size of the hotel by 200 suites.63
Like Campbell, Four Seasons was no doubt confident that the “no” side would win in the plebiscite because the odds were heavily stacked in that side’s favour. Despite demands by the parks board, the Vancouver School Board, the Citizens’ Council for Civic Development, and others to have a plebiscite that would simply ask Vancouverites if they opposed the development project,64 they were instead asked if they wished to buy out the developers, making it a plebiscite on a money bylaw. As a result, according to the Vancouver Charter, only property holders could vote, and a 60 per cent majority was required. City staff announced that the compensation to the development company would be between $6 million and $7 million, an amount Puil declared to be grossly inflated (it was double the amount fixed a year earlier by the provincial assessment appeal board),65 but Four Seasons complained that it was too low, and Mayor Campbell had earlier suggested that it could be as high as $10 million. Arbitrators subsequently arrived at a $7.3 million price tag, but added to the plebiscite was an additional $700,000 in compensation to Four Seasons plus a very generous $1 million estimate for park development, thereby further stacking the odds against a “yes” vote.66 Finally, the NPA councillors claimed that the water lots would be of no value for park purposes, therefore the city would actually be paying $8 million for only four acres of usable land.67
Declaring that city council had “Neatly finessed opponents of the Four Seasons complex,” the Province suggested that it was “highly unlikely” that voters in the east end of the city would vote to support “spending so much tax money to provide a West End park.”68 And Fotheringham’s column, titled “Slickest Manoeuvre of the Year,” claimed that by asking ratepayers “to buy the whole flipping 14 acres” when there had never been “any suggestion that the city wanted – or could afford – every inch of the project … some shrewd mind somewhere decided the solution was to smother the protesters with kindness.”69 Mayor Campbell had, indeed, refused to accept Rankin’s amendment to add the option of buying only one block of the land. Of course, as Puil and TEAM councillor Walter Hardwick pointed out, if the “yes” side won, the land not reserved for a park could be sold to developers, thereby greatly reducing the cost to taxpayers, but this was asking them to demonstrate considerable trust in city hall.70
The plebiscite, which Grace McCarthy referred to as “nothing more than blackmail,” was to be held in late June. In the meantime, however, the provincial attorney general lent his name to a court challenge of the legal validity of the city’s bylaw rezoning the Coal Harbour site for the proposed apartment–hotel complex.71 The plaintiffs argued that city council did not have the authority to pass zoning regulations governing the use of a public harbour and that a new bylaw outlining conditions was required each time the property was transferred to new owners.72 Because the value of the land would obviously plummet if the court case were won, opponents of the development requested that the plebiscite be postponed until after the court had ruled, but city council refused.73
The legal action was later dropped, but May brought the direct action generally associated with the 1960s era and which is the only element of the Coal Harbour antidevelopment movement to have survived in the public memory.74 In attention-grabbing fashion, young protesters – identified at the time as Yippies and members of the city’s Free University but apparently also including members of the anarchist Vancouver Liberation Front – tore down part of the fence surrounding the site and renamed it “All Seasons’ Park” (see figure 1.5). One of the eight arrested was young high-school student Paul Watson, future founder of the radical Sea Shepherd Society.75 Mayor Campbell complained about “a complete disregard for authority” and the “breakdown of society,” but protest organizers were, in fact, quite concerned about the public’s reaction. Although they had originally expected to be removed within a few days, they built rockeries, swings, benches, and an “oriental pond” without water, and planted saplings and a vegetable garden as well. They also asked those who were not helping cultivate the site to go elsewhere at the end of each day, leaving a core group of thirty to forty, and they obtained a number of Canadian flags to replace their green, red, and Viet Cong ones. In fact, one newspaper article noted that the site had become “something of a tourist attraction,” drawing “A wide spectrum of political activists, 10-speed cyclists, middle-aged ladies bearing gifts of potted shrubs, camera bugs and family strollers.”76 One sympathetic observer was journalist Bob Hunter, who – with young camp spokesman Rod Marining – would join the Greenpeace expedition that attempted to sail to the nuclear test site at Alaska’s Amchitka Island in September. In one of his Vancouver Sun columns Hunter imagined the site as a “nomadic encampment with the dark green fence along Georgia Street rising like a battlement and the turrets of the glass castles of Fort West End beyond.”77 Four Seasons had little choice, then, but to turn a blind eye, aware as it was that trespassing charges against the youths could jeopardize its position in the upcoming plebiscite.78
1.5 “All Seasons Park, at the Entrance to Stanley Park,” The Province, 7 June 1971.
The plebiscite debate did become increasingly heated as the 21 June deadline approached. The hotel chain claimed that the project would bring $45 million in investment capital and $600,000 in annual city tax revenues. It would supposedly also provide the equivalent of 250 full-time construction jobs for four years and 650 permanent jobs in the hotel alone.79 Four Seasons also financed a “Committee of Concerned Citizens” who published newspaper advertisements and flyers emphasizing the $9 million cost to taxpayers and claiming that the choice was between hospitals and a park.80 Mayor Campbell even claimed that turning down the development would mean no new parks in Vancouver for twenty years, adding that “we probably won’t even need a parks board – just a few gardeners.”81 The ballot, itself, was somewhat deceptive, for it made no mention of the Four Seasons project, simply asking voters if they approved of the city borrowing up to $9 million to purchase the property and develop it for park purposes. A “no” vote was, of course, effectively a “yes” vote for the development even though many voters would likely be registering a protest against the magnitude of the compensation figure.82 Not surprisingly, the polls were divided between the eastern and western parts of the city, but – even though most residents of the West End were tenants and therefore ineligible to vote – a slight majority (51.2 per cent) of the 48,000 property owners who cast ballots voted to purchase the development site.83
This margin was far from the 60 per cent required to pass, but it did not prevent the Province from declaring that city politicians “will have to digest the fact that environmentalism is a potent and growing political force that can no longer be pushed aside.”84 Columnist Gary Bannerman also referred to the result as “a stern rebuke to the mayor’s office and city council.”85 Sensitive to the political situation, Mayor Campbell and a spokesman for Four Seasons subsequently announced that negotiations for a compromise would take place.86 Campbell was not in a conciliatory mood, however, as far as the protestors were concerned. With what the Province referred to as his “first postreferendum political move,” as soon as the votes were counted he drove to the contested site where he boasted to about one hundred young occupiers that they had lost and would have to move on. After refusing “a slug of wine, a chewed sandwich and a book of Chairman Mao’s thoughts,” Campbell came close to blows with a young man who spat at him.87 The occupation did, in fact, continue throughout the summer, reaching peak estimates as high as 300 to 400 people, though most of the original protesters left after the plebiscite, vowing to return when the zoning issue came before the courts. In the meantime, the site’s population was a fluid one, a reporter from the Province claimed, including “campers from Massachusetts, tenters from Toronto, and teenyboppers from Edmonton.”88 The most serious complaint, however, appears to have come from nearby tenants concerning the playing of bongo drums late into the night89 (see figure 1.6).
Due to the hostile political climate, Four Seasons made some relatively minor changes to its plan in July when it renewed its offer to locate the hotel half a block further back from Stanley Park and upped it with the elimination of one nine-storey apartment building. These concessions split the parks board, some of whom were in favour and others – including Puil – opposed. The SESPC and Vancouver and District Labour Council remained unimpressed.90 City council nevertheless approved of the revisions without the public hearing that its legal expert claimed was necessary and despite the fact that its planning director complained that the proposed hotel had the appearance of a gigantic cement slab.91 After being transferred to the federal Urban Affairs portfolio, Ron Basford reiterated his opposition to the project, stating that the plan that had originated a decade earlier was no longer appropriate. In his words, “The density that has built up in the West End, different views on the kind of cities we want, and a concern for environmental factors have caused this change.”92 The federal government now refused to lease the crucial Gilford Street water lot, thereby effectively killing the Four Seasons project, at least in its current form.93 Fotheringham pointed out the irony that “a city council, on the scene, was prepared to let the deal go through and that it took a government 2,500 miles away to kill it. Someone can read plebiscites, however phonily worded. Who says public opinion doesn’t work?”94 Fotheringham’s colleague Jack Wasserman noted further that the tough-minded Basford’s control over the country’s Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation funds, as well as over federal assistance for rapid transit, meant that developers and municipal politicians would not protest too loudly.95
1.6 “Four Seasons (All Seasons Park). Alderman Harry Rankin Talking to Hippie Crowd,” by Gord Croucher.
With the property now in limbo, young squatters began to return as the spring weather improved. This situation soon led to a statement from the city’s health officer that the site was becoming a health hazard, with rats, “unacceptable” toilet facilities, and no water supply or garbage pickup. The problems, he added, were all on NHB land, therefore the city’s hands were tied. Former mayor Bill Rathie, who was now chair of the NHB’s Vancouver Port Authority, accused the municipality, in turn, of “sloughing off its responsibility to give the property police protection and to enforce health and building bylaws on it.” According to the Province, the young people claimed that they were not protesting against large-scale development, they simply had nowhere else to go.96 In late April, however, Rathie ordered the NHB police to evict some thirty squatters, with the result that their makeshift shacks were bulldozed into the mud.97
City council had already announced in March that it would be willing to develop the Four Seasons site as a park but only if the water lot leases reverted to Ottawa, which would then make them available to the city.98 Speaking to the 500 delegates at the Pacific Northwest district conference of the National Recreation and Park Association, Grace McCarthy declared that it was not too late to save the entrance to Stanley Park nor “for the federal government to undo the sell-out they perpetrated on the city by granting the waterfront leases to private ownership.”99 The fact was, however, that the municipal council’s request to pay only a nominal sum for the water lots was about to be rejected by the federal minister responsible for the NHB.100
In April, Four Seasons announced that it was eliminating the hotel, thereby reducing the cost of the project from $40 million to $30 million,101 but a smaller hotel of 200 rooms at the east end of the property had been added by June. The three apartment buildings would each remain thirty-three storeys high, though they would now be slimmer, accommodating 1,000 people rather than 1,500, as originally planned. In addition, the city would be required to pay $1.5 million to Harbour Park Developments for the 14.5-acre block (ten acres of which was leased from the NHB) adjacent to Stanley Park. Mayor Campbell, who had helped negotiate the proposed plan, called it a “happy compromise” that would likely pass council when it reconvened in July.102 Despite Campbell’s optimism, however, his council rejected the deal. Even when Harbour Park Developments and Four Seasons offered to trade the land for a parcel of equal value elsewhere, the parsimonious councillors expressed concern that the city might have to pay rental to the NHB for the foreshore leases, and they asked for another development proposal, instead.103
The Fourth Proposal: Dawson Developments
Rather than comply with the city council’s request, the obviously frustrated Four Seasons decided not to renew its lease with Harbour Park Developments, leaving the company’s owners in a financial jam.104 Finally, in May 1973, the company and its assets – including the sixty-three-year water lot leases – were sold to locally owned Dawson Developments (later known as Daon Developments) for $6 million.105 Dawson would face an uphill battle because the prodevelopment NPA had finally been swept from municipal office by TEAM the previous November.106 TEAM councillor Setty Pendakur, who now headed the Waterfront Committee, told the press that the new owners were aware that any future plans must have “regard and respect” for the park entrance as well as the need for much lower densities.107 This was not to be, however, for Dawson Developments almost immediately proposed a $50 million project that included four apartment towers of seventeen to twenty-two storeys, an office tower of eighteen storeys, and a twenty-storey, 480-room hotel, occupying a total of 1.35 million square feet, not a great deal less than the 1.8 million feet in the defunct Four Seasons project.108 Pendakur, in turn, declared that the proposal was unacceptable, suggesting that it might simply be a trial balloon.109
Pendakur also stated that city council should press Ottawa to cancel the water lot leases, thereby reducing the value of the western block to as little as $1 million and making it attractive for the city to purchase. Failing this, Pendakur advised, the city should expropriate the block.110 In the meantime, the Waterfront Committee set down guidelines in July for development of the block that did not lie adjacent to Stanley Park. The aroused public was, however, in no mood for compromise. At a well-attended open meeting held the following month most of the speakers favoured saving both blocks. This hard line was also supported by the labour movement insofar as it was represented by the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America as well as the Vancouver and District Labour Council.111 Furthermore, the local area council of the NDP objected to the city’s guidelines, despite their requirement for a relatively low development density, announcing that the guidelines “cater to these national and multinational corporations which can use tax write-offs to finance prestige office buildings as well as the tourist trade, and that very small percentage of [the] Vancouver population who can afford expensive apartment suites.”112 In a similar vein, Harry Rankin proposed that the land be rezoned as a public amenity.113 Even the mainstream Vancouver Sun asked, “Why is council considering a proposal, laughably called a ‘compromise’ that would inflict on half of this contested land a development hardly distinguishable from what has been declared intolerable for the whole?” The Sun was particularly concerned about the impact the project would have on automobile access to the Lions Gate Bridge, for it declared that “A development that aggravated the West Georgia bottleneck would be unacceptable if it were sited on the head of a pin.”114
Dawson Developments subsequently submitted a second proposal that it claimed to be less than half the size of the first one, though, at 1,060,774 square feet, the ratio was actually two thirds. There would be a low-rise hotel near Georgia Street, a seven-to-eight-storey office tower, and a number of low-rise apartment–commercial buildings, “some of which would stretch out over the water on stilts or be placed on pontoons.” Canals and bridges would also feature in the plan. Pendakur now claimed that it was a great plan, but Mayor Art Phillips remained noncommittal.115 Obviously not confident that even this proposal would be accepted, the company agreed to sell the land to the city for the price it had paid, plus costs.116 Although Pendakur had speculated publicly that the property might be worth ten to thirteen million dollars,117 members of the TEAM majority on council voted against spending the $6.4 million required for the entire fourteen acres. Dawson Developments then agreed to a compromise in which the one and a half blocks closest to Stanley Park would be sold for $2 million in return for the city’s support to develop the remaining half block,118 a proposal similar to the one that the previous mayor had arranged with Harbour Park Developments a year earlier.
Council organized a plebiscite on the issue in October, this time including tenants as voters. Somewhat confusingly, the first two options were either to pay $6.4 million for the two blocks of land and dedicate both to park use or to subsequently sell the four-acre half-block not facing Stanley Park and not fronting the shoreline but valued at $4.4 million.119 (For legal reasons, neither of the blocks could be purchased separately by the city).120 The third option was to vote against the other two. Mayor Phillips made it clear that he felt that the large sum that would be required to retain the four acres in question could be better used on park acquisition elsewhere in the city, an argument that was difficult to refute given that Pendakur claimed that spending the full $6.4 million would tie up park money for five years.121 Phillips also hinted strongly that the height of the buildings in the half block to be sold for development would be limited to three or four storeys and therefore “no more massive” than what was already there. Finally, even though Dawson Developments had agreed to purchase back the half lot for $4.4 million, the city would be free to find a higher bidder, thereby further reducing the cost of the other one and a half blocks.122 Not surprisingly, the council’s preferred option received an overwhelming majority of public votes – 68 per cent – though only 21 per cent of those eligible to cast a ballot did so.123 As for what the city would do with the ten acres to be saved from development, it was announced that the parks board would propose two alternative plans, with the public being asked to choose between them.124
The Fifth Proposal: Harcourt Development
Even though three quarters of the contested area had been saved for public purposes, any development of the other quarter would be controversial. Dawson Developments failed to repurchase the four acres, and in 1975 the city invited developers to submit proposals to develop the site that was repeatedly referred to as “one of the finest pieces of empty real estate in Canada.”125 The chief conditions were that it would be leased for sixty years at a fixed price of $48 million and have a maximum building density of 420,000 square feet.126 A jaded Vancouver Sun columnist insisted that council should admit that “there is no tolerable way it can have its cake and eat it too, that no one will stand for the spoiling of a good thing, that a viable private development and a sane scenic entrance to Stanley Park are wildly contradictory. In short, forget it.”127 There were only four submissions, and in late 1975 the advisory panel of architects and planners selected for a public hearing the one put forward by Harcourt Development of Calgary. It featured two apartment towers, one of twelve floors and one of nine floors, linked by a lower office and commercial building, this despite the fact that office space was not included in the competition’s conditions.128 Also envisioned were a “cabaret, restaurants, community, cultural and recreational facilities, theatre and parking facilities.”129 The city planning commission approved of the choice, but three aldermen opposed any development on the site, with Warnett Kennedy claiming rather ironically as a member of the NPA that it would be “a ghetto of millionaires.”130
As an alternative, Kennedy championed the proposal that had been submitted for a density exchange that would save the Harbour Park parcel by selling its building density to developers on the opposite side of Georgia Street.131 The proposal was supported by SESPC, the Community Arts Council of Vancouver, and the Save Our Parkland Association, but Mayor Phillips simply dismissed it, arguing that it would save the view for those who drove along the street but block it for those who lived in the West End.132 From the left, Harry Rankin referred to the idea as “a shameless political ploy” that would place council “not in a law-making role but rather that of a czar wheeling and dealing in development rights between private developers.”133 Kennedy, in turn, angrily referred to his colleagues as a “bunch of amateurs” involved in “squalid politics.” He also claimed that the Calgary developer’s plan was the result of “an ambitious young architect’s dream to win the (panel’s) prize and once the developers realize the costs involved they’ll pull out.”134 This prediction would prove to be prescient.
Small waterfront businesses were issued eviction notices, however,135 causing Michael F. Holt of Western Technicomm to protest that driving out “the marginal operators, the people who are working at crafts and businesses because they enjoy it, not necessarily because they make a lot of money out of it,” would result in “a dead and sterile area.” Holt argued, further, that by replacing waterfront activity “with another few hundred yards of tedious seawall walkway, you would not only be doing a disservice to the residents in the area but also would be removing a significant point of interest for the many sight seers and visitors who come to visit us at all times of the year.”136
There was no detectable public sympathy for current occupiers of the shoreline, however, or for its future development, as reflected in the correspondence Philips received from citizens in the ensuing months. He was blunt in his replies, reminding them that council was honouring the wishes of the people, as expressed in the 1973 plebiscite. Thus, he wrote to one of his critics, “The people of Vancouver may not have agreed with your position, and for that I can hardly be held responsible,” while to another he lectured, “One of the problems with democracy is that you don’t always get what you want … I know of no area in the city that has been more extensively studied, planned, replanned, restudied and investigated for the purpose of maintaining the high-quality environment in that area.”137
Harcourt Development’s project was running into trouble, however, for its chief financial backer, Dr Charles Allard (Allarco Developments) of Edmonton, withdrew from the consortium in April 1976.138 In a memo to members of the city council, the mayor explained that the “economics of the city’s proposition seem to be realistic and there do not appear to be any complaints about the lease arrangements or development permit requirements put forward by the city,” but several financial and development organisations had “shied away” because of the project’s “controversial political history.” One alternative, Phillips suggested, would be to grant the short extension that the remaining Alberta partners in Harcourt Development requested to complete their financing. Another would be to call again for proposals, with variation of conditions if necessary, and a third would be to put a plebiscite to the public authorizing the spending of five to six million dollars “for park purposes.” If the plebiscite lost, Phillips felt, “the development proposal would take place in a politically clearer atmosphere.”139
Final Proposals: Creating a Public Park
Perhaps tiring of the never-ending controversy, council refused to grant the Alberta group its requested ninety-day extension, instead voting unanimously for a fall plebiscite that would ask voters if they wished to absorb the $4.8 million from reserve funds and retain the entire site as a park.140 Then, in September, Mayor Phillips abruptly reversed his position about the importance of honouring the result of the previous plebiscite by announcing that, rather than having another one, council would simply vote to retain all of the property for public use.141 The reason Phillips gave to the public was that the city was in good financial shape and, with the land finally cleared of buildings, the importance of the view had become obvious. Privately, he added, “we will have much more leverage with the Bayshore if we keep our part of the property open than if we allow a great deal of development on it. And I think that we will want to scale down the expansion plans of the Bayshore.”142
Fellow TEAM councillor Mike Harcourt (future mayor and NDP premier of the province) disagreed, declaring, “This is totally against the instructions voters gave us the last time around.” Harcourt (who was apparently not related to the developer) added that the money should instead be placed in the rapid transit fund or spent to improve the city’s neighbourhood parks, which he described as “graveyards without tombs.”143 But Grace McCarthy, who was now the Social Credit government’s provincial secretary, telegraphed Phillips congratulating him and his council “for setting aside the entrance of Stanley Park for park purposes for the use of all the people for all time.”144 Unable to come up with a definition of “public use,” however, city council appointed a task force in late 1977 to examine three alternatives, each of which included a marina and some commercial development.145 Council finally voted to devote the entire fourteen acres to a “marina-meadow.” Phillips had resigned from office by this time, however, and his successor – the more conservative Jack Volrich – claimed that the council’s vote did not rule out recouping some or all of the $4.8 million by some sort of development in the future.146 Perhaps not surprisingly, Volrich’s decision was supported by Mike Harcourt as the city council’s new planning chairman.147 Vancouver Sun columnist Christopher Dafoe suggested mischievously that local residents would be pleased that the topic would continue to “see them safely through a variety of social occasions. When conversation flagged at dinner parties, for example, the astute hostess could always get the ball rolling again by mentioning that she had heard that council was planning to sell the land to the owners of a bowling alley chain. Smalltalk at cocktail parties invariably became brisk and heated if someone mentioned that he had seen Col. Sanders officiating at a sod-turning ceremony on the site.”148
Colonel Sanders did not make an appearance, but in the spring of 1978 city council entertained proposals from members of the provincial forest industry to build a $6.3 million education and exhibition centre on the northeast corner of the site. Another group wanted to build a First Nations development village in the same location for $5 million.149 Noting that “the relationship between the larger Canadian population and the Native Indian people is all too often in the form of confrontation,” the city planning department reported that the First Nations village, which was aimed at promoting social and cultural exchange, “would appear to have a wider appeal to Canadians and our visitors as a whole and to retain that appeal within the changing society over a longer period of time.”150 The city manager concluded, however, that both proposals were excellent and that the solution might be to have the two groups combine forces for a joint development.151
The Forest Foundation had the advantage because it had already persuaded the provincial government to contribute $650,000 for a forest education centre and, according to one newspaper article, “had prepared a 19-page booklet with a fold-out architect’s rendering to hand around explaining the goals and shape of things to come.” The vision included a forest park “with streams and ponds and walkways among the newly planted saplings,” plus “two buildings of approximately 50,000 square feet that would combine educational displays, meeting and convention areas for the forest industry, and a restaurant–marina.” The view of the North Shore mountains would be preserved by the low-rise building, but traffic would remain an issue as the foundation anticipated 200,000 visitors annually.152
Although George Puil, who was now an alderman, supported the forestry centre on the basis that it had the best chance of succeeding, the parks board that he had once chaired preferred that it be built in the University Endowment Lands on Point Grey, closer to where families and students lived.153 In addition, the forestry foundation had asked for the land rent-free, but city council insisted that the centre would have to cover the cost of services and site maintenance, plus the rent that the city was paying to the NHB (approximately $70,000 a year) and the interest on the land purchase.154 By September 1978, when the ante had been upped to between $2.5 million and $3.5 million, the forestry centre idea was rapidly losing steam.155
Furthermore, citizen opposition to development of any kind had not diminished. Newspaper columnist Daniel Wood claimed, somewhat hysterically, that, “the thought of thousands of people tagging along behind forest guides in the depths of Stanley Park conjures up images of the very worst of other overloaded places. On the Acropolis, for example, one has to elbow one’s way through clumps of Danish and Spanish and American visitors each trying to sense what it was once like to confront Zeus there.” Such a prospect apparently did not worry the associate director of the city planning department, however, for he suggested that a sculptor might create “something symbolic” like the Picasso in downtown Chicago, adding, “Just think what the Statue of Liberty once did for New York City or the Sydney Opera House did for that town.”156 But Margaret Pigott – chief spokesperson for the SESPC – protested against having the two-block area “turned over to private control,” arguing that the forestry project would add to traffic congestion.157 And the energy crisis of the following year saw the introduction of a new note from the West End Traffic Committee, which declared that it was “opposed to the use of public park land for private automobile use and parking.” The chair added, “In a time of oil shortages and already over-crowded streets, public transit must be encouraged and providing park land for parking is no insentive [sic] for drivers to leave their cars at home.”158
No further steps were taken until October 1980 when city council declared Harbour Park to be a heritage site while rejecting alderman Kennedy’s motion to invest $250,000 in its improvement as a meadow.159 The council majority clearly preferred the offer made by Harbour Ferries to pay for dredging, a seawall, and pedestrian walkways, among other improvements, for a total of $1.5 million, in return for a twenty-year waterfront lease.160 The lease remained unsigned by Harbour Ferries, however, due to the economic downturn that hit the province’s resource industries particularly hard in the early 1980s.161 As a result, Harbour Park was still being referred to as a “wasteland” two years later, in 1982, when the city finally transferred it to the Vancouver Parks Board on a ninety-nine-year lease. The parks board, in turn, announced that it had no money to carry out improvements.162
Calgary’s Devonian Foundation finally came to the rescue soon afterward with the promise of a $300,000 grant but only on condition that the park be open to the public within a year. This spurred the parks board to sign the long-pending twenty-year lease with Harbour Ferries, which would be responsible for improving the park with shoreline planting and stabilization, as well as building separate pedestrian and bike paths, the total estimated at approximately $750,000.163 The original lease proposal would have limited the marina and tour boat operation to the waterfront between Denman and Gilford Streets but now the frontage for a 200-berth marina was extended to nearly all the Harbour Park site (see figure 1.7). Margaret Pigott spoke out once again, complaining that the view from Georgia Street would be obscured by the marina and that there would now be no water amenity added to the site. Largely to blame, in her opinion, were the inept parks board negotiators but the four left-wing COPE councillors had also supported the deal, and Harcourt, Kennedy, and Puil had not even shown up for the vote.164 Pigott could take some comfort later in the year, however, when the Devonian Foundation grant finally enabled the parks board to announce a large pond with “a $600,000 labyrinth of bridges, rose gardens, viewing areas, pebble beaches and pedestrian footpaths.”165 The park would henceforth be officially known as Devonian Harbour Park, though – as noted above – very few people in Vancouver are aware of the name.
1.7 Plan for Devonian Harbour Park, 1983.
Pointing to the “scores of Vancouverites” who played a major role in the wilderness conservation campaigns his book examines, political scientist Jeremy Wilson asked why they stood by resignedly “while the quality of their immediate environment was steadily diminished by speculator-driven pro-development policies, dismal city planning, uncontrolled population expansion, and even more rapid growth in automobile use.” Despite the fact that he appears unaware of the local antidevelopment movements that many Vancouverites did participate in, Wilson’s question is an important one, and his analysis of the province’s wilderness campaigns points to the need for potent symbols as well as skill in the art of political mobilization.166
Stanley Park served as such a symbol in the protracted campaign to “save” its entrance. Furthermore, the political mobilization was widely based socially, as Vancouver Sun columnist Jack Wasserman observed in 1977 when he commented on “the strange alliance between millionaires, yippies, middle class apartment dwellers, and leftist politicians with their varying motives, ranging from concern that their own property will be devalued, to the out-right opposition to any form of development anywhere.”167 During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it was the city’s elite who opposed any alteration of Stanley Park,168 but in the 1960s and 70s it was members of the broadly defined middle-class, many of whom were women, who formed the backbone of organizations such as the Save the Entrance to Stanley Park Committee. These people were clearly motivated by a genuine civic concern, as were local mainstream politicians such as George Puil and Warnett Kennedy, though that concern was quite distinct from North America’s earlier playground and City Beautiful movements, both of which lobbied for major alteration of public spaces.169 One could argue that the Harbour Park case illustrates how the affluent west side of the city monopolized municipal park funds. After all, the new park lay at the very entrance to one of the largest urban parks in North America. But that park was as close to the working-class residents of East Vancouver as it was to the affluent middle class in Kerrisdale and Point Grey, and the municipal councils – whether dominated by the NPA or TEAM – were quite parsimonious when it came to investing in the site. In fact, it was only a commercial operation and philanthropic funds from the neighbouring province that rescued the space from ongoing neglect.
Devonian Harbour Park’s role as an open green space is now essentially to serve as a buffer between Stanley Park and Coal Harbour’s high-rise buildings, and as a view corridor from traffic-choked Georgia Street to the North Shore harbour and the mountains beyond. One might, of course, question the value of such a passive role for a public space. Referring to Vancouver, Lance Berelowitz has warned that “a society that allows its true public spaces to be turned into benign venues of consumption and leisure … is in danger of losing the will and ability to appropriate those spaces as theatres for vital, legitimate political expression.”170 It is rather ironic, from that perspective, that Devonian Harbour Park was itself the product of “legitimate public expression,” one that was remarkable for its persistence as well as its refusal to compromise in the face of multiple corporate initiatives. It could be argued that the sustained effort to save an open space adjacent to a very large park detracted from more important environmental issues, but the fact remains that the protest movement did signal a widespread shift away from an unreflective faith in the benefits of large-scale urban property development and expansion.
