UBC Planning Students view the last of Little Mountain heritage housing

UBC Urban Geography student and Vaisbord next to the Steenhuisens' family home at Little Mountain

UBC Urban Geography student and Vaisbord with Steenhuisens’ family home at Little Mountain. The last of Little Mountain’s heritage social housing.

Last Friday and Saturday (Oct 17th and 18th) I gave tours of Little Mountain to UBC Urban Geography students.

On Friday we were fortunate to catch Ingrid Steenhuisen, one of the last residents of the heritage housing at Little Mountain in the process of cleaning up and moving out. Her relatives were there to help as were neighbourhood friends.

Vaisbord, Students, Friends of the Steenhuisens

Planning Student, Friend and Vaisbord in the Steenhuisens’ basement.

While working on sorting family papers, Ingrid answered a few questions from the students.

Ingrid & UBC students

Ingrid Steenhuisen talks to planning student about the Riley Park neighbourhood while packing boxes in her former home at Little Mountain.

If any readers have had the experience of cleaning out a family home, they can appreciate how much work it took, and how difficult it was to clear out the old three bedroom suite.

Bedrooms with memories await demolition

The view from this boys’ bedroom in the Steenhuisen unit is coloured by the nostalgia for vivid seafaring tales read before bedtime.

Ingrid is moving into the new building 100 yards to the south of her family’s old rowhouse.

The old rowhouse - coming soon to a landfill near you.

The last heritage rowhouse – coming soon to a landfill near you.

Rather than being reused or remodelled, the heritage structure will be torn down by BC Housing ASAP.

This building has a relatively new roof and good structure. I know a number of artists who are desperate for studio space in Vancouver, who would move their studios to Little Mountain in a heartbeat, even if only for the two to five years it will take before anything happens here.

David Vaisbord
The Little Mountain Project & Film
For information on how to support the film project go to: http://www.littlemountainfilm.com/

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Thinking about wildflowers and Machiavelli at Little Mountain

It is Machiavellian, how BC Housing choses the end of summer to evict its last tenants at Little Mountain. It’s so obvious and disheartening that they chose a time when everyone is on vacation, to deliver mean-spirited information to their most vulnerable clients, when critics and neighbourhood supporters are on vacation, and aren’t ready or capable of reacting quickly to the news.

Wildflowers at Little Mountain

And what I had really wanted to write about was wildflowers and wildlife at Little Mountain. If there was any good news to report about Little Mountain over the summer of 2012, is that the site had become a place of rebirth, if not for housing then for nature and urban wildlife.

A Field of Dandelions at Little Mountain

It was only two months ago, on June 27th, that all interested parties convened at City Hall to hash out a Policy Statement on redevelopment. And then the BC Liberal Government through its housing organ — British Columbia Housing — lifted its iron fist once again and brought it down at Little Mountain and it was “eviction time” again. But this time, instead of the threat of aesbestos in the buildings, it’s residues of heating oil in the ground water.

Bulrushes at Little Mountain push back up after meeting BC Housing's machete.

But before I go into greater detail on the groundwater testing (in a future blog) can anyone from the City of Vancouver, or BC Housing, or the engineering firm tell me why they had to cut down all the wildflowers? Including a tiny stand of bullrushes – the week after?

David V
The Little Mountain Project, in late summer, 2012.

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