Community & Development: Mirvish Village
Touring the development site of what used to be Honest Ed’s was a surprisingly profound experience. As an immigrant myself, who has struggled with feeling a sense of belonging/community, seeing parties come together for a project that is aimed at community betterment was reassuring. Typically, the general sentiment surrounding development is rather negative, particularly when it comes to the development of private residences. Although this may partly be due to the current state of the housing market and relative unaffordability of residences, the demolition of heritage sites and fears about community disruption also feed into the generally negative sentiment.
Sitting down with Itah, the owner of A Different Booklist, and hearing about her support of Westbank’s development project despite the disruption to her bookstore, zeroed in on why I had joined the policy realm in the first place. The merging of interests, from a policy lens, often created a discouraging and rather bleak image to me. My interests remain in how to merge the objectives of social movements with policy to push government action in order to realize these objectives, but this notion posed as unrealistic the longer I remained in the policy realm. Seeing the real-world application of competing interests merging for a project that all parties support reaffirmed my drive and assured me that it was possible. Hearing the Westbank perspective in conjunction with Itah’s support also assured me of the future of development as one where it was possible to have companies that simultaneously considered profits and the needs of the community before, during, and after development.
Community consultation is a part of the process that I have become deeply familiar with during my time at Transport Canada given that much of my work involves monitoring stakeholder reactions. Often, I had thought of this step as simply “checking off a box” due to legislated obligation, but having become familiar with the sides of the developer, the city, business improvement areas (BIAs), and local business owners like Itah, it became clear to me that when parties merge in good faith, fruitful projects are possible. Change can be difficult and I imagine with a site like Honest Ed’s, the history and significance of the building caused some to harbour skepticism (perhaps even anger) at the thought of it being torn down and new buildings taking its place. Nevertheless, from the parties present who had spoken to us, change was welcomed and done so in a way that brought everyone together in a coordinated effort.
The best part of this field trip was getting the opportunity to visit A Different Booklist. As an immigrant and a WOC, I felt entirely seen in that space because I have never been in any other like it. It was comfortable, welcoming, a wonderful place of learning all in one. It was interesting that a sense of community was seen and felt within the radius of a single block and with only a handful of people.
