Council approved the Rize rezoning with a 9-1 vote on April 17th. However, it’s not over yet. Members of RAMP have been pouring over the many nights of video, submitted documents and statements by staff and council in preparation of a legal challenge. As noted in the final presentation on April 5th, there are precedents for the courts to overturn council decisions. Please drop us a line if you have any suggestions on helping document the factual errors made by the applicant and city staff during and prior to the Public hearing for the Rize rezoning.
Most importantly, we’d like to thank so many of our supporters over the last year. The level of discussions and the scope and breadth of the public hearing would not have been possible without strong grassroots support.
We’ve reproduced a Thank You letter from a community member below:
Dear Mount Pleasant:
I am refreshed to see that after April 17, though I am more doubtful of my city’s democratic process, the earth didn’t shatter. It’s just been shaken, and that’s a good thing to me. A change has started rippling underneath the surface and it will grow into an important movement that we can say were were a start to. Through this process I have discovered my community: a group of strong, authentic souls who stand up for what they feel is right, just and reasonable. Though these demands haven’t necessarily recently been passed by council, we have created a ripple in the water that won’t disappear. Now that we have shared this experience, we know our neighbours to be incredibly intelligent, varied and approachable individuals who are ready for appropriate and progressive conversations on how to better our city. But the conversations have already started, so all we need to do is keep them going. How can we creatively find new avenues to state and protect what we love about our city? A community-based Vancouver is such a worthy cause to keep nurturing! Do you own an art space? have art shows on the topic! Do you have access to meeting space? hold a town hall to gather ideas on the next step! Do you have media friends? You can share your personal story with them! Are you in law or another arm of politics? Then you can enlighten future community planning committees on how to concretely put their needs into their community plan for city council to follow! We all have talents, and I hope we continue to express them in making our community the multi-faceted place it is. Thank you, neighbours, for the conversations. I look forward to further chats at coffee shops, parks, bars and events in our lovely community.
Sincerely
Melissa
By virtue of the fact that 70+ people took Jane’s walk means that there are still a lot of people that want to maintain the integrity of the community and defeat the Rize proposal. The Public Hearing was a farce. members of the public had to listen to lie after lie being pushed by the planners. Any talk about the planners was inevitably cut short by the mayor. What is needed is for the community to come together in a show of force and community solidarity that is against the decision.
What coulod be done is to hold a Public event that stresses the discontent of the community with decisions being made on their behalf with liars at the helm pushing for their friends, the developers. They misled the Council, who for all intents and purposes were already onside with the project. The Mayor in his remarks after the vote stressed that this would be an icon of the future. His mark on Vancouver’s history. In his petty little mind he believes that he will be remembered throughout the century for this fatuous deed.
We were made to look like NIMBYS by the media. Their integrity and investigative journalism were conspicuous in their absence. Now is the time to fight back against this injustice as a community. Some time in the middle of the summer we should hold a fair/picnic. There are enough businesses and residents that would pool their resources to make it a big day on our calendars. A big Black Eye for the councilors and their treachery. A cleaning of the planning department because of their misleading lies is in order.