Dan Fumano: ‘Vancouver’s future as a cultural city’ at stake in Broadway plan

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Between new nightlife hubs in Mount Pleasant and South Granville, a walkway through False Creek Flats promoting Indigenous culture and history, and a “24-hour community” envisioned for the Creative District near the new Emily Carr University, Vancouver’s proposed plan for its “second downtown” includes a lot of arts and culture.

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But the cultural community’s response is mixed. While some applaud the prominence given to the arts in the plan, and welcome the idea of ​​new spaces and venues, others are more skeptical, saying the city has difficulty supporting existing arts institutions, let alone new ones.

There’s reason for creative types to be wary. Big-money real estate development — whether in Vancouver, San Francisco, Berlin or anywhere else — often displaces artists, and can spell the demise of venues, both legal and underground.

The Broadway plan itself states: “The arts and cultural sector is particularly vulnerable to displacement by real estate speculation and development, and Broadway’s industrial lands are critical for cultural production and presentation.”

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The plan, which envisions the next 30 years for the area along the Broadway subway and comes back to council this week, lays out what’s at stake: “Vancouver’s future as a cultural city depends on the continued existence and growth of arts and culture in the Broadway plan area, necessary and appropriate spaces in which artists can get messy and be loud, and affordable spaces in which artists can live and work.”

Esther Rausenberg, executive and artistic director of the Eastside Culture Crawl, has watched many of Vancouver’s beloved cultural spaces lost to redevelopment over the decades, and was glad to see the plan includes a significant section on arts and culture.

“For many years, the arts community has really pushed for the arts to be included in these plans. I can recall 15 years ago, we weren’t in any of the plans,” Rausenberg said. “It’s taken a long time just to be part of that conversation, so in that respect it’s really positive.”

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Of course, she said, while the plan says nice things about the importance of the creative economy, it remains to be seen how it will play out.

The plan maps out key directions for the arts, including retaining and expanding cultural space in the area, increasing the visibility of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations, removing regulatory barriers to spaces and events, and supporting affordable housing and studio space for artists. It also contemplates “new cultural, entertainment and nightlife venues” along Granville Street from 6th Avenue to 16th, along Main from 2nd to 16th.

As the founder and executive director of Beaumont Studios, one of the relatively few arts event venues in Mount Pleasant, Jude Kusnierz said she would welcome the “good competition” of more music and performance spaces in the Broadway area.

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But she knows the challenges first-hand. Even at a popular, well-loved facility like Beaumont, which incorporates art studios and events, it’s not easy to generate enough revenue to cover the 300 per cent property tax increase Kusnierz saw in recent years.

Last year, Vancouver launched a grant program to support non-profit art space operators, many of whom are still recovering from COVID-19 restrictions. When this year’s grants were handed out last monthBeaumont received only a third of the amount they requested, which Kusnierz said was what they needed to keep running.

A city ​​report shows Beaumont wasn’t alone: ​​most arts organizations seeking funds received a fraction of what they requested, if anything. Kusnierz said the response from the city’s cultural department was there were simply too many worthy groups seeking funds and not enough money to support them all.

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“They can afford to build this new massive infrastructure on Broadway to create bigger density and supposedly create more affordable spaces,” Kusnierz said. “I’m all in support for more spaces for the arts sector, but what are they doing to sustain the ones that are here already, that have become unaffordable?”

To increase revenue, Beaumont is now seeking a liquor-primary license, and trying to make the outdoor courtyard area they opened during COVID into a permanent feature. Both requests will be up to city hall, and Kusnierz says, so far, “it does seem very promising.”

Despite all the challenges, Kusnierz says: “I feel like this city council and staff seem to be the most involved in supporting the cultural sector, in all of my 18 years (with Beaumont).”

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For Ian Cromwell, founder of Local’s Lounge, a Vancouver-based community hub for musicians, there’s a lot to like in the plan. He said the top complaint he hears from local musicians is around the scarcity of venues, so more spaces outside the downtown core would be welcome.

Cromwell, who is running for city council this year with OneCity, is particularly fond of the plan’s vision for a “cultural ribbon,” a walkway through the False Creek Flats highlighting Coast Salish culture through art, signage and public realm design. The plan says the area was an estuary before colonization that was a critical source of shellfish and fish, an area known to the Squamish Nation as Skwácháy̓s.

“There is definitely room for improvement” in the plan, Cromwell said, including stronger measures to ensure existing spaces, such as Beaumont, survive. Still, he said: “The plan as written is much better for arts and culture than the status quo.”

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