DNC members who saw this news this morning were overjoyed with the news that the Pantages site had been sold to the city for 100% social housing… but it was an election-eve dream… a hoax!
Just hours after the news broke that Marc Williams sold the Pantages Theatre to the city for a fair assessment price, the developer and the city have both come out and denied the sale. Here’s some news coverage of the story and the hoax. See especially the Jeff Lee story at very bottom.
The Pantages Theatre social housing hoax on Twitter (Jeff Lee)
http://storify.com/sunciviclee/the-pantages-theatre-social-housing-hoax-on-twitte
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It’s a hoax: City purchases Pantages Theatre site from developer for social housing
http://www.straight.com/article-543556/vancouver/city-purchases-pantages-theatre-site-developer-social-housing
By Staff, November 18, 2011
Story update: Pantages owner Marc Williams has informed the Straight that the news release below was a hoax sent out to the media. It’s unclear which individual or group is responsible for the false information. (…)
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Bogus Pantages Theatre sale story snares Vancouver politicians, journalists, activists
http://blogs.vancouversun.com/2011/11/18/bogus-pantages-theatre-sale-story-snares-vancouver-politicians-journalists-activists/
Quite a few people were taken in this morning by a bogus press release suggesting that developer Marc Williams has had an epiphany and sold his Pantages Theatre condo development site to the City of Vancouver for social housing. It comes one day before the civic election where affordable housing and housing the homeless are hot issues.
There’s been a concerted effort among social housing activists to try and stop Williams’ plan for condos, an arts centre and some social housing at 138 East Hastings. The property includes five parcels, including the now-gone Pantages Theatre.
This morning journalists all over the city received an email from “Marc Williams” from a gmail account purporting to announce he’d sold the properties to the city, which had then promised to build “100 per cent social housing”.
It included a glowing quote from Mayor Gregor Robertson, and some equally glowing and self-effacing comments from Williams about having a change of heart.
As the story goes, he’d sold the properties to the city at the assessed value (which is still in the millions of dollars). I’ve posted the bogus release below, which cleverly included a contact number for the city’s communications departmnent but no contact number for Williams. (That should have been Tip #1. Williams’ supposed quote that “I was thinking about business when I should have been thinking about what’s right” should have been Tip #2. And the idea that Vision Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson would have made such a large announcement just one day before the election should have been Tip # 3. )
Within minutes journalists started Tweeting out the news, and the Georgia Straight quickly and breezily wrote an online story based entirely on the press release. Ouch. Here’s their corrective story.
At The Vancouver Sun we were preparing to write a story too but wanted confirmation from both the city and Williams. (That stems from our pathological dislike for canned comments. If at all possible we want to talk to the people involved. Running “said in a statement” quotes is dangerous, as this story ultimately proved.)
Within minutes the ruse was up. But not before a LOT of people, including political candidates, journalists and social housing activists got trapped.
Williams laughed it off when I talked to him, saying it was a good joke. But he also said he’s pushing ahead and will be starting construction next year once city approvals are obtained. Robertson’s election staff say he’s not going to respond.
The bogus press release is below. I’ve also put into Storify an encapsulation of the Twitter feed.
News Release
Mayor Gregor Robertson and Developer Marc Williams announce 100% social housing project at contentious Downtown Eastside site
November 18, 2011 – Mayor Gregor Robertson is proud to announce a new 100% social housing project on the 100-block of East Hastings Street at the site of the former Pantages Theatre. This breakthrough contribution to the City’s fight to eliminate homelessness is made possible by “Sequel 138” condo real estate developer Marc Williams’ sale of the site to the City of Vancouver at real estate assessment price.
“Vision Vancouver’s housing policy includes taking real action to replace all SRO hotel rooms with dignified and affordable housing for low-income residents in the area,” said Mayor Gregor Robertson. “The Vision team is proud to be moving towards that goal in such a symbolically important area of the city.”
The 100-block of East Hastings includes hundreds of problem SRO hotels like the Regent, where two Aboriginal women have died under suspicious circumstances in the past year, and the Brandiz and Balmoral where city inspectors have worked for years with landlords to improve conditions.
“We decided that it just doesn’t make sense to build quarter million dollar condos in sight of some of the worst housing conditions in the country,” said real estate developer Marc Williams. “We tried, but the square peg just doesn’t fit in the round hole. We heard loud and clear that the community wants social housing not condos, and that’s got to count for something eventually.”
The City had approached the Pantages property owner with offers to buy in the past, but had not been able to agree on a price. Marc Williams explained his change of heart, “I was thinking about business when I should have been thinking about what’s right. I realized I can make a real difference in the lives of a hundred needy people and that’s what’s right. The Downtown Eastside is not a place for profit making investors and business. It’s a place to do what’s right.”
The Pantages social housing project will begin development in the summer of 2012 and is expected to provide housing for 122 low-income people.
Media contact:
City of Vancouver
Corporate Communications
604.871.6336
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DTES Neighbourhood Council
http://dnchome.wordpress.com
dtescouncil@gmail.com
Ahh, to dream for just a moment that the DTES citizenry was listened to – it was heaven. Fleeting for sure but it gave me a moment to relish what success felt like. Thanks you hoaxers – it was a cruel pleasure.
A lot of people are paid a lot of money to maintain – and rationalize — the status quo in the DTES. The Globe + Mail reported that $1.3 billion has been spent in the DTES since 2000. Where are the results?
Drug dealers benefit from the status quo. Pimps benefit from the status quo. Nobody else is helped by ‘helpers’ who offer nothing but same old, same old.
If social housing were the answer to DTES problems, those problems would have been solved long ago. There is social housing all over the place in the DTES, and still you want more. It’s expensive to build, expensive to maintain, and keeps the DTES a ghetto. It does nothing to deal with underlying problems of addiction, mental illness, and generations of abuse. All it does is CONCENTRATE those problems, and make it easier for drug dealers to sell their shit. And drive Beemers home to Surrey at nite.
Do you remember ’86? To get rid of hookers downtown, the cops herded them to Hastings and Main where the tourists wouldn’t have to look at them. The problem was shoved to the ghetto, where it has only gotten worse. That’s what ghettos are designed to do. They contain problems. They don’t solve them.
People who think social housing is the answer to everything never talk about the notorious failures of social housing. No city tried harder than Chicago to solve the problem with massive investment in social housing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blueprint_for_Disaster:_The_Unraveling_of_Chicago_Public_Housing
Most people believe in healthy neighbourhoods. These require a mix of cultures, traditions, businesses, religions, languages and housing. By herding the poor and the disordered into ten city blocks, you are dooming them to a life of reinforced pathology. (Yes, I have a background in the study of social pathologies.)
The DTES has a higher rate of HIV/AIDS than Botswana. There is a reason for this. And it has nothing to do with the fact that we haven’t built 5 millions units of social housing in the DTES.
In the 1970s, hard drug dealers and pimps took over street life in the DTES. These criminals are super-capitalists. They love the fact that you want to build free housing for their victims. It’s more money in their pockets.
Welfare Wednesday outside Pigeon Savings. You know what’s really going down. Dealers enforcing debts. It’s the inevitable result of the ghetto.
The ghetto permits cops to shove women with MS to the sidewalk. It permits drug dealers to shove their victims out windows at the Regent. It allowed Willy Pickton to get away with serial murder for years. And women are still going missing.
Criminal pathology reinforces social pathology. That’s what the ghetto does. Time for a change.