Editor’s note: Julia is the owner of a gorgeous shop on Abbott Street, just off of Water Street, called Urbanity. This shop is representative of the new, interesting, utterly unique gastown that is emerging. She moved here a few years ago from Denmark.
I find the accusation of being a NIMBY mystifying. Who else other than the people living in a neighbourhood care about what happens to it? If this were a city where there was a collective consciousness, we would all be working towards making our city the best for everybody. But in a city where decisions are made depending on who has the most amount of money, and therefore power, we must be vigilant!
The area that is being targeted by a private developer as the location for a soccer stadium and entertainment facility is public property. The park that would be over-shadowed by this potential stadium is also public property.
The Gastown neighbourhood, is a community that lives with the noise of trains 24/7, helicopters, floatplanes, and backing trucks on the port lands. We also live with the loudspeakers early in the morning that instruct cruise ship passengers, and with port loudspeakers that blast out messages late at night. The noise was here when we came, and we accept having to turn up our radios and TVs when it is at its loudest. But the thought of having to deal with the noise that a stadium would generate is scary–even unimaginable. Our neighbourhood would cease to be livable. I don’t think even the most avid soccer fan would want to live within a half kilometer of a stadium, so why are they telling us that it would be a positive addition to our neighbourhood?
Those people who want an 85-foot stadium/entertainment facility on the publicly owned waterfront don’t seem to have familiarized themselves with the area. Crab Park is lovely little park that is used by many people: early in the morning elderly Chinese people do their exercises, and during the rest of the day, until the evening, different groups continue to enjoy the only green space between here and Yaletown. Dogs are walked, children play in the playground, and people sit and gaze out across the Burrard Inlet at the mountains. This is a little oasis of nature and is a very special park that is used by the people who live in, and visit our neighbourhood.
I am insulted when people tell me that it will be so good for the neighbourhood to have a stadium on the waterfront. Most don’t even know there is a park!
Somebody has likened the idea of a waterfront stadium, to putting a stadium where the cement works stand on Granville Island. A very good analogy! Funnel 30K people down to an endpoint, and watch the traffic jam. Just think of it. Have those wanting a stadium on the parking lot beside Crabb Park done a study, drawn a plan? If they had, they would surely not continue pursuing this ridiculous idea.
Julia took this delightful photo Park in winter:
