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Renderings, views, and layouts are for illustration purposes only. Marketing by Formwerks Boutique Properties. This is not an offering for sale. Any such offerings may only be made with a Disclosure Statement. E.&.O.E.

Following in the footsteps of The Robinsons, Formwerks Boutique Properties presents The Robinsons Parkside Collection — a West Coquitlam community with even more homes, more variety, and more possibilities. Just across the street from the original, the Parkside Collection features two and three bedroom homes, some with lock-off suites, rooftop decks, or courtyard orientations. Pick a townhome, stacked home, or garden home and call one of these 92 homes yours. All of this borders a lush new greenway, which will connect to a future, larger greenway network that weaves through the neighbourhood.

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FE ATURES

How Do You Solve a Problem Like Vancouver?

Awesome Access Alterlaa is one of the largest residential structures in Austria for people with low income. We look to Vienna for inspiration on our housing crisis, page 25.

COVER: ISTOCK; ILLUSTRATIONS: K AT Y DOCKRILL , I2IART.COM

City

Culture

13 At Issue Severn Cullis-Suzuki isn’t just following in her father’s ecofriendly footprints: she’s blazing a new trail.

41 The Ticket The Ouro Collective brings together ballet and breakdancing. Plus cloud art, a film festival and more things to do.

48 Reviews With pandemic-proof ingenuity, local pizza chefs are making it okay to say the F-word (frozen).

44 On the Rise Local fashion brand Oge Ajibe makes fabulous ‘fits for every body.

54 Love Letter An only slightly romanticized reality of basement suite living in Vancouver.

18 What It’s Like To Did you know that the B.C. government hires minors to test whether or not restaurants ID?

What will it take to actually fix the housing crisis? Other cities around the world have proven it can be done. We look to global leaders in accessible, equitable housing and offer concrete solutions for building a better market at home.

20 City Informer Sure, the Easter Bunny is coming to town. But how did all his friends take over Jericho Beach?

46 The Dish Celebrating the painstaking—and perfect—art of pâté en croûte.

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Boulevard’s takeout clam chowder is just the kind of comfort we need. Photo by Leila Kwok

Distractions

Publisher Samantha Legge Editorial Director Anicka Quin Art Director Stesha Ho Food Editor Neal McLennan Associate Art Director Jenny Reed Assistant Editor Alyssa Hirose Editor at Large Stacey McLachlan Contributing Editors Frances Bula, Melissa Edwards, Amanda Ross Editorial Interns Dani Wright Editorial Email mail@vanmag.com

Sales Manager Anna Lee Senior Account Executives Johnny Alviar, Charie Ginete-Ilon, Brianne Harper, Mira Hershcovitch, Amy LaJambe, Sheri Stubel Production and Studio Manager Landon Spenrath Digital Ad Coordinator Kim McLane Production Coordination/Design Nadine Gieseler Sales Email sales@canadawide.com U.S. Sales Representation, Hayes Media Sales Lesley Hayes Tel 602-432-4868 Email lesley@hayesmediasales.com European Sales Representation S&R Media Sylvie Durlach Tel +33 1 44 18 06 62 Email srmedia@club-internet.fr

From the best wine, beer and takeout in the city to virtual events, great reads and more: our picks for taking on 2021 Suite 230, 4321 Still Creek Drive, Burnaby, B.C. V5C 6S7 Tel 604-299-7311 Fax 604-299-9188 Chairman and CEO Peter Legge, OBC, LLD (HON) President Samantha Legge, MBA VP of HR/Admin Joy Ginete-Cockle VP of Finance Sonia Roxburgh, CPA, CGA Executive Creative Director Rick Thibert Director of Circulation Tracy McRitchie Head of Brand Partnerships Johnny Alviar, MCE, SCE Accounting Terri Mason, Eileen Gajowski Circulation Katie Gajowski, Kelly Kalirai Office Manager/Sales Coordinator Lori North Executive Assistant to the CEO Charie Ginete-Ilon

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VANCOUVER MAGAZINE is published six times a year by Canada Wide Media Limited, Suite 230, 4321 Still Creek Drive, Burnaby, B.C. V5C 6S7. Phone 604-2997311; fax 604-299-9188. Copyright 2022. All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be reproduced without the publisher’s written permission. Not responsible for unsolicited editorial material. Privacy Policy: On occasion, we make our subscriber list available to carefully screened organizations whose product or service might interest you. If you prefer that we not share your name and address (postal and/ or email), you can easily remove your name from our mailing lists by reaching us at any of the listed contact points. You can review our complete Privacy Policy at Vanmag.com. Indexed in the Canadian Magazine Index by Micromedia Ltd. and also in the Canadian Periodical Index. International standard serial no. ISSN 0380-9552. Canadian publications mail product sales agreement #40068973. Printed in Canada by Mitchell Press, 8328 Riverbend Ct, Burnaby, B.C. V3N 5C9. All reproduction requests must be made to: COPIBEC (paper reproductions) 800-7172022, or CEDROM-SNi (electronic reproductions) 800-563-5665. Distributed by Coast to Coast Ltd.

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ED NOTE

Coming Up Next Issue

For many years now, my friends and I have had a running joke about creating a commune together. It started when we spotted a couple of vintage cabins for sale near our favourite Powell River getaway—which, even back then, were priced a little too steeply for any one of us renters to consider as a vacation home. But, as a few in our group proposed, if we could somehow go in on the mortgage together, we might be able to make it work. That idea inevitably led to what “making it work” could look like—a discussion that got progressively less serious, with terms including a nightly “sermon” from the friend we’d deemed most likely to take charge of said commune. (It’s possible this conversation was taking place a few drinks into the evening.) As it turns out, the idea isn’t quite as outlandish as we’d made it out to be. You don’t need to create an “intentional living community” to go in together on a mortgage as friends—and, in fact, as writer Kerry Gold highlights in our real estate deep dive this month (“How Do You Solve a Problem Like Vancouver?” on page 25), at least one realtor in Vancouver has specialized in helping people do just that. In an inaccessible real estate city like Vancouver, plenty of folks have figured out inventive ways to create unique living spaces that think outside the nuclear family, the picket fence and the 33-foot frontage. Part of Gold’s “Big Ideas” focus looks to cities all over the world for solutions to our own housing crisis. From the Vienna model of city-owned rental housing to Finland’s priority programs to end houselessness to local housing expert Michael Geller’s concepts around new financial models, it is, as one of our editors said on first read, an unusually uplifting story about real estate. I hope it provides you with some good food for thought, and maybe even helps to expand and uplift your own outlook for what’s possible in this city. For me, at least, I know I’ll be revisiting those no-longer-so-absurd commune plans with fresh eyes—maybe we’ll ditch the sermons, but we’ll definitely keep the community.

101 Great Getaways We’re headed everywhere from the Power River Canoe Route, to wineries on Salt Spring, to the Khutzeymateen Grizzly Sanctuary in Northern B.C.— and so many more places all around this glorious province. The best travel writers in B.C. share their secret spots to get away from it all. Should You Worry About Your Strata Council? A year after the tragic collapse of the Surfside condo towers in Florida, writer Jennifer Van Evra explores the hazards of putting groups of volunteer laypeople in charge of multimillion-dollar developments. How close are we to disaster here?

On the Web The Quest for Vancouver’s Best Brunch Writer Dani Wright is on a mission: to find the best brunch in the city. Follow her column over at vanmag.com, where the Red Accordion is in the lead—and possibly Vancouver’s best-kept secret.

Anicka Quin editorial director

anick a . quin @vanmag . com

@ aniqua

PORTRAIT: EVA AN KHERA J; ST YLING BY LUISA RINO, MAKEUP BY MEL ANIE NEUFELD; CLOTHING COURTESY HOLT RENFREW, HOLTRENFREW.COM

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Welcome to West Kelowna’s newest lakeview townhome community.

VA N M AG .C O M/C I T Y

City Green Legacy Thirty years after her speech at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro (a viral hit before viral hits existed), Severn CullisSuzuki has taken the helm at the David Suzuki Foundation.

Green Power

For almost a decade and a half, Severn CullisSuzuki lived on Haida Gwaii. Now she’s back, and ready to fight. by

Nathan Caddell

PATRICK SHANNON

BC ent

M I S S I N G M I D D L E S O LU T I O N S / I WA S A T E E N AG E S P Y / B E AC H B U N N I E S

Big Plans Larry Beasley helped create the Building Community Society to address housing issues in the Downtown Eastside.

Severn Cullis-Suzuki saw her bat signal in the air and knew it was time to come home. The former Vancouverite and her husband, Haida member Judson Brown, had spent 14 years raising their two children on the remote archipelago that is Haida Gwaii when she saw smoke from the California and Alaska wildfires billowing through the air in the summer of 2020. Some signs are just too literal to ignore, it seems. She decided then that, after working for nearly a decade and a half to help restore the Haida language, she had to return to the city and make her mark in the fight against climate change. “It was kind of like a wakeup call, a reminder,” Cullis-Suzuki remembers. “I hadn’t forgotten, but it was a real slap in the face that climate change is coming and that it’s going to affect everywhere on this planet. So I had this real feeling of, ‘Oh my gosh, I have to get back in the fight.’”

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City

AT I S S U E

Not long after the smoke appeared on the island, Stephen Cornish, then CEO of the David Suzuki Foundation, stepped down to take the position of general director of the Doctors Without Borders operational centre in Geneva, Switzerland. CullisSuzuki, daughter of the eponymous David and a graduate of both Yale (bachelor of science and evolutionary biology) and the University of Victoria (ethnoecology), emerged as a natural frontrunner for the same position with a new title—executive director. To avoid any charges of nepotism, her parents were recused from the process. (Suzuki’s mother, renowned author Tara Cullis, is a board member and co-founder of the foundation and her father is still very involved.) Cullis-Suzuki herself rejects the idea that the organization lured her from the island with the position, and insists that she feels grateful and lucky to have been appointed. But in talking with board chair Margot Young, another narrative emerges. “She’s just an amazingly inspiring person—so talented,” says Young, who serves as a professor in the Allard School of Law at UBC. “The whole board feels fortunate to have been able to persuade her to take up the executive directorship. It’s a very exciting era with her at the helm.” Not exactly Succession. But whenever you share a last name with the organization you work for, it’s easy to question the validity of such a high-profile appointment. Young is steadfast in her belief that CullisSuzuki, even after taking 14 years away from the environmental justice beat, was and is the right choice to lead the DSF into the future. “She brings a long history of activism on environmental justice,” says Young. “And a clear track record of commitment and impressive insight into what the issues are, and how we can work collectively toward solutions to the issues around environmental degradation,

environmental justice and the other aspects that put us at this critical moment of climate crisis.” In some ways, the designation has been a long time coming. It was 30 years ago that a 12-year-old CullisSuzuki stepped onto the stage at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro and delivered a speech that became a viral hit before viral hits existed. Earlier this year, Only a Child, a short film directed by Simone Giampaolo based on the speech, was shortlisted for an Academy Award. Among that speech’s

about politics and things that are working and aren’t working. For us, that’s like a Friday night out.” These days, Cullis-Suzuki is doing far more than talk. She’s the executive director of an 86-person organization that has three offices across the country and a strong voice to the powers that be. “A big part of what DSF does is analysis and figuring out what the policies are that would be effective in making a dent in pollution in Canada,” she says. “What are those systemic changes we need to see? And then lobbying for

She brings a long history of activism on environmental justice. And a clear track record of commitment and impressive insight into what the issues are, and how we can work collectively toward solutions to the issues around environmental degradation, environmental justice and the other aspects that put us at this critical moment of climate crisis.” m a rg o t you ng , prof e s s or at t h e a l l a r d s c ho ol of l aw at u b c

many memorable lines is this doozy: “If you don’t know how to fix it, please, stop breaking it.” About 10 years after that speech, Cullis-Suzuki met Ginger GosnellMyers at an Action Canada Fellowship public policy program for emerging young leaders. They became lifelong friends. “Sev is really curious about how you’re doing, both personally and with managing the stresses of work and family. It’s a really holistic friendship, for lack of a better word,” says Gosnell-Myers, a fellow at SFU’s Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue. “I find that our conversations and time together are always about striking that balance and having fun. Fun for us is talking about what you learned, talking about your perspectives on the issues. We’ll talk

those changes to be seen through our representatives in office.” But there’s also the grassroots battle, and she hasn’t turned her back to that either. “We need the mobilization and public engagement—getting people to feel like they have tools to organize,” she says, referencing the foundation’s Future Ground Network project, which acts as a hub for those who are interested in organizing something in their community but don’t necessarily know how. “We can’t just focus on politicians. We need the public in the streets to back up the arguments and push political leaders to actually do something.” Asked how the average Canadian can contribute right now, CullisSuzuki gives an answer that a lot of

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City

AT I S S U E

people might not want to hear: “One really easy thing we can do is we can cut down on our meat consumption. North Americans eat a lot more meat per capita than pretty much anywhere else on the planet.” Fair enough—scientists have estimated that the livestock sector is responsible for about 18 percent of total humancaused greenhouse gas emissions. But she also acknowledges that expecting everyone to focus on the long-term is a pipe dream. “We need systems to change, because we can’t wait for all the individuals to change their habits,” she says—and if she feels any frustration over that barrier, it is belied by the warmth that wafts out through the Zoom screen, and by her smile, which, when it appears, seems wider than False Creek. “It’s so hard in so many cases. Right now, the paths of least resistance are the destructive options. When I had

We need the mobilization and public engagement—getting people to feel like they have tools to organize. We can’t just focus on politicians. We need the public in the streets to back up the arguments and push political leaders to actually do something.” S e v e r n C u l l i s -S u z u k i , E x e c u t i v e D i r e c t or at t h e D av i d S u z u k i F ou n dat ion children, I realized that I had to take care of them, deal with diapers, food, everything, and if you shop like a responsible consumer, things are more expensive. It’s so hard for an individual to make all those decisions all the time.” But in case you thought you were off the hook, not so fast. Cullis-Suzuki argues that everyone has to consider how they can make an impact. “We all

have to think about our positionality. How can we affect change? Are there others that think like me? Can I organize with my workmates to de-carbonize the office? These are the kinds of things we have to start doing if we’re going to have a chance of hitting the de-carbonizing numbers we need to.” One gets the sense that she’s not blowing smoke.

What’s one thing you’d change about Vancouver?

Founder of MA+HG Architects Inc.

f R o i

t e p o

SUGGESTION BOX

MARIANNE AMODIO

I would change the zoning in our single-family and two-family neighbourhoods across all areas of the city to include row houses, stacked townhouses and some commercial uses, such as retail and artist studios. The inclusion of Missing Middle housing typologies would let us return to our history, which allowed for a greater diversity of housing choices. It represents a simple action that responds directly to issues of economic, social and environmental sustainability. Reviving neighbourhood grocery stores

h q F | lu o e y c t a

and other small retail businesses and artist’s studios in the heart of single- and two-family residential zones would support neighbourhood micro-economies and community building. Who doesn’t love getting a coffee at Le Marché St. George or the Mighty Oak? Embracing these changes would improve the livability, vibrancy and resiliency of our communities. These types of housing lend themselves to innovative, interesting and creative architectural designs that would create diverse and finegrained streetscapes.

lu a lo a n t

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Faith Wils

SHAPING VANCOUVER

Luxury redefined

faithwilson | Christie’s International Real Estate have a finger on the pulse of what luxury means to Vancouverites in a post-pandemic world

e may be on the better side of the pandemic, but there is no question that it’s effects will linger. In the real estate industry, it has shifted people’s priorities and redefined the concept of luxury for the better. “As our sense of wellness and home evolve, our perspective on what qualifies as luxury has changed,” says Faith Wilson, Realtor with faithwilson | Christie’s International Real Estate, a luxury-focused real estate brokerage offering a modern brand and online experience backed by more than 250 years of luxury experience. “The consumer is taking the lead on what they now require in a luxury home and articulating and actualizing those needs.” This change in the psyche of the luxury market has ignited emerging amenity trends in Vancouver that look at all aspects of luxury lifestyle and experience, including access to nature, places in the home dedicated to wellness, and security. “The pandemic gave us pause and focused our attention on what is most

important: being safe and staying connected to family and friends,” Wilson says. “It has driven this change toward health and wellness, the environment, sustainability in our consumerism and what people actually need to be happy. These trends will continue as businesses open up and we are able to travel with more ease in the near future.” Another way to look at it is, less is more. Home buyers are seeking uncluttered, aesthetically pleasing spaces that promote good energy. This will also play out in how the architecture relates to the landscape and in the materials used to build the structure, while integrating water, indigenous plants and esthetically pleasing and calming spaces in the home and on the property. “Locally sourced materials, energy efficiency, smart home tech, green roofs and walls, vegetable gardens and fruit trees—these are all coming together to create a calm, beautiful aesthetic,” Wilson says. “It would be fair to say that homebuyers are looking for a holistic approach and aesthetic

in their new homes. Dedicated spaces for wellness, yoga, massage, saunas, gyms or pools are important. Being connected to nature will become more and more important. And knowing family is safe means having good security—that is always a must.” As buyers re-evaluate their lifestyle and living spaces with the ability to work remotely, more Vancouverites have also been moving to the Okanagan Valley, where fw has successfully expanded with top real estate agents in Kelowna, Osoyoos and Penticton. As the Valley’s real estate market matures and evolves, fw will play a key role in the luxury real estate market in the region, with a new Kelowna HQ to open in early 2022.

Learn more at faithwilson.com faithwilsonrealty faithwilsonrealty faithwilsonrealty

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W H AT I T ’ S L I K E T O

What It’s Like to Buy Booze as a Minor for the B.C. Government

Alyssa Hirose

“My agent number was 006. I’m dead serious,” says Chris Girard. “I loved the thrill of going in there and them not knowing I was underage.” For most teens, a job waiting tables or folding and re-folding cheap sweaters is as good as it gets—but for the high school students employed by the provincial Liquor and Cannabis Regulation Branch, work involves placing a frosty six-pack of Molson Canadian on a liquor store counter and seeing what happens. Section 78 of the Liquor Control and Licensing Act forbids anyone under 19 from purchasing alcohol, but 78(4) clarifies that the rule doesn’t apply to “a minor who is employed... to test the compliance of a licensee.” That includes the Minors as Agents Program, a governmentsanctioned team of police and teens who work together to enforce the law. And depending on your point of view, it’s either very cool or very sketchy. Girard was employed by the program from ages 17 to 18. “I was paid $19 an hour, plus a meal stipend,” he remembers, “and it definitely made for some interesting

stories. Once, a suspicious liquor store employee tried to follow me back to the car, and I lost him in a mall.” Oh, and the job was also an opportunity to flex some of his drama club skills. “There wasn’t really an acting aspect, but you did have to keep a straight face and stay calm in stressful situations,” says Girard, who is now 24. The teens aren’t allowed to lie. “If they did ask for ID, I would say my wallet was in the car, which it was,” he shares. He’d leave to get said wallet and not come back. “And if they asked how old I was, I’d tell them, ‘I’m 17,’ and they’d be like... ‘What the heck are you doing here?’” Girard describes himself as a tall but “not very fashion-forward” teenager—he wore jeans, a T-shirt and running shoes to work. He “retired” nine months before he turned 19. On the job, he was accompanied by two handlers: one in the establishment, one waiting in the car. Whether or not he was successful in purchasing, the agents would debrief with the seller, and again with the teen. One time, the team arranged to “hit” eight spots in Whistler... but when the first four all sold to him, they decided to call it a day. (In smaller towns, owners tended to call around and warn other stores once they’ve been caught.) “We were joking that we set Whistler on fire,” he remembers.

I felt like an agent, I felt cool—but people’s careers were at stake when they sold to me.” But from the perspective of a private liquor store—or restaurant— this work is often seen as sinister. The multi-thousand-dollar fines can be devastating. Some have taken the bureau to court to argue entrapment. Others will terminate the offending employee. “There were times where my handlers would follow up with a restaurant and come back saying the server got fired on the spot,” he says. Now several years out of the program, Girard feels less thrilled about his past participation in it. “I felt like an agent, I felt cool—but people’s careers were at stake when they sold to me,” he says. Because the program is perfectly legal, he figures the best way to keep folks from being fired is to publicize it. Plus, he adds, the adults he worked with always preached transparency. “The program is no secret,” says Girard. “And if everyone knows about it, that should work in the government’s favour—the goal is to prevent alcohol sales to minors, right?”

4 c L A

ILLUSTRATION BY ALYSSA HIROSE

The Minors as Agents Program sends underage teens into liquor stores, restaurants and pot shops to test the folks selling it. But after leaving the program, one participant has mixed feelings.

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ILLUSTRATION BY ALYSSA HIROSE

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Stacey McLachlan Byron Eggenschwiler

illustration by

Ah, the beach! Known for the sun, the surf, the sand and the hundreds upon hundreds of 10-pound rabbits. Or at least that’s the case down at Jericho, where a colony of feral bunnies have been running rampant for the past two decades, as if they don’t even care that Urban Rec has the volleyball courts booked. Rude! Though the waterfront is historically home to many creatures, great and small, from tiny crabs to weekend-dads trying to paddleboard, it’s true that wascally wabbits would not typically be among them. Jericho’s abundant bunny population is actually an affront to nature, a man-made phenomenon that has spiralled— albeit adorably—out of control. How can one tell that these beach bunnies don’t belong? It’s not just because they don’t have a membership to the Jericho Sailing Centre. It’s because these “big chonkers” (scientific term) are not North American rabbits: they’re European immigrants, bred to be pets and then abandoned by their owners. (I’m picturing several simultaneous dramatic Harry and the Hendersons moments, and I encourage you to do the same.)

In fact, abandoning your pet rabbit in the wild is actually a criminal act, defined as animal cruelty.” The Vancouver Park Board estimates that the first domestic rabbits were ditched here some time around the early 2000s. There’s no way for us to know what would’ve pushed someone to so callously abandon a pet, but let’s try to have some empathy for this faceless rabbit tosser—we all dealt with the fallout of Y2K in our own way. And at least they dropped their pet bunny in the most beautiful park in Vancouver to live out the rest of their days, and not, say, the creepy parking lot behind the Buy-Low.

In fact, among the shrubs, blackberry bushes and sailboat storage facilities, these now-feral rabbits got comfortable. Perhaps too comfortable. They bred like, well, rabbits, and the population swelled—in the summer, ranks can grow to 250—which only seems to inspire more in-a-bind rabbit owners to ditch their own pets there, too. It’s a vicious— again, albeit adorable—cycle! But just because something is adorable, and just because these rabbits have bravely moved past

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INFORMER

their abandonment issues to gently eat celery right out of a vacationing German toddler’s hand, and just because one time I saw one actually kissing a mouse (!) like I was in some sort of Disney-sponsored fever dream, that doesn’t mean it’s responsible, or even legal, to leave your pet rabbit at the beach. You might think you’re just letting her live out her best Jimmy Buffett fantasy, but it is upsetting the balance of nature—the predator-prey power dynamic here is seriously bonkers (another scientific term)—and wreaking havoc on the landscape. In fact, abandoning your pet rabbit in the wild is actually a criminal act, defined as animal cruelty. Yes, they breed prolifically enough to storm the beaches like so many cotton-tailed troops at Normandy, but most are suburban softies with no street smarts who are just being served up on a platter to the 11:03 AM area’s owls and coyotes. (This is also why I personally never go camping.) Ditch your bunny, and you’re setting them up for a decidedly unadorable demise. So even if you think you’re doing little Dennis Hopper (dibs on this perfect rabbit name for any future rabbits that may come into my life, forever and ever, amen) a favour by taking him on a permanent beach vacation, can you imagine how humiliating it would be to get caught in a sting operation and go to jail for that? From behind bars, you’d be left dreaming of a day that someone might scoop you up, take you to the beach and never come back. Got a question for City Informer? stacey.mclachlan@vanmag.com

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COVER STORY

How Do You Solve

a Problem Like Vancouver?

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VANCOUVER REGULARLY RANKS AS THE LEAST AFFORDABLE CITY IN NORTH AMERICA TO RENT OR OWN A HOME. BUT IT’S NOT TOO LATE TO TURN THE TIDE WITH A FEW BIG IDEAS. by

Kerry Gold

illustrations by Katy Dockrill, i2iart.com

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If Vancouver is going to fix its housing crisis, it’s going to need a major disruption to the way it’s been operating so far. And even then, housing experts say it’s going to take years to turn the ship around—because the city’s housing system is driven as much by the economy as it is by highly personal factors, including the way we build wealth for the future.

BIG IDEA

WWVD (What Would Vienna Do?) Imagine a city where a regulated private rental sector competes with social housing. Imagine social housing designed by star architects. In Vienna, social housing isn’t marginalized the way it is in Canada. That’s because nearly half of Viennese housing is nonprofit, with another 36 percent of residents living in private rentals and 19 percent in owner-occupied homes. “Vienna is a really great

model to emulate in terms of an inclusive, equitable and sustainable city,” says Sasha Tsenkova, a University of Calgary professor of planning at the school of architecture, planning and landscape. Tsenkova has studied housing issues around the world, and edited and contributed to the 2021 book Cities and Affordable Housing. Vienna, Amsterdam and Copenhagen feature as

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It won’t be easy, because land values in Vancouver have already made it nearly impossible to build cheaply. As one pundit put it, “You can turn the taps off, but the bathtub is already full.” On the upside, there is publicly owned land along with a lot of underdeveloped parking lots, one-storey buildings and backyards for rental housing. We could add gentle density, or aggressive density; we could ratchet up regulations around landlords; and, of course, we could throw more money into building social housing. We could also create alternative forms of housing and innovative financing models, for those who can’t give up on home ownership. Perhaps most importantly: we could open our minds and take a few lessons from jurisdictions elsewhere in the world, who’ve found ways to comfortably house their citizens.

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ISTOCK

Tower of Power Alterlaa, designed by Austrian architect, Harry Glück, is one of the biggest residential structures in Austria for people with low income. It was built during the ‘70s.

examples of sustained social housing with a social mix, as opposed to the segregated Canadian model. A big part of Vienna’s success is its publicly owned land, and there is a lot of it. Because of the property endowment fund created in 1975, the City of Vancouver owns a lot of land too—to the tune of about 700 properties, which makes it the largest landowner in the city. The Vienna thing to do would likely have been to hold onto Olympic Village and use it to develop a thriving community of affordable housing. But there are still lots of future opportunities to think more like Vienna. The City owns much of False Creek South, where residents of co-ops and affordable rental housing units are fighting to keep

COPENHAGEN 800,000

AMSTERDAM 1.15 MILLION

VIENNA 1.9 MILLION

METRO VANCOUVER 2.6 MILLION

Relative Populations

Vienna’s city government owns and manages 220,000 housing units, which represent about

25% of the city’s housing stock.

their community while the City considers its options on how to build new housing there. About 6,000 people live in the neighbourhood, and there are 573 units of co-op housing. Half of the co-op households, including many seniors, earn less than $60,000 a year. Vienna’s housing program is part of the city’s DNA, and of Austria’s national identity, says Tsenkova. Vienna has produced 2,000 to 3,500 units of social housing a year since the 2000s— and it’s not shoebox design, but highly innovative, sustainable developments built by private companies and high-profile architects, with financial support from government. About 44 percent of Vienna’s housing is subsidized, compared to 6 percent in Canada. “A lot of cities across Canada are moving in this direction inch by inch,” says Tsenkova. “This is not really something that can be fixed overnight—it’s something that will take decades. They need to plan for the long run, not come up with a program and wrap it up within a year or two.” Tsenkova says there are glimmers of hope. Although a tiny portion

Rents are regulated by the Vienna city government so that none of the residents pay more than

20-25% of their household income for housing.

of the sector, there’s a mighty ecosystem of committed nonprofit housing groups in Canada, and there’s the fact that the federal government is attempting to revive a national housing program. There’s even a 101-unit social housing project in East Vancouver underway called Vienna House—a partnership between provincial housing agency BC Housing, the City’s affordable housing agency and a Mennonite nonprofit group called More Than a Roof. They’re sharing information with experts in Vienna, who are returning the admiration with a housing project called Vancouver House.

More Than a Roof currently operates 5 facilities in the Lower Mainland offering housing and support to over 150 people.

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BIG IDEA

Build More Housing of All Types, the American Way The most contentious argument among Vancouver housing experts is the question of building more market-rate supply. Neoclassical economists, most of the developer community and many policymakers subscribe to the idea that when more supply of any kind is built—everything from subsidized units to luxury penthouses—the price of housing must inevitably fall. The theory goes like this: with an abundance of housing, the wealthier people move up into more expensive units, freeing up the cheaper housing. Those who oppose the idea generally do so on the grounds that they’ve never seen prices fall, despite steady condo development. And speculation guarantees unaffordability before the housing is even built. There’s growing consensus that flat-out marketrate development must be met with supports for low- and moderateincome groups. Otherwise, residents are displaced, old communities are busted up and a sea of high-priced condos and retail is created that makes for a pretty boring city. Washington, D.C.-based Michael Spotts, senior visiting research fellow for the Urban Land Institute’s Terwilliger Center for Housing, says the affordability crisis in North America is the result of low incomes and an insufficient supply of decent, attainable housing. “The biggest issues that cut across these different crises are a lack of income at the bottom end of the spectrum—and then, at the macro level, a pretty considerable housing

filtered down to lower-income households, he explains. Instead, we’re seeing older apartment buildings that are central and that previously served lower incomes being acquired and repurposed for moderate-income households. That happens when those middle- and even upper-income earners aren’t being served by the new production of housing stock. As a result, we see the price of older properties dramatically escalate.

Expanded supply does not necessarily lead to lower cost and more affordable supply. The key issue, driving up home prices… is the nature of demand and the impact of ‘supercharged’ purchasing power, enabled by accumulated equity, higher incomes and historically low mortgage rates.” — Steve Pomeroy, “Exploring Causes of Escalating Home Prices,” Canadian Housing Evidence Collaborative

production shortage,” he says. “And I think that those two elements create a vicious cycle, because typically you want the market to reach as far down the income spectrum as it possibly can, and that way you can use your available subsidies and supports to help those the market can’t reach.” Instead, he says, we’ve underproduced housing of all types. When the market isn’t functioning, higher-income households compete for older housing stock that would have normally

“I don’t want to imply that the market can and should solve everything by itself,” he adds. “But that’s kind of the starting point of how we got here... There is also considerable under-investment in affordable housing programs and subsidies. That’s the other side of the coin. Supply growth does not necessarily exclusively need to mean market-rate supply growth.” That supply, he says, includes the rehabilitation of neglected older housing stock in

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communities that haven’t seen as much population growth. In the world of housing advocacy, says Spotts, supply is only one leg of a three-legged-stool approach to affordability: there’s the production of more housing for a mix of incomes; the preservation of existing affordable housing; and the protection of subsidies and rental assistance for vulnerable renters. University of Glasgow professor and applied economist Duncan Maclennan, who has studied the Canadian housing system for many years, says that one option is mandatory “inclusionary zoning,” which would require that all new multi-unit construction of a certain size include a percentage of belowmarket units. This could ensure that there are greater options and more diversity than the market would allow on its own, and without government subsidies. Such policies typically help create moderate-priced

housing, and are not considered a replacement for subsidized housing. In Vancouver, the City doesn’t have the authority to mandate inclusionary zoning, so creating such a system would require legislative change. Instead, the City typically negotiates for below-market housing in exchange for density bonuses, which is a key strategy for delivering social housing units in the city. “Canada has been slow to use it, and I think Vancouver could look to the U.K., but also to California, where a lot of housing is inclusionary zoning,” says Maclennan. “What we found in the U.K. was that the first couple of years, when [inclusionary zoning was] introduced in the early ’90s, there was [pushback] from the development industry. But once the rules of the game were clear, what happened was that it was reflected in lower land prices... There was a synergy there that worked out really well.”

New Findings from Capital on Tap Say Vancouver Is Right Behind New York and San Francisco When It Comes to the Cost of Building a Home Alyssa Hirose by

Every once in a while, it would be nice to get a press release announcing that some third-party researcher has crowned Vancouver “The Best City in the World for Corgis” or “The Cheapest Place to Get a Gin and Tonic.” Alas, that’s never the case—for those trying to get into the real estate market, there’s nothing to brag about. A few factors don’t make the picture a rosy one: Metro Vancouver home sales hit a record high in 2021, and baby boomers are opting to stay in their houses till they die

“If housing starts per capita in Metro Vancouver in 2022 were at the same level as the 1960s and 1970s, we would be building about 34,000 new housing units. That number is well above the region’s alltime highs of 28,141 housing starts in 2019 and 27,914 in 2016. Metro Vancouver can, and should, build housing at a faster rate than we have seen in the past couple of decades.” — from Upzoning Metro Vancouver’s Low-Density Neighbourhoods for Housing Affordability, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives

continued on pg. 30

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continued from pg. 29 rather than downsize (which means less available housing—and pricier listings). But hey, if there are barely any homes and those homes are hella expensive, maybe you can build your own? Not in Vancouver! Unless you’re a millionaire or willing to go deep into serious debt, of course. Capital on Tap, a U.S. business credit card provider, recently announced that

Are “Missing Middle” Homes the Answer to Metro Vancouver’s Affordability Crisis? By changing zoning rules to allow for higher density that includes a range of housing types, the region could bring down property prices and combat climate change, a new report argues. If Metro Vancouver wants to tackle housing affordability and climate change, building more detached homes and doubling down on condo towers isn’t the answer. That’s the message from a new report by the B.C. office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA), which calls for the region to increase density by boosting its supply of “missing middle” housing. Getting there will require a regulatory shift, argues the report’s author, CCPA senior economist Marc Lee, and he recommends a suite of actions:

Vancouver is the third most expensive city in the world to build a house. Company researchers estimated the cost at US$2,483 ($3,106) per square metre, which puts Vancouver at No. 9 without factoring in size—but once you multiply that by the average size of a home, the total is US$398,596, or nearly $500,000. Of the 50 cities the study followed, number one is New York (US$489,959), while San Francisco (US$439,942) takes second place.

• Opening up detached housing zones across the region to double or triple current densities. • Focusing on the missing middle, including a range of housing types that include things like row housing and multiplexes, small apartments, and alternative tenure arrangements like co-ops, community land trusts and cohousing. The emphasis would be on small-lot development with minimal land assembly and parking requirements. • Requiring all new market development to contribute to greater affordability— either by designating a portion of the development as affordable housing, or contributing to a levy that builds affordable housing elsewhere. The result should keep land prices in check so that gains from upzoning would not disproportionately go to existing landowners. • Supporting non-market

In a press release, Capital on Tap said that demand for materials, availability of space and availability of labour all factor into the total cost of building an average home—“so it’s not surprising that the most expensive places to build are also large cities where construction work is seemingly never-ending.” The company also noted that materials costs have risen during the pandemic, with the price of rebar, timber and copper pipe soaring 40 percent in some places.

development by nonprofit housing developers with a focus on creating more affordable housing. The CCPA recommends a stronger public sector presence in developing new affordable housing through waived fees and expedited approval processes. • Developing a robust system of renter protections to preserve existing affordable rental suites, including rights of first refusal, temporary accommodation and buyouts. The provincial government could play a key role in these changes, Lee maintains—for example, by using its rezoning powers and letting developers build nonprofit housing on public land. “Our region’s population will continue to increase in the coming decades, and it’s time to build the housing we need for the future,” Lee said in a release. “The decisions we make now will have an impact for decades down the road, and we must

address the critical issues of affordable housing shortfalls and the climate emergency.” As the report points out, higher-density housing is better for the environment. The idea: if people live closer to workplaces, public services, shopping and other amenities, and in more energy-efficient multi-unit buildings, their environmental and carbon footprint will be smaller. At the same time, reducing the need for car ownership can lower the cost of building new housing (as less parking space will be required) as well as the monthly costs for households, the report states. Landowners might not like the CCPA’s proposed upzoning, but according to Lee it comes down to fairness. “At the heart of this conversation is the unequal distribution of urban land enforced by zoning, the rules that specify what type of buildings can be built where.” —Nick Rockel

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BIG IDEA

Finland has a highly subsidized social housing program that houses people at reasonable rents and that has, most notably, drastically reduced homelessness from about 20,000 people 35 years ago to 4,300 today. The majority of unhoused people in Finland are living with friends or relatives. Sleeping in the rough has been all but eliminated in Helsinki. The general housing benefit last year in Finland was two billion euros, says Juha Kaakinen, chief executive officer of Y-Foundation, one of Finland’s major nonprofit housing providers. In Finland, he says, it’s possible to get 80 percent of one’s rent subsidized, in either social or market-rate housing. Kaakinen believes that the only way to conquer a housing crisis is to build or acquire permanent, secure housing for people who are homeless and struggling. Temporary housing, such as hotel rooms or hostels, doesn’t cut it. The idea is: house people first and then help them solve their problems— not the other way around. Housing rights activists say Canada could also make addressing homelessness a top priority, much like the way the federal government found emergency income funding during the pandemic. The Finns were resourceful. Starting in the 1980s, Y-Foundation obtained grants from the government to purchase apartments. The money came from the government-run Finland Slot Machine Association. Today, 25 percent of all new housing in Finland’s urban areas must be for social housing, says

Kaakinen—and policies are in place to foster a socio-economic mix and no visible difference with private market-rate housing. There’s no Finnish version of the “poor door,” such as we saw at the W32 building in the Woodward’s complex, where social housing tenants had a separate entrance. In the Finnish model, subsidized loans to build affordable social housing, built by municipal development companies or nonprofit groups, have an amortization of 40 years. Capital costs are covered by the rents. Affordable social housing is built on public land, and the greatest concentration is in the major cities. An abundance of affordable housing keeps marketrate prices in check, Kaakinen says. “The only way to cut the rent level and make it more affordable is to make sure there is more affordable social housing,” he says. “You can’t rely on the private market.”

Finland can boast that their most vulnerable people aren’t living in tents or hotels, but in safe, secure, permanent housing—with a host of practical programs, including education and training—for as long as they like. For Canada, copying Finland’s housingfirst approach is merely a matter of political will.

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COURTESY OF THE Y FOUNDATION.

Emulate Finland’s Prioritization of Ending Homelessness

FINLAND vs VANCOUVER

1989 2020

In 1989, there were over

16,000

homeless people in Finland. By 2020, that number had shrunk to just over

4,000.

COURTESY OF THE Y FOUNDATION.

Scandi Cool (clockwise from top) Homelessness is all but eradicated in Finland, thanks to an innovative approach called “Housing First”; Juha Kaakinen, chief executive officer of Y-Foundation, one of Finland’s major nonprofit housing providers (which also built the project above).

It’s not perfect: there are waiting lists for social housing, and private-sector rents are creeping up. There’s also that growing housing allowance bill, a hefty amount for a country of just 5.5 million people. But the cost of properly housing and supporting the most vulnerable is offset by the savings in public expenditures (such as social services), which are estimated at around 9,600 to 15,000 euros per person per year. Finland can boast that their

The Housing Finance and Development Centre of Finland reported 721 people living outside or in temporary shelters in 2020. In the same year, Metro Vancouver counted 547 unsheltered homeless people (and the total population of Metro Vancouver is about half that of Finland’s).

most vulnerable people aren’t living in tents or hotels, but in safe, secure, permanent housing—with a host of practical programs, including education and training—for as long as they like. For Canada, copying Finland’s housing-first approach is merely a matter of political will.

Vancouver’s bias against homeless people is inextricable from the biases against race and mental illness. In 2020, 39 percent of the total 2,095 homeless folks living in Vancouver (sheltered and unsheltered) identified as Indigenous. 60% reported addiction

45% had mental health issues

26% had suffered a brain injury

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BIG IDEA

Make Renovictions a Thing of the Past, Like the Scots In a national effort to improve housing and affordability, to increase tenants’ rights and to improve energy efficiency, Scotland is undertaking a massively ambitious housing strategy over the next two decades. Unlike England, Scotland stopped selling off its council housing years ago. The country introduced meaningful rights for unhoused people in 2003, and also unlike England, its social housing supply is growing, says Kenneth Gibb, director of the Glasgow-based U.K. Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence. Scotland’s new housing strategy is centred on social and affordable supply programs and aims to raise all housing quality standards, as well as to retrofit all housing to net zero by 2045. It even aims to end homelessness and speculation. “I do recognize that many of my colleagues in the rest of the U.K. look on in envy at the different and arguably progressive path being taken in Scotland,” Gibb said in an email. Scotland has a long history of subsidizing its housing, and “social landlords” are the majority. The private rental sector is small; only about 15 percent of the population relies on market-rate rentals. There are parallels between the Scottish example and the situation in B.C. Scotland put an end to fixedterm rentals. B.C. did so as well. Rents can only be increased annually in Scotland; ditto in B.C. (and not increased at all during a pandemic). Scottish law can penalize properties left vacant for more than six months.

EVICTIONS IN B.C.

B.C. is the eviction capital of Canada. According to a 2018 Stats Canada Survey,

10 percent of B.C. residents who moved in the last 5 years were forced to do so by landlord or bank foreclosure. That’s

c f

70 percent higher than the national rate.

Scotland’s new housing strategy is centred on social and affordable supply programs and aims to raise all housing quality standards, as well as to retrofit all housing to net zero by 2045. B.C. has a speculation and vacancy tax that amounts to a penalty. Vancouver could follow the Scottish example further and also beef up its renter protections by creating a landlord registry that would ensure quality standards, much the same way we licence daycare operators. Through enforced maintenance of building standards, landlords wouldn’t so easily have the excuse to renovict.

TO TOP THAT: a UBC report in 2021 found that renters in Metro Vancouver are evicted at a rate

2x higher k than renters in the Greater Toronto area.

New renoviction laws came into effect in July 2021, where landlords must now apply to the Residential Tenancy Branch (rather than sending an eviction notice directly to the tenant). They can only evict for renovations that are “necessary to prolong or sustain the use of the rental unit or building.” It should end renovictions for cosmetic or minor changes—and allow tenants a route to challenge the necessity of the renoviction.

P O

ww 34

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BIG IDEA

Create Our Own Innovative Financing Options which formed in 2021, is a group of longtime renters of eight cottages in Horseshoe Bay. When their landlord decided to sell, he supported their purchase of the little cottages as part of a co-ownership community. As tenants in common, each member of the group is on title, owns a percentage of the property, and shares a mortgage. Vancouver realtor Noam Dolgin helped the tenantsturned-owners put the deal together. He has made it a specialty to facilitate co-ownership, sometimes with investment partners, in order to purchase property that buyers could never otherwise afford. “I’ve helped friends buy multiple units in the same apartment building, helped clients purchase units in cohousing communities and in collectively owned buildings,” says Dolgin. “When you start to think outside the traditional strata and single-family — Michael Geller, president of home boxes, a lot of options open up.” the Geller Group In Canada, private investors have taken note of the growing co-ownership model. In the last year, Toronto company Ourboro These lifetime leases, which are got into co-ownership as a business common in the U.K., are typically by contributing to young buyers’ listed at market price, and residents down payments in exchange for a buy the right to occupy a unit for as long as they want. They pay an upfront share of future equity. They help with a first home, not a forever home, lump sum and a monthly fee of $550 says Alex Kjorven, Ourboro’s chief toward operating costs. The tenure product officer. The agreement is more secure than renting and doesn’t require mortgage payments. There’s also co-ownership. The Horseshoe Bay Cottagers’ Collective, Ourburo will co-invest up to $250,000. Joint Account The Horseshoe Bay Cottagers’ Collective

For someone who has spent their career in the performing arts, the average annual retirement income is $20,000—half that of other retirees.

Most of the people I know don’t dream of growing up and living in rental housing. Innovative financing programs are a major solution.”

COURTESY OF ALE X ANDER HOMES

Back home in Canada, developer, urban planner and SFU adjunct professor Michael Geller says new financing models would help buyers acquire secure housing. The longtime housing expert is a regular speaker on affordable housing, and says there is a way to alleviate the pain of high housing costs: it’s a matter of policymakers and regulators having the will to offer alternatives. “Most of the people I know don’t dream of growing up and living in rental housing,” says Geller. “Innovative financing programs are a major solution.” Some Vancouver residents have proven resourceful enough to do it on their own. Local theatre people brought the life-lease model to Vancouver at the Performing Arts Lodge (PAL) downtown. PAL launched an eight-storey building in 2006, featuring social housing devoted to people in the arts.

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WHAT IT TAKES TO BUY A HOME According to a 2021 survey from the National Bank of Canada, you would need a

$269,994

household income

COURTESY OF ALE X ANDER HOMES

to buy an average home in Vancouver—average being $1.5 million. And in order to do so, they would have to save for 431 months—or 36 years—to build a 10 percent down payment.

lasts for 10 years—reasonable, she says, given that research shows most people stay in a property for five to seven years. Buyers can buy out Ourboro’s interest at any time, for fair market value, and they don’t pay rent or additional interest, notes Kjorven. Only the buyer is on title because they take out the mortgage. Ourboro funding comes from real estate investors, so instead of competing with those investors, first-time buyers are effectively partnering with them. Kjorven says the way we own homes is ripe for disruption. Adds Geller: “The point is, don’t just look at the forms of housing, but look at different financing options as a way to affordability. These solutions have a place.”

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Elysian Health: A New Model for Health Care Holistic, preventative, goal centred health care that helps you live your best life, longer.

“Our primary purpose is providing access to an integrated team of highly skilled healthcare professionals working together to help patients achieve their individual health goals,” says Donovan Jones, CEO of Elysian Health Group. “We have been fortunate to have access to an amazing team and state-of-theart technology enabling us to create a seamless, compassionate and customized patient experience.” The focus on preventative healthcare starts with creating an individualized baseline for each patient and then delivering care through integrating modalities, such as general practice physicians, neurologists, cardiologists, pharmacy, chiropractic, massage, physiotherapy, naturopathic doctors and mental health practitioners. But to provide full-spectrum care, Elysian has its own lab, dieticians and strength and conditioning trainers, and is readying the launch of its own medical imaging and diagnostics,

including an MRI, CT, fluoroscopy, ultrasound and Dexascan. Elysian is currently adding patients for the Concierge Program focused on preventative personalized care. The program leverages the latest in medical, nutritional, kinesthetic and neurosciences to assess, optimize and strengthen mind, body and spirit. Care coordinators manage patient care within their integrated team and help to navigate any exigent or urgent care through external partnerships in the complex health system. The program starts with an end-to-end baseline assessment including bloodwork, stress testing, functional mobility, mental acuity and a full range of diagnostics. Goals are then set between the patient and Elysian with ongoing care delivered with these goals held central. Demand for services has led Elysian to create a specialized program for businesses. The Executive Health Program (EHP) involves a deep dive health assessment that includes blood work, cardiac risk assessment, functional mobility, mental acuity, ophthalmic and auditory screening, and body composition scanning. A personalized health report is

DONOVAN JONES, CEO OF ELYSIAN HEALTH GROUP

provided that provides the patient with a baseline that can be used to build and support a health plan. “A patient coming to Elysian might be looking for preventative care options or looking for an integrated team bringing together traditional medicine, diagnostics and holistic care,” Jones says. “Treatment in one of our programs might include a baseline analysis followed by ongoing care provided by our dietician, naturopathic doctor, pharmacist and strength and conditioning coach who work together with a physician to achieve a patient’s individualized goals.” The 12,000-square-foot, spa-like South Surrey clinic has been opening in phases since June 2021 and another, smaller community clinic will open in White Rock in April. Elysian also has its eye on Kelowna and Victoria as the next sites for its clinics, which are currently in the design stages. Learn more at: elysianhealth.ca elysianhealthgroup

ABHISHEK JOSHI

lysian Health Group is changing the health care narrative through integrating traditionally separate centers of care into one patient centered team.

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Culture THE TICKE T

STEP IN TIME

Next Act This spring, Wolfe will be debuting her first solo dance short film in collaboration with VFX specialist Shea Oracheski. Stay tuned for movement and effects that will hit you right in the feels.

ABHISHEK JOSHI

a ,

04 11:27 AM

VA N M AG .C O M/C I T Y

T H I N G S TO D O / Y E S WAY PÂT É / F R OZ E N Y E T FA B U LO U S / LOV E U N D E R G R O U N D

Ballet and street dancing don’t often take the stage as one. And yet, at an open audition for local street-based dance group Ouro Collective, emerging contemporary dancer Shana Ai Wolfe felt an instant connection—even though she was surrounded by hip-hoppers, waackers and breakdancers. “Figuring out how to communicate with them didn’t actually feel like a barrier to cross, because we are all dancers and movers,” explains Wolfe. “We speak the same language.” It’s a language Wolfe grew up fluent in. As a teen, she completed Arts Umbrella’s half-day training program (meaning she spent mornings hunkered down in high school and afternoons sweating it out at the studio). “Dance has always been the lens through which I see the world,” she says. “My body craves movement.” She did another two years of post-secondary training with Arts Umbrella and a season apprenticing with Ballet BC before taking a brief hiatus to live in Japan, and once she returned to Vancouver she joined Ouro Collective. The collective is made up of artists from all across the dance spectrum. “Our choreography always has a lot of group work, but not necessarily unison,” Wolfe says. Even so, there’s a harmony created by each dancer showcasing their unique skills: she describes their collective movement as “inventive and engaging.” What seem like opposite arts thrive together, and the whole is greater than the sum of its parts in the most spectacular way. @ourocollective

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THE TICKET

SANSEI: THE STORYTELLER DATE April 28 VENUE UBC’s Chan Centre for the Performing Arts COST From $15 chancentre.com Award-winning creator and performer Kunji Mark Ikeda shares a dark chapter of Japanese Canadian history— and its ongoing effects—in this stunning dance show, tackling internment, racism and resistance.

Feed Your Calendar Events are—dare we say—feeling close-ish to normal again. Here are the best to-dos in the city for springtime. by

Sansei: The Storyteller mixes history with humour.

Alyssa Hirose

CLOUD ALBUM DATE March 11 to May 1 VENUE The Polygon Gallery COST By donation thepolygon.ca Clear blue skies? Boring. This new photography exhibition is all about clouds—from old-school gelatin silver prints to the most modern satellite snaps, there are over 250 culturally significant works on display. MONSTER JAM DATE March 18 to 20 VENUE Pacific Coliseum COST From $20 monsterjam.com What we’ve really been missing during this pandemic (besides, you know, human connection) is monster trucks. No longer. Monster Jam returns this year with freestyle, skills, donuts and racing competitions between 12,000-pound vehicles. Get amped. CANADA SEVENS DATE April 16 and 17 VENUE BC Place COST From $134 canadasevens.com Lovers of rugby (and folks with a serious commitment to costumes) unite. Watch some of the world’s best athletes compete over two eight-hour days of pure party time.

FLAX HOME’S POPPY BARLEY POP-UP DATE April 28 to May 1 VENUE Flax Home Showroom shopflaxhome.com If the shoe fits (and is ethically produced) wear it. Edmontonbased ethical shoemaker Poppy Barley is popping up inside Flax Home this spring, so you can try both luxury footwear and super-soft linens in one place.

Apparel brand Poppy Barley visits Flax Home on April 28.

Kalinga (Care) is a documentary following local Filipina caregivers and nannies. See Grave Digger, the “black and green wrecking machine,” at Monster Jam on March 18.

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DOXA DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL DATE May 5 to 15 VENUE Online COST $10 doxafestival.ca This year’s online fest provides easy access to the best new documentaries—once you buy a ticket, you can stream your chosen film for 48 hours. Local highlights include Kalinga (Care), which shares the stories of Filipina caregivers and nannies in Vancouver, and Nude to Me, a deep dive into Canada’s oldest nudist club.

SANSEI: ISA AC CARTER; GRAVE DIGGER: JOHN IGRAS; CANADA SEVENS: JORDAN LEIGH; K ALINGA (CARE): BELEN GARCIA

Culture

Cloud Album. Organisation for the Defense Against Aircrafts, Paris, Verdier device beginning to release smoke (1 minute after opening the taps), 1914-1918. Gelatin silver print, album. Courtesy of the Archive of Modern Conflict.

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SANSEI: ISA AC CARTER; GRAVE DIGGER: JOHN IGRAS; CANADA SEVENS: JORDAN LEIGH; K ALINGA (CARE): BELEN GARCIA

Shining a light on women and addiction.

We’re dealing with a health care crisis in BC and women are being overlooked. Availability and accessibility to treatment options for women living with addiction are limited and virtually inaccessible—leaving them with little to no options for recovery. This March, as the world celebrates women, the HERstory of Hope campaign is shining a light on the unique challenges and traumas experienced by women living with addiction.

YOU CAN HELP. Visit herstoryofhope.ca today and share your words of hope for women facing addiction.

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Culture

ON THE RISE

l Here, the designer wears her Harmony wrap top. Her Liberty dress (left) doubles as a jacket; the gorgeous Glory dress comes in a stunning silk organza (below).

STANDING OUT

Oge Ajibe’s bright and bold size-inclusive fashion won’t fade into the background. by

Alyssa Hirose

portrait by

Evaan Kheraj

Ogechukwu Ajibe has filled a gap in the industry with her playful plus-sized fashion—but it’s a gap she didn’t even know existed until she moved to Vancouver. “In Nigeria, almost everybody’s body is big. I didn’t know this was an issue,” she says with a laugh. In 2016, Ajibe went to fashion school and started blogging and styling, occasionally sewing her own clothes for shoots. She participated in a fashion show at SFU on a whim, and was surprised when an audience member asked to buy one of her dresses. “She was a Black girl with hips and boobs, and said they didn’t make clothes like this in her size,” Ajibe remembers. She sold the dress for $55 and decided to try her hand at making custom clothing. She designed and crafted made-to-order dresses for proms, weddings and other events, and when business slowed during the pandemic, she launched her eponymous label, Oge Ajibe. Since then, the designer has expanded her studio and now employs home sewers across the city, many of them mothers with young children. Fun prints and bright colours make her work stand out from the ultra-blah neutral hues of most plus-sized fashion. “My customers are tired of wearing the same thing all the time,” says Ajibe. Her dresses, jumpsuits and lounge sets (available in XS to 6XL) are versatile, but not basic. “What I am doing is not new—I’m just doing it in a way that can fit everybody,” she says. “That’s the way it should be.”

1/2_Horizo

In Nigeria, almost everybody’s body is big. I didn’t know this was an issue.”

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SHOWROOM: 8585 123 St. Surrey, BC V3W 6E2 HOURS: M-F 8am – 4:30pm 604.590.5999 | sales@pacificartstone.com | pacificartstone.com @pacificartstone

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Culture

THE DISH

DRINK THIS

PÂTÉ-ERS GOING TO PÂTÉ Imagine you’re a sculptor. In front of you sits a mass of clay, and it’s up to you to look at it and—through your combination of vision and experience—turn that unformed mass into something that moves people. How is that different from what Colin Johnson, one of the talented crew at St. Lawrence, does when he dons his heavy blue apron, approaches a mound of pastry dough and ingredients and begins to think: What if I painstakingly combined duck, pistachios, maple syrup and Grand Marnier? Or wild boar and black truffles? Or goose, chestnut, cranberry and sage? Johnson’s pâté en croûte—a middle-ages era dish that broadly consists of a terrine wrapped in pastry—has become one of the calling cards of St. Lawrence, simultaneously refined and comforting, sophisticated but not too posh. (We’ll credit Johnson’s Nottingham roots for that last part.) It’s an incredibly time-consuming process—from start to finish, Johnson can spend three days on one—but who worries about time when you’re making art? by

Neal McLennan

photograph by

Chris Giannakos

PENFOLDS S T. H E N R I S H I R A Z , $ 150 How often do you get the chance to drink the highest expression of something? Penfolds has been making St. Henri—their ode to aging shiraz in old wooden vats—since 1957, but there’s a critical mass who seem to think 2018 is in the running to stand on the podium of “greatest ever.” There’s a bushel of fresh, not heavy blackberries and blueberries kept on focus by a structure of tea and tobacco and a dash of mocha. Age it for three decades or drink it tomorrow—both are acceptable with this refined yet bold effort.

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Holy Napoli Calabrese

Culture

REVIEWS

HOLY NAPOLI: MOMENTS OF WILD

EYES ON THE PIES

We’re living in a golden age of frozen pizza, where there’s no longer a need to sacrifice taste for convenience. And it’s our local dough tossers who are leading the way. by

Neal McLennan

When we look back at the havoc that COVID hath wrought, there will be two lasting memories of goodness that emerged from the mess: mRNA vaccines, with their insouciant capitalization; and finally being able to get a frozen pizza that doesn’t taste approximately the same as the box it came in. Pre-pandemic, the state of frozen pizza was so bad that the mid-1990s arrival of Delissio and DiGiorno (the Blur and Oasis of gastrointestinal distress) served as a high-water mark on the basis of one modest claim—it tastes just like delivery—and was greeted with something akin to joy. But this new crop of locally made pies aims much higher: the bar is set close to the taste you’d find in one of the good Napoli pizza joints that we’ve come to expect as the elevated norm over the past decade. And they’re from here. And made with real ingredients. We set upon the current crop of local heroes to find out which ones are truly making good on the promise of bringing the magic of artisanal pie to the home front.

David Hawksworth’s entry into this game early last year was the first to show the possibility of translating the fare at Nightingale to the home market, and demand has been so great that production has still barely ramped up enough to satisfy the hungry masses. Nightingale’s Roasted Mushroom

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THE DEETS

Holy Napoli Size: 10-inch (advertised), 9½-inch (actual) Price: $12.50 Availability: Stong’s, Spud.ca, Fresh St. Market, Legends Haul, Safeway HOLY NAPOLI: MOMENTS OF WILD

The Skinny: Let’s go with the OG of proper frozen pizza—a brand that’s been reliably producing so-much-better-than-average pie for years and whose Stong’s/Spud pipeline makes it as ubiquitous in west-side homes as that bottle of Aesop hand soap in the guest bathroom. The tagline here is “made by people who care” and we believe it. They also use 00 flour (good) and ferment the dough for 24 hours (double good). But their claim that no two pizzas are the same is a tougher pill, because when this baby slides out of its cardboard box, it looks pretty uniform. It’s smaller and thicker than most (with a girth that hampers the cooking a small bit), but it’s cheaper than most, too.

Nightingale’s Spicy Salumi

The Verdict: Had we done this test two years ago, this would have been a winner. The pepperoni, which looks suss and massproduced on unpacking, actually chars up nicely, and the black olives seem like they were selected by someone who really does care. Grade: B. A solid option, light years better than what came before. They also sell reliable frozen dough.

Nightingale Size: 12½-inch Price: $15 Availability: Fresh St. Market, Stong’s, Gourmet Warehouse, Urban Fare, Legends Haul The Skinny: David Hawksworth’s entry into this game early last year was the first to show the possibility of translating the fare at Nightingale to the home market, and demand has been so great that production has still barely ramped up enough to satisfy the hungry masses. They come vacuum-sealed so you can see what you’re getting (current options are margherita, mushroom and spicy salumi) and they look handmade—right down to the seriously charred crust. The salumi is actually spicy, the mushrooms taste like they were foraged and our only complaint is that the middle can get a bit soft—you bake this straight on the rack and I had one unfortunate sinkhole-effect incident that resulted in cheese dropping all over the bottom of the oven, but even then I had a smile on my face. The Verdict: Amazing. You have to watch this pizza to make sure you don’t overcook, but if you pay attention you get a crust (from 72-hour-aged dough) that has just the perfect amount of chew and crunch and toppings that mirror the quality from the home restaurant. The best frozen pizza we’ve ever had. Grade: A+

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Culture

REVIEWS

Munch by Nicli Size: 12½-inch Price: $15+ Availability: Munch.ca, Legends Haul The Skinny: Nicli’s now-closed Gastown location earned a solid claim to bringing the proper Napoli pizza craze to town when it opened in 2011. Fast forward a decade and they’ve decamped for the North Shore, but they’re bringing the love back across the Burrard Inlet in the form of frozen pies. These are half again as thin as Nightingale’s and have very little sauce at all but the brand also features the greatest number of options (11, including blue cheese mushroom and vegan margherita) and offers free delivery (along with a killer promo for first-time customers), which is a boon. Like with Nightingale, the crust here is a quantum leap over any frozen pizza you’ve had before—yeasty, and more crunchy than chewy. The Verdict: This is a superlative pizza. It’s Scott to Nightingale’s Amundsen— were it not for Nightingale, it would be the best frozen pizza I’ve ever had. Grade: A

Vagabond Size: 11½-inch Price: $16 Availability: Legends Haul, Vagabondpies.com The Skinny: Owner Devon Thor moved from Vancouver to the Island to attend baking school and her COVID venture—named after her peripatetic ways—combines her love of sourdough with her love of pie. The aged sourdough crust and plant-based offerings ( they make their cashew mozza in house and source their “meat” from the Very Good Butchers) have carved out a niche on the Island (and over here as well, courtesy of Legends Haul). The Verdict: They’re squat little numbers— the outside of the crust is great, the interior less so—but that heft keeps them strong for a day or two in the fridge. And they’re the best vegan frozen pizza I’ve ever had. Grade: B+

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NOW SELLING THE FINAL PHASE AT SUMMERSIDE VILLAGE ON SALT SPRING ISLAND

summersidevillage.ca

Ian Watts | 250-221-1875

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Culture

REVIEWS

General Assembly Size: 10¾-inch Price: When done by subscription, approximately $11.50 per pie (if you order 6) The Skinny: If we lived in Toronto these would be local, right? But the hogtown import has been going great guns back east and has now landed here with the same vision of dominance, so we figured we should let them join our shindig. Their goal is to make you a subscriber—the Spotify of the pizza world, hold the Joe Rogan—such that you get a scheduled delivery every four, six or eight weeks. At first glance the smaller-sized pizza looks a bit like pita bread, and it puffs up like crazy in the oven while the crust gets crispy fast, but there’s not quite enough chewiness to the crust to run with the gazelles in this bunch. That being said, they’re very generous with the pepperoni, which is spicy and of the cupped variety, and if you go the subscription route these pies are the lowest priced of the bunch. The Verdict: A winner in any other contest—would be happy to have them drop on my doorstep every month. Grade: B+

SUECH AND BECK

Availability: Gapizza.com, Fresh St. Market, Stong’s

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VANCOUVER I N T E R N AT I O N A L

WINE

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#VIWF | @VanWineFest Sign up for E-News at VanWineFest.ca

2022-03-21 11:47 AM

LOV E LET TER

I lived in this basement for two years, but it’s been in my “friend family” for five. In the last half-decade, seven of us (in various combinations) have lived within these walls. Here are 6/7 on a random Friday in 2019 (I’m in the top left).

A Couch in the Kitchen

In the unfortunate rite of passage that is basement living, close quarters bring close friends, well—closer. I grew up in Richmond, famously at sea level, so the only basement I knew of was at my friend’s rich stepdad’s house in White Rock. Their basement had foosball, a Wii for playing Guitar Hero and one of those old-school basketball arcade games. I remember walking down their giant staircase and thinking, wow—when I grow up, I want a basement. In my early 20s, my wish came true. But like with any good fairy tale, it came at a price. Four of us split the $2,400-a-month rent—a steal of a deal in Kitsilano—to live in a basement that originally had two bedrooms. Sometime in the house’s 100-plus year history (we looked it up—it was built in 1912) the owners had made a third bedroom by completely walling in the living room, and a fourth by splitting the kitchen in two. This meant we had no real common space outside of the kitchen, so our only couch was crammed between the fridge and the “new” drywall. If you sat just right on that scratchy red sofa, you could have a conversation with the roommate whose bedroom was on the other side of the wall. Because our house shared an alley with a thrift store, there was always a wealth of ugly art, broken kitchen appliances and moist furniture left by jerks who abandoned “donations” outside of the drop-off times. We embraced the free decor, covering our walls in tasteless line drawings and kitschy paintings of sheep. We illuminated dark corners with fairy lights. We’d sit around our Ikea pine table eating ice cream and doing deep dives into career crises, relationship

woes, the burden of the patriarchy and our sex lives. When we got bored of that, we’d discuss capitalism, whether “Mr. Brightside” is a bop or a banger, and other people’s sex lives. We’d cry. One night, after three of the four of us had an emotional breakdown at the kitchen table, we made roommate #4 talk about her feelings until she cried, too. It was only fair. I don’t mean to glamorize what living in a $600-a-month room in a basement suite looks like in Vancouver. I’ve swept dead mice into a dustpan while trying not to gag. We were evacuated for mould. We had a break-in, prompting the landlords to put bars on our windows, which really added to the underground aesthetic. One Friday evening a hallway lightbulb burst, and we realized the cause was ice-cold water from our upstairs neighbour’s toilet flooding. Soon, toilet water was pouring out of cracks in the kitchen ceiling, running over the hood fan and dripping into the pasta my roommate had boiling on the stove. Our back fence was mowed over twice by two different cars, two years apart. No one knows why or how. Still—here’s where the romanticization comes in—I loved that place. This kind of living situation could tear friendships apart, but, crowded in front of the bathroom mirror, swiping on mascara and wearing each other’s clothes, we became inseparable. My basement wasn’t pretty, and it maybe wasn’t legal. But for two years, my highest highs all happened underground.—Alyssa Hirose

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THANK YOU VANCOUVER FOR AN AMAZING 20 YEARS! As this month marks our 20th anniversary, we want to thank you for your support and for making us Vancouver’s go-to restaurant group for your many celebrations – birthday, wedding anniversary, business meeting, corporate event, engagement, many milestones, and more! We are so thankful, and look forward to another 20 years! G LOWBA LG R O U P.CO M

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@ G LOWBA LG R OUP

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Vancouver Magazine, March/April 2022

Articles inside

At Issue

The Ticket

Reviews

On the Rise

The Dish

Love Letter