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Vancouver, Toronto building ‘poor doors’ viewed as opportunity, not segregation

Is developer discriminating against low-income residents?

It’s hard to think of anything more likely to inflame Canadians’ sense of fairness than the idea of a residential building where those of modest means have to use an entrance separate from their economic betters.

So it’s surprising an eruption of the so-called “poor door” controversy didn’t get more traction in Vancouver after word got out a new condominium planned for downtown had just such segregation between those who’d be living in subsidized “non-market” apartments and those paying top dollar for luxury suites.

The debate flared for a few days after a contributor to the civic watchdog group CityHallWatch tweeted that the project proposed for the prime West End location on Jervis and Davie streets would have separate entrances for condo owners and non-market renters.

But it soon became evident there was flame but not much heat. No one marched on City Hall and some commentators suggested there was nothing wrong with having the two groups of residents use separate lobbies.

CityHallWatch founder Randy Helten, who was not the author of the tweet, was nonetheless pleased with the short-lived flap.

“We were quite surprised at the response,” he told Yahoo Canada News. “Now that the dust has settled, my thoughts are that it was actually a very good public discussion. Hopefully it’s not over yet.”

Helten said he’d like to see an independent survey of residents living in such buildings on how they feel, which the city could use in future policy decisions.

The term “poor door” is loaded with political and social imagery. It has a kind of upstairs-downstairs quality, a hint of the servant’s entrance at the back of the house, lest the help accidentally encounter their betters on equal terms.

It’s been a particular source of controversy in New York City, where left-wing Mayor Bill de Blasio, who replaced billionaire Michael Bloomberg at the helm of the Big Apple, has promised to legislate an end to separate entrances in integrated condo-social housing buildings. Some of them do indeed feature alleyway access for low-income renters.

The issue has also surfaced in Toronto, where a handful of affordable housing projects also feature separate entrances for market purchasers.

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It resonated mainly with Torontonians who were unaware of the details of the proposals, Sean Gadon, director of the city’s affordable housing office, said in an interview. The city has done a lot of education about how it integrates non-market housing into condo projects, he said.

‘Poor door’ defenders seem to outnumber critics

In Vancouver, there seemed to be more defenders of separate entrances than there were critics. Reporters who interviewed tenants of existing integrated buildings found no one who felt stigmatized.

The reasons given for having separate entrances were largely practical.

“We actually choose the separate door in consultation with the non-profit organizations that will be running the affordable (projects), because it gives them better control on operating costs,” said Gadon. “It also allows those communities [such as artists] to co-locate together as opposed to being scattered within a building for purposes of programing.”

Gadon said separate entrances are considered when when a building has “a substantial number” of non-market units, say between 60 and 100. In projects involving a handful to a couple dozen units, they can be scattered throughout the building. To make them affordable, Gadon said the City of Toronto waives property taxes for 25 years and development fees associated with those units.

“We have such a housing shortage in our city we’re open to doing virtually anything to get new housing stock and don’t rule out very much, particularly if our partners are coming to us and saying, yeah, we’d like to do that,” he said.

Vancouver is facing an equally severe affordable-housing crunch. Soaring land values and a decline in funding support from federal and provincial governments has made it harder to add housing for low-income residents without being creative, said former city councillor Gordon Price, now director of Simon Fraser University’s City Project.

In the past, projects that combined market and non-market housing often involved more than one building, so separate entrances were a given.

“You could get funding to build non-market housing separately,” Price told Yahoo Canada News. “That’s almost disappeared now. So the city is trying to lever density by either requiring or providing incentives [for non-market housing].”

That has meant square footage approved for prime downtown locations has increased to allow developers to include affordable units in the building.

The non-market suites may not have all the luxury touches, nor would tenants have access to amenities like the gym, swimming pool, lounge or other amenities that condo buyers paid for.

No one objects to that, said Helten. Just as in a hotel with computerized key cards that restrict guests’ access to services they’re not paying for, low-income tenants should not expect to be able to use the condo’s sauna, for instance.

“But even in a hotel everyone goes through the same lobby,” Helten pointed out.

‘Poor door’ a symbol of society’s unease with inequality

So, are poor doors really a thing? In a way, yes, because it symbolizes our uneasiness about widening income inequality. There’s a sharper sense of it in the United States but the ‘Occupy’ movement brought it to the fore in Canada as well.

“I think the issue around class inequality is much more of a pubic issue now than it used to be,” said Price. “When you get something like this it becomes a good illustration of what the larger social problem is.”

Those living in integrated developments deal with distinctions of social class in other ways.

“Even if it was the same entrance there would still be questions of how people differentiate themselves,” said Price.

For decades, Vancouver has had a policy of not restricting low-income housing to any one part of town, the former councillor said.

Subsidized rentals and co-op housing have been woven into new developments, such as the south shore of the False Creek waterfront and the thicket of high-rises that sprang up on the north side, the one-time downtown industrial area that became the site of Expo ’86.

“If you go down to Yaletown and Concord Pacific [north False Creek] you have a difficulty determining which building is which, and that was deliberate,” said Price. “You don’t want to make the buildings seem like they were too separate.”

Rising costs, fewer tax dollars and the need for density have forced the city to blend market and non-market housing into one.

“In a way, we’re integrating more than we did,” said Price. “It’s hard to make the case, say in the Jervis and Davie building, that in the important ways we’re really making separation. No, no, they’re definitely part of the community.”

Gadon in Toronto concurs. A proposed new condo development, for example, includes a new emergency shelter for families with, yes, its own entrance.

“But it’s going to have a brand new facility in a very upscale, downtown location that we could never dream of being able to put there ourselves because of the high cost of land values and the shortage of available sites,” Gadon said.

Toronto lakefront building includes 80 affordable rental units

The city is also behind a plan for 80 affordable rental units in a new building on Toronto’s lake shore, with a separate entrance but also a top-floor amenity space for the residents overlooking Lake Ontario.

“We’re also looking within the buildings that basically people are being treated equally,” Gadon said.

Helten said he was buoyed by the debate, signaling that people feel there’s something wrong with separation based on class. He accepts there might be practical reasons for separate entrances “but it should not be the default option.”

But Gadon said people concerned about inequality shouldn’t seize on the so-called poor door and instead look at the fact these buildings create housing opportunities that might otherwise not have existed.

“Certainly in the work we’ve done here, residents in a particular project I’m thinking of have not objected to a separate entrance,” he said. “I think they’re thrilled – including the organizations we work with – that we’re getting new affordable housing.”

The poor door is not an issue for them, he said.

“In fact, people are viewing it as an open door.”