Pretty easy to do when some of the criticism indeed sounds kinda racist. Example from the article:
> In 2022, Gordon Price, a prominent Vancouver urban planner and a former city councillor, told Gitxsan reporter Angela Sterritt, “When you’re building 30, 40-storey high rises out of concrete, there’s a big gap between that and an Indigenous way of building.”
I'm sorry, but does he expect indigenous people to only build log cabins forever or something? Maybe they should also forgo cars and buses and only use horses?
Obviously, no one is expecting indigenous people to use ancient building techniques that haven't been used in centuries, but the groups behind the project are making the explicit claim that the project is somehow tied to a racial identity. Criticizing their claim is perfectly reasonable.
The idea that developers are all evil space aliens comes from your unconscious memory of 80s kids movies where they were the villains.
When the City of Vancouver built its own below market city owned apartment at Main and 7th they hired local developer Marcon to build it. Marcon also builds for-profit condos all across the region.
"Corporate money" being involved in the creation of housing is pretty unavoidable.
One criticism quoted in the article is this:
> "When you’re building 30, 40-storey high rises out of concrete, there’s a big gap between that and an Indigenous way of building."
Which is indeed literally racist. Like White can build towers using concrete but other people should stick with small wood structures or whatever. Spoiler: technology is spreading among people around the world, and Chinese, Arab, Japanese, etc. built skyscrapers despite it not being their traditional way of building.
From the Empire State Building to the George Washington Bridge, and the glory that was the World Trade Center—Mohawk people helped build them all.
Mohawk ironworkers have built bridges and skyscrapers for more than 100 years.
However, what's important is the law. If they have proved their right to the land in court, that's the only thing that should really matter. And aside from the PR manipulation, a corporation building residential buildings is obviously a positive thing, providing value for everybody involved: their shareholders, land owners and future residents. The only who suffers are their neighbours who tried to prop up their property values by strangling development.
Who built the house/apartment you live in? A real estate developer, right?
People can look at it however they please, and each take can have nuance, but the classic "Well you're all dumb if you think someone isn't corrupt here" is not new, not interesting, and not evident, it's just plausible.
No matter what the issue is, there's some pissed off person that thinks they've got the often suspiciously nebulous take that nobodies thought about and serves no purpose but to try cast aspersions at an otherwise novel and probably positive thing. "Don't forget about this hypothetical non-specific negative possibility! Someone could be corrupt guys!"
It's ok to hold two ideas in your head at the same time. On one hand, no process with huge money involved can be vaccinated from corruption. On the other, there's a brutal amount of displacement and wealth inequality in Vancouver that's particularly intense among indigenous people. We want to see the city evolve in a way that brings people who aren't property boomers or literal billionaires into a viable future, and reasons to be optimistic are scarce.
So ya, boring and hollow takes get downvoted.