In Maclean’s

I love that "Tetrise" is now a verb:

Vancouver has long been nicknamed the “city of glass” for its shimmering high-rise skyline. Over the next few years, that skyline will get a very large new addition: Sen̓áḵw, an 11-tower development that will Tetrize 6,000 apartments onto just over 10 acres of land in the heart of the city. Once complete, this will be the densest neighbourhood in Canada, providing thousands of homes for Vancouverites who have long been squeezed between the country’s priciest real estate and some of its lowest vacancy rates.

Sen̓áḵw is big, ambitious and undeniably urban—and undeniably Indigenous. It’s being built on reserve land owned by the Squamish First Nation, and it’s spearheaded by the Squamish Nation itself, in partnership with the private real estate developer Westbank.

[…]

What chafes critics, even those who might consider themselves progressive, is that they expect reconciliation to instead look like a kind of reversal, rewinding the tape of history to some museum-diorama past. Coalitions of neighbours near Iy̓álmexw and Sen̓áḵw have offered their own counter-proposals for developing the sites, featuring smaller, shorter buildings and other changes. At the January hearing for Iy̓álmexw, one resident called on the First Nations to build entirely with selectively logged B.C. timber, in accord with what she claimed were their cultural values. These types of requests reveal that many Canadians believe the purpose of reconciliation is not to uphold Indigenous rights and sovereignty, but to quietly scrub centuries of colonial residue from the landscape, ultimately in service of their own aesthetic preferences and personal interests.

This looks good. I'm not mad about the enormous elevated stroad cutting the development in half, but it does promise:

There will be over 6,000 rental units at Sen̓áḵw. Included in these 6,000 are approximately 1,200 affordable rental units as defined by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC). The balance will be market rental. Of the 1,200 affordable rental units, 250 will be set aside for Squamish Nation members, with the remainder serving residents of the City of Vancouver.

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Sen̓áḵw is designed to be a transit-oriented, car-light community. With this car-light emphasis, combined with the already highly restricted parking regulations for the surrounding Kits Point neighbourhood, the impact on the surrounding streets will be insignificant. It is anticipated that the development will add 7 to 8 cars per minute on average, spread across the two site access points during peak hours.

As a result, the upgrades negotiated through the Services Agreement are focused on accommodating the mobility needs for all travel modes including upgrades to cycling, pedestrian facilities and improved access to transit.

[…]

Sen̓áḵw will be one of Canada's first large-scale net zero operational carbon housing developments. There will be a district energy system on site developed in partnership with Creative Energy, that will utilize excess heat from adjacent Metro Vancouver infrastructure to provide a source of carbon free energy for the project. The buildings will also meet Step 3 of the BC Energy code and will feature highly efficient triple-glazed envelopes to minimize both thermal and noise transmission. The units will feature energy efficient appliances and fixtures to minimize water use and the entire development is designed to encourage alternative forms of transportation while reducing resident dependence on the automobile.

The commercial building in Phase 2 will leverage 45,000 square feet of mass timber construction, a material with 50% less embodied carbon than typical concrete construction.

Other sustainable features of the project include: the use of green roofs, permeable paving materials, native plantings, and rainwater capture and collection for irrigation.

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A new transit hub at the south end of the Burrard bridge will be created as part of the Sen̓áḵw project to support increased transit connectivity to the site. While current transportation infrastructure in the area prioritizes north-south connections, the new density from Sen̓áḵw offers the opportunity to improve east-west connectivity through the potential revitalization of the False Creek streetcar line, upgraded aqua bus and ferry services, and enhanced cycling options. Further, the project is located within walking distance of the new Broadway Subway extension.

Predictably, not everyone has been happy about it. Critics have included local planners, politicians and, especially, residents of Kitsilano Point, a rarified beachfront neighbourhood bordering the reserve. And there’s been an extra edge to their critiques that’s gone beyond standard-issue NIMBYism about too-tall buildings and preserving neighbourhood character. There’s also been a persistent sense of disbelief that Indigenous people could be responsible for this futuristic version of urban living. 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.” 

The subtext is as unmissable as a skyscraper: Indigenous culture and urban life—let alone urban development—don’t mix. That response isn’t confined to Sen̓áḵw, either. On Vancouver’s west side, the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations—through a joint partnership called MST Development Corp.—are planning a 12-tower development called the Heather Lands. In 2022, city councillor Colleen Hardwick said of that project, “How do you reconcile Indigenous ways of being with 18-storey high-rises?” (Hardwick, it goes without saying, is not Indigenous.) MST is also planning an even bigger development, called Iy̓álmexw in the Squamish language and ʔəy̓alməxʷ in Halkomelem. Better known as Jericho Lands, it will include 13,000 new homes on a 90-acre site. At a city council meeting this January, a stream of non-Indigenous residents turned up to oppose it. One woman speculated that the late Tsleil-Waututh Chief Dan George would be outraged at the “monstrous development on sacred land.”

To Indigenous people themselves, though, these developments mark a decisive moment in the evolution of our sovereignty in this country. The fact is, Canadians aren’t used to seeing Indigenous people occupy places that are socially, economically or geographically valuable, like Sen̓áḵw. After decades of marginalization, our absence seems natural, our presence somehow unnatural. Something like Sen̓áḵw is remarkable not just in terms of its scale and economic value (expected to generate billions in revenue for the Squamish Nation). It’s remarkable because it’s a restoration of our authority and presence in the heart of a Canadian city.