Citing “culture and religion”, a number of residents of Promontory (2688 West Mall) are complaining about the proposed location of St. John Hospice.
“Eighty percent of the resident in Promotory are Asian,”(sic) said Janet Fan, resident and organizer of the opposition to the site via email, “having dying people in our backyard is against our culture and religion.”
After students raised concern about original plans to build the hospice right next door to Vanier, UBC responded by expanding the search for a new site.
The objections of students were grounded in two parts. First, the site was bad for its neighbours.
Hospice residents would put pressure on Housing and Conferences to quiet Vanier down. Further, there are two heavily trafficked walkways through the site: the magical Vanier-Totem pathway, and the magical Bus Loop-Wreck Beach pathway.
Neither path is quiet, nor civil.
The second objection was that the site was bad for the hospice residents. While attempts would undoubtedly be made to curtail student behavior, you can’t regulate 18-year-old revelry into submission. Those in the hospice would be faced the post-bedtime Bieber-beats of Sherwood Lett residence.
The complaints of Promontory however, are rooted in a different philosophy.
Concerns about property values and that “the ghosts of the dead will invade and harass the living,” have led these vassals to raise arms against their lord. Campus and Community Planning has responded by investigating the first claim.
This isn’t the first time this whiny tower has impacted plans at UBC. It often complained of nearby concerts at next-door Thunderbird stadium. Ironically, their complaints have in part turned the stadium into a cultural graveyard.
While propagating on the War on Fun is one thing, launching an insensitive War on Research, particularly when you have no identifiable affiliation with UBC, is another.
Whether or not these residents will get their way rests in the hands of their UBC lord. Should they not like the response, they may try appealing to the province. Fortunate for them, they don’t have to walk far to deliver a petition. Their MLA, Gordon Campbell, lives on the 18th floor.
Edit: 4:00pm January 13th. The title of the article was changed to reflect the sole owner of Promotory is UBC, and its tenants are 99-year lessees.
Also noteworthy. C+CP had a hard time coming up with this site. It was the most agreeable location of the limited site options.
Isn’t ironic that student NIMBY activists take umbrage with Gorden Campbell’s neighbourhood NIMBY action.
Personally I find either of the two sites to be perfectly fine. Death is part of life. When I reach near the end of mine having students party near me (or to have my departed ‘soul’ visit among the living) seems perfectly fine.
Ellen Badone, in The Appointed Hour, an ethnogrpahy of death and dying in Brittany talks about the way in which our society has tried to medicalize and displace death from our view. We hide our elderly, our ill, our dying from public view and then complain about them when the start to encroach upon our lives.
We need to bring death back into life as real part of living. We need to recognize and accept our mortality -not keep trying to shove it off behind some hedge row where we can conveniently forget about us until it comes nipping at our own heals.
Someone should tell them that every person they live next to is a dying person.
@Menzies Students were fine with having a hospice near a graduate student residence. Hell, I recall advocating for it. The objection to a mixed community of 18-year-olds, newly released from parental shackles, and those seeking idyllic refuge wasn’t so much NIMBYist, as it was advocacy for good mixed-urban planning. Young undergrads make crappy neighbours for those who aren’t young undergrads. Just ask Greenwood Commons.
I wholeheartedly agree with the need to remove the tabooization of death.
1) From a purely economic perspective, why must the hospice be built on one of the most expensive lands around? Why can’t be move it somewhere else like…Langley and Abby?
2) These pple paid around $1million for their property, that’s a lot of money. And they would not have purchased it had the hospice been there in the 1st place…
My concern is WHY the Canadian public(comments via popular media outlets)is SO ANGRY when immigrants practice their freedom of speech and expression like any other Canadian.
@Shauna
1) It doesn’t have to be built on one of the most expensive lands around. It should be built on one of the most expensive lands around, though. Hospices are a relatively new creation in the health sector. UBC, as a progressive, research-intensive institution, ought to foster modern developments in the health sciences and study them. If campus planning at UBC was dictated by property values, the Buchanan building would be torn down tomorrow.
2) These people are property owners in the sense that in 93 years they lose their property. These buildings are on 99-year leases. Further, when you buy a lease in an area zoned as “research”, you lose your ability to complain about research buildings popping up. Caveat emptor.
We’re not angry at you expressing your freedom of speech. We’re simply exercising /our/ freedom of speech to let you know we think you should carefully reconsider your actions.
Any replies Alex, @Shauna?
Enough said..
There are pros and cons and the best approach to handle this is to hold a referendum. Each and every strata holder of Hawthorn Place is entitled to vote and this is really the Canadian spirit. Comments from people who are not Hawthorn Place owners are not appropriate and they carry the attitude of Schadenfreude. It is none of their business.
Please don’t lump all asians together in the believe of superstitious nonsense. If Janet is afraid of “ghosts” and “dead people” in her backyard, I suggest her strata hire a full time exorcist as a nightwatch.
Are you sure Gordon Campbell lives in this complex-he actually lives at Hampton Place.
@Jack Li
I find your comments very idiotic,simplistic & groundless needless to say. Please read the B.C. Strata Property Act before posting…
@Beno
Yep, Gordon Campbell does live in the Promontory.