Hughes 1 Erin Hughes Writing Sample Gentrification in Sydney and Vancouver Paper Written for Gentrification: Chinatown; Graduate

Class at Hunter College

The chance to host the Olympic Games, or any event on an international scale, is often seen as a citys chance for revitalization. As the Olympics garner increasingly intense media coverage around the world, the host city seizes the opportunity to present its absolute best face. Thus, host cities will often engage in partnerships with private corporations to develop the neighborhoods where the tourists will flock. This idea of tourism gentrification, or the transformation of a neighborhood into a relatively affluent and exclusive enclave in which corporate entertainment and tourism venues have proliferated, however, only lasts while the Games are underway.1 Even before the Olympics begin, host cities must plan for the uses of the new construction after the flame is extinguished. The Olympic Villages, constructed for the hundreds of athletes participating in the Games, are often converted into luxury apartments after the Games are over. These luxury apartments, often built on neglected land in the host city, then become examples of what gentrification scholars refer to as new-build gentrification.2 Between 1993, when Sydney was selected as the host of the 2000 Summer Olympics, and 1998, rents in the city increased by 40 percent.3 Melbourne, the Australian city with the next largest increase in rent, only saw an increase of 9.6 percent in those five years. When development for the Olympics (specifically new sports venues and the
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Loretta Lees, Tom Slater and Elvin Wyly, Gentrification (New York: Routledge, 2008), 131. 2 Lees et. al., 138. 3 Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions, Fact Sheet - Forced evictions and displacements in past Olympic cities, Fact sheet (Geneva: COHRE, 2007).

Hughes 2 Olympic Village) began, Sydney was already experiencing an increase in housing stock and gentrification; this event on the world stage only exacerbated the rising costs of living in the city.4 A report published in 1998, two years before the Olympic Games, found that approximately 160,000 households in Sydney had little choice but to live on the fringes of the city, leave Sydney altogether or pay more than 30 percent of their income to remain in the city.5 This pricing out of the housing market, as opposed to the direct displacement caused by traditional gentrification, is what Davidson and Lees refer to as exclusionary displacement.6 The land chosen for the site of the Olympic venues and Village was government wasteland; as such, there was no displacement of permanent residents of the area. Temporary residents such as university students and those residing in boarding houses, however, were displaced when construction began.7 Given their proximity to the sports venues, approximately three-quarters of the boarding houses were used for accommodations for the masses that descended upon the city as the Olympics were underway. After the flame was extinguished at the end of the Games, the boarding houses continued to be used for visitor accommodations.8 The Olympic Village was developed by Mirvac Lend Lease Village, as part of a public-private partnership. As such, the developer had full control over what would happen to the property at the close of the

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Center on Housing Rights and Evictions. Center on Housing Rights and Evictions. 6 Lees et. al., 140. 7 Sarita Kapadia, Olympics and Housing: A Looking into the Treatment of Underserved Populations Before and After the Games, Senior Thesis, Haverford College and Bryn Mawr College (Haverford: Haverford College, 2008), 32. 8 Kapadia, 33.

Hughes 3 games, and there was never a promise made for affordable housing in the complex.9 The Games began on September 16th of 2000, but potential buyers were being courted as early as July of 2000. Promised that the units would be outfitted with a kitchen (they had none initially in order to make more room for the athletes), the buyers paid anywhere between 369,000 and 775,000 Australian dollars.10 What began as government wasteland soon became the Newington Apartments, the anchor of the upscale Homebush Bay. Although there was no direct displacement of lower-income residents with the construction of the Olympic Village, the units in the complex were prohibitively priced, meaning that many would never have been able to afford the opportunity of living there. Additionally, Sydneys spot as the center of the worlds athletics for those two weeks in 2000 drove prices in the entire city up, pricing many low-income residents out of the housing market. The indirect displacement of lower-income residents, or displacement of residents living in surrounding neighborhoods are key factors in Davidson and Lees argument for the acceptance of new-build gentrification as a legitimate field of observation by gentrification scholars.11 Vancouver won the bid to host the 2010 Winter Olympics in the middle of 2003; by 2006, plans for the life of the Olympic Village after the Olympics were over were underway. Until 2006, Vancouvers Official Development Plan for the Olympic Village was for approximately one third, or 400 units, to be designated as low-income housing.12 The Olympic Village was constructed in South East False Creek, adjacent to the

Kapadia, 34. Kapadia, 34. 11 Lees et. al., 140. 12 False Promises on False Creek, 20 2 2011 <falsecreekpromises.wordpress.com/falsepromises>.
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Hughes 4 previously gentrified False Creek (which had previously been the industrial heartland of Vancouver). With these initially proposed low-income housing units, the greater False Creek area would have a more mixed income level, which would be more in-line with the vision of many Vancouver planners. However, in 2007 (still three years before the Olympics officially began in Vancouver and Whistler), the city council voted to reduce the number of low-income, or non-market, units to only 250.13 The decision to reduce the number of low-income units, in tandem with the decision to build next to an already gentrified neighborhood could be interpreted as a plan to allow super-gentrification to overtake the region. As gentrification is no longer seen as a process with a clearly defined end, the government of Vancouver recognized that it could be possible for False Creek to build upon its improvements, and become an even more exclusive neighborhood, should there be an equally gentrified neighboring community.14 In April of 2010, a plan was unveiled calling for an increase in taxes paid by residents, in order to finance the subsidy for the low-income units in the former Olympic Village.15 The city hopes the remaining units in the Village will be rented at market-rate (between $1,600 and $2,400 a month) to public service employees, such as police officers and nurses.16 When construction began on the Olympic Village, the International Olympic Committee was told that the units would all be used for low-income housing when the games came to an end. As the city continued to cut back on affordable housing in the Village, an outcry erupted from the homeless and displaced, and those advocating for the

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False Promises on False Creek. Lees et. al., 149. 15 Jeff Lee, "Half of Vancouver Olympic Village social housing may go to market-rate rentals," Vancouver Sun (Vancouver, 20 April 2010). 16 Lee.

Hughes 5 rights of these marginalized populations.17 In order to secure the low-income and social housing units that were promised in these buildings, advocacy groups have been protesting through the Athletes Village Tent City. This is to raise awareness to the fact that there is a housing crisis in Vancouver, and so many are either being completely priced-out of the units or denied the promised social housing in these newly-constructed buildings. The process of converting the Olympic Villages from their original intended use to the upscale private apartments they became is an example not only of new-build gentrification, but also of the increasingly large role the state plays in the gentrification of neighborhoods. This increase in state control in gentrification is a hallmark of what some gentrification scholars call third-wave gentrification.18 The host cities of the Olympic Games are always expected to undertake massive projects to improve their infrastructure to withstand the influx of tourists and athletes they will have in the weeks before, during, and after the Games; in this sense, it seems redundant to say that the Villages were financed at least partially by the local and national governments. However, the decision to turn the Olympic Villages into market-rate apartments, and turn the surrounding land into an equally gentrified neighborhood, reveals that the government in both Sydney and Vancouver were more open and assertive in facilitating gentrification.19 The Newington Apartments in Sydney, luxury apartments that stand on what was once government wasteland, especially highlight the states interest in spreading gentrification to more remote locations, which would not have been explored without the push from

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False Promises on False Creek. Lees et. al., 178. 19 Lees et. al., 178.

Hughes 6 both governmental bodies and corporate partners, another hallmark of third-wave, stateled gentrification.20 The cases of the gentrification around the Olympic Villages in Sydney and Vancouver highlight the states involvement in new-build gentrification. Although the cases are unique among other examples of state-led, new-build gentrification in that the complexes were initially built to house visiting athletes, the fact that the state and developers were so keen on appealing to future renters and owners before the Olympics had begun reveals that the government in both cities was ready to take the initiative and aggressively lead the gentrification of neighborhoods throughout the city. The case in Sydney may have proven to be more successful; the choice to build on government wasteland (a classic tenet of new-build gentrification), meant that fewer people were directly displaced from their homes by incoming construction, thus, little to no resistance to the gentrification efforts. The looming shadow of gentrification, however, did price many families out of the city up to seven years before the Games even began. The case in Vancouver, however, proved to be an example of state-led gentrification that was unsuccessful. Although the decision to build the Village next to a neighborhood that had already been gentrified might have been appealing to the state and the developer, the construction of a large apartment complex with only a small number of low-income units in this neighborhood was met with fierce opposition. Housing advocates argue that now low-income residents are completely priced out of a large part of downtown Vancouver, even as half of the apartments stand vacant. Thus it shows that two governmental bodies

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Lees et. al., 178.

Hughes 7 can undertake the same project, make the move to state-led gentrification, and have two completely different sets of results.