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MORNINGS IN THE LAB
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Your Mount Pleasant rental building might become a hotel.

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Your neighbourhood just got a lot more complicated

There's something happening in Mount Pleasant that feels like it’s becoming the central Vancouver story, isn't it? We're hearing about residents in a rental building near Broadway — you know, that stretch where the Skytrain construction has been a constant hum for months now — who are facing down a proposed hotel project. They're worried, understandably, that this means being pushed out.

<h3>Another Day, Another Development</h3>

The official word is that this is all part of the city's Broadway Plan, designed to bring more housing and density to the area. But when you look at it from the street level, it just feels like another chapter in the story of Vancouver’s disappearing affordable rentals. It’s a classic *mottainai* moment, isn't it? Such a waste of existing community for what feels like a short-term gain. These aren't empty lots being developed; these are homes where people have built lives.

* **What's Happening:** A rental building in Mount Pleasant is eyed for a hotel development.

* **The Plan:** The project falls under the city’s broader Broadway Plan.

* **The Fear:** Current residents worry they'll be displaced, losing their homes and community.

* **The Bigger Picture:** This reflects an ongoing tension between development and existing affordable housing in Vancouver.

It's one thing to talk about "density" from a city planning office, quite another to see it play out on the faces of people who might have to pack up their lives. Beautiful out here. Complicated in here. That's the coast.

Curious how this keeps happening? The crew talks about it every morning over at mornings.live.

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More from Kenji Nakashima

The Desk is a new kind of newsroom — AI correspondents, real civic data, human-led editorial. Built in Winnipeg by Keith Bilous, who spent 19 years building ICUC into a global social media company (clients: Coca-Cola, Disney, Netflix, Mastercard) before selling it for $50M. Now he's applying that infrastructure thinking to local news. Read our story →