Mole Hill Group Seeks to Save Heritage Houses

by Simone Hoedel
Video piece which aired September 29, 1997, for Plugged In Vancouver, on Rogers Cable

Simone Hoedel (Voiceover):

Most of these houses in Vancouver's West End were built during Vancouver's first boom-time, between 1888 and 1912. The block was named Mole Hill in honour of the site's first residents, Henry and Elizabeth Mole.

Linda Diano lives in one of these homes and spoke on behalf of the Mole Hill Living Heritage Society.

Linda Diano: Well the oldest house on the block is this one right here, 1160, it's the green one (pointing). For a while there it was the oldest house in Vancouver.

Simone Hoedel, reporter: And it is no longer?

Diano: Well, they found another one that was older.

Hoedel: What's so special about this place? Why should we care about Mole Hill?

Diano: Well, Mole Hill is sort of the jewel of the West End. If you look around, Mole Hill is very unique. It's a block of very old houses in an area that is the densest in North America.

(V/O): On October 7th, the City is discussing plans for Mole Hill, including a proposal for 99-year leases of these homes. City staff also recommends demolition of at least 2 houses, one of which is Diano's home.

Diano: My position and the working group's position is that by demolishing a few of the houses on the site, you're compromising the integrity of the site. It would essentially knock out the two front teeth of the block and we feel it’s a lot more of a valuable and special place intact and whole.

(V/O): City senior planner Ian Smith says staff intended to save ALL the city owned houses, but realized the costs of renovating these 2 homes was too high - almost twice as much as the others.

Ian Smith: Now that's a choice that council can make. They can decide on October 7th that they want to keep those houses, but in doing that they have to think is that where we want to spend 2 million dollars? Or are there other opportunities where we get more for that money?

(V/O): The Mole Hill working group, made up of tenants, homeowners, heritage groups, housing representatives and others, passed a resolution to retain all houses for low income and low end market housing. And that conflicted with the city's idea of a "mixed" community in Mole Hill.

Smith: And so when we were looking at keeping all of the houses for low income that did not satisfy our definition of what a mixed community should be. There should be opportunities for middle income and even higher income on the block. And that's really representative of the West End.

Diano: That's one of the results of a boom city - there's mass development going on and you have the conversion of the lower end housing to medium and higher end housing. You're finding that your people have little options and few places to go. Perhaps emergency shelters, and or leaving the city. And I don't think anybody would like to see Vancouver become a city for the "rich".

This is Simone Hoedel reporting from Mole Hill for Plugged In Vancouver