Real Estate Ghost (UBC Condos Value)
A prominent Chinese-Canadian fears his ethnic community is being unfairly tarnished by the protest of Asian condominium owners against a proposed hospice at the University of B.C.
“People are afraid that the entire Chinese community is being painted as uncaring and afraid of a facility that would provide good for the entire community,” said Tung Chan, former CEO of the Vancouver-based immigrant services group Success.
Dozens of Asian residents in an upscale condominium highrise on the UBC campus are protesting a proposal to build a hospice next door, near Thunderbird Stadium.
The ethnic Chinese homeowners have complained that proximity to death brings bad luck in their cultural tradition. They also fear the hospice could lower their property values.
Chan’s comments were echoed on Sunday by several Asian UBC residents interviewed by The Vancouver Sun on the campus.
Most did not want to be named, for fear of causing friction among neighbours, but most agreed the controversy is painting the entire ethnic community in a bad light.
Stanley Hee said the condominium residents opposing the hospice are a relatively small group. “We don’t have this strong feeling about that,” Hee said. “They say there are some cultural differences, but I don’t think so. That’s not a good reason [not to build the hospice]; I don’t agree with that.”
Like Chan, Hee and the other residents said they feel the objections are a classic not-in-my-backyard response, similar to the response to proposed recovery houses or homeless shelters in other neighbourhoods.
Some of those surveyed said they felt there were better — more peaceful and scenic — locations for the hospice, but were not opposed to its being on campus.
Chan said many Chinese-Canadians are worried the hospice protest will convince people that Asian immigrants are unwilling to accept the values of their adopted country.
“They fear that people would then say: ‘If that is what Chinese-Canadians believe, then they don’t fit into this society.’
“And that’s a shame.”
Chan said news reports about the “culture clash” behind the protest has “brought out negative comments towards our entire group.
“Whereas the protest only involves a small group of people and is based on Nimbyism. The Chinese community is much more diverse than that, and many Chinese are very supportive of hospice facilities.”
Chan believes the protest is more about economics than culture. “People take whatever excuse they can dream up and say that they don’t want it to be in their backyard.
“If it’s in someone else’s backyard, then it’s fine.”
Chan rejected the notion that being close to dying people is taboo in Chinese culture.
He said Success facilitates visits by volunteers to hospices. “We teach people how to deal with dying people in a more sensitive way.”
The hospice, proposed by the Order of St. John and the UBC faculty of medicine, would be a 15-bed palliative care facility operated by Vancouver Coastal Health.
The site near Thunderbird Stadium was selected after a four-year process — and is considered the best of 12 possible sites on campus because of the need to link with the UBC faculty of medicine for academic and research purposes.
“The integrated research component and the proximity to the UBC faculty of medicine provide a rare service to improving health services to the most vulnerable,” said Order of St. John spokesman Peter Hebb.
There is no other hospice on Vancouver’s west side that is physically separate from a hospital, he added.
Hebb declined to discuss the protest by condo owners.
Joe Stott, director of campus and community planning at UBC, said a plan to bring the hospice proposal to the UBC board of governors in February has been postponed due to a request from the University Neighbourhood Association, for more consultation.
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