Eastside Cultural Crawl artists get two new live-work spaces, but not enough

Vancouver city council voted Tuesday (October 14) to add two subsidized live-work spaces, for a total of four, to the city's artist studio award program. But many visual artists say the city is still not doing enough.

The two new live-work studios on West 8th Avenue will be sub-leased at a subsidized rate. The program also includes a subsidized live-work space at 1202 East Pender Street, and another at 272 East 4th Avenue, which is awarded rent-free. Following an artist selection in December, the studios will be awarded February 1, 2009, for a term of three years minus two weeks.

Valerie Arntzen, organizer of the Eastside Culture Crawl, welcomed the new units but said they do little to address a critical shortage of studios in Vancouver, despite intensive public consultations undertaken last year by the city's office of cultural affairs in preparation for its 10-year culture plan, unveiled in June. "After having been for over a year in focus groups and all that, I mean, their message is clear. They move like snails. They said it: 'Nothing's going to happen overnight, you know.' "

The issue of artist studios will also be raised at City Hall today (October 16), when Jeffrey Mok of IBI Group, on behalf of developer Amacon, requests approval for a heritage designation and density variance for the old brewery site at 255 East 7th Avenue. Amacon plans to build artist studios on the site, and has offered them as replacements for studios that will be lost at 190 Prior Street (formerly 901 Main Street), where the developer is planning to build high-end apartments.

Although negotiations with Amacon were initially cordial, artists at 190 Prior, who two weeks ago signed papers to become the 901 Artists Co-op, now say the developer has offered them a lease that far exceeds their ability to pay.

"They're asking, total, including operational costs-that's, like, property tax and utilities and all that stuff-$2.35 a square foot," Eri Ishii, one of the artists at 190 Prior, said. "Right now we're paying $1 a square foot." Ishii said her group will be counter-offering $1.25 a square foot but did not hold out much hope for a deal. If Amacon does not offer anything below $2 a square foot, she said: "We're just going to have to walk away. There's no way we can afford it."

Richard Wittstock, Amacon's vice president of development, disputed Ishii's figure of $2.35. He said the company had offered the artists less than that, but would not name the figure. "I'm pretty reluctant to talk about a negotiation that's in process.…But they are enjoying a rent that's considerably below market now," he said.

Dennis Brown, one of the 901 Prior artists, said he will appear before council today. "We went 13 months organizing this campaign; we put in a lot of work. This is a major increase in rent for us, and the problem is, where are visual artists supposed to go?"

Georgia Straight