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The revisions were in response to widespread community concern over development policies adopted in 2011, allowing larger buildings. Those policies were intended to revitalize the area, but the pace and scale of the new developments “are not only changing how Chinatown looks and feels, but also impacting long-term residents’ way of living,” the staff report said. While new businesses have moved in, traditional businesses have been priced out of the neighbourhood, the staff report says, and land values almost doubled between 2012 and 2016, forcing out many of the small businesses that gave the area its character.

But as much as Thursday marks an important moment for the nationally designated historic site, the hearing will resonate beyond Chinatown’s borders, said Andy Yan, director of Simon Fraser University’s City Program.

“It has implications for the rest of the city because this will really set the tone for some of the contentious issues we’re going to be facing in the upcoming election,” Yan said, particularly around what direction the city takes and who shapes it.

Developers are an important part of the community, Yan said, but there has been a feeling in many parts of the city that they’ve had an out-sized influence in shaping city plans.

A neighbourhood, Yan said, is like a symphony made of many instruments, “but within that symphony, there’s a feeling these days that it’s being dominated by a single instrument … That’s not to say that (developers) shouldn’t have a role in these neighbourhoods, but that they ought to be part of that symphony.”