Delamont a blast from the city’s past

Surrounded by modern buildings, block maintains its century-old character.  A small cluster of heritage homes in Vancouver has beat the odds against highway bulldozers, urban developers and park-happy city planners to retain its character. Author and historian Bruce Macdonald, who will be conducting a tour of  Kitsilano’s oldest community, known as Delamont, describes it as quite a unique thing. Many of the Delamont heritage homes continue to boase original woodwork, bathtubs and design elements.

Macdonald said a citizen-led protest quashed the highway plans in 1930s, when city planners had different desings for Delamont. By the mid-1950s, eastern Kitsilano was aging, and the city rezoned the area to permit highrise developments. Home by home and block by block, the character of Kitsilano gradually transformed. Except for Delamont. The city began expropriating properties in Delamont with intention of renewing its highway plans but again their attempts are blocked again by residents. Then planning to turn the entire community into green space. But most of hte century-old homes remained untouched.

But Macdonald said that even this tenacious community may yet transform. Macdonald’s tour, organized by Heritage Vancouver, is scheduled to start at 10 a.m. on Sunday. More details can be found at www.heritagevancou ver.org.

The Vancouver Sun, July 16th,  2011