How a Canadian indigenous group could outwit NIMBYs

“IT’S EASIER to elect a pope than to approve a small apartment building in the city of Vancouver,” says Ginger Gosnell-Myers, of Nisga’a and Kwakwak’awakw heritage, and formerly the city’s first-ever indigenous-relations manager. Such is the power of local NIMBYs that it is difficult to build new homes, and legions of young people are doomed to live with their parents for years, if not decades. But on some land the normal rules do not apply. No one can tell the Squamish First Nation, an indigenous group, what to build on their territory.

One patch of its reserve is in Kitsilano, a ritzy part of Vancouver. Despite being close to the city centre, it is full of single-family homes and duplexes. Residents fiercely resist the construction of tall buildings. But they cannot stop the Squamish from erecting 59-storey skyscrapers. This year could see the ground broken for Senakw—12 towers containing 6,000 flats, mostly for renting. It would be the largest private indigenous development in Canada.