The skyscrapers that NIMBYs and zoning couldn't stop
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What historical events led to the Squamish Nation's land reclamation?
This is Planet Money from NPR.
A few weeks ago, reporter Alex Maiassi and I headed to Canada to meet a leader of a small nation.
There's dinner. The geese? That's dark meat, man.
This is Gilbert Jacob. Everyone calls him Chief Gibby. He used to be one of the leaders of the Squamish Nation, a nation of around 5,000 indigenous people living in the Pacific Northwest. We met him in this charming little neighborhood full of single-family homes. There was a big open park nearby.
Now, the land that we were standing on used to be a Squamish village. It was called Sinak. Chief Gibby's ancestors once lived here back in the 1800s.
This was one of the most bountiful areas in all of the coast. We had elk, we had moose, we had killer whales, we had seals, sea lions. We had catch lots of different fish out here. And then what happened?
Then the white people came. Government officials from British Columbia in 1913 came and took the land. They forced the Squamish to leave and destroyed the village.
They didn't even give them time to go and take their belongings. They put our people on a barge. And when they were going out there, Turned around and they'd set this whole place ablaze. They burned everything. All our people's belongings. The whole village. They didn't want us to come back.
Because the land that Sanak was sitting on, it was right next to a fast-growing seaport, a seaport that would eventually become a major city, Vancouver.
Over the decades, the land where Chief Gibby's great-grandparents used to hunt and fish was turned into streets, houses and apartments, government buildings, a park, a wharf, a marina.
But the Squamish kept fighting for Sanak. In 1977, the Squamish nation sued the Canadian government. The legal battle took decades, and in 2003, they were able to get some of this land back, about 10 and a half acres.
I was ecstatic. This place, we never doubted it belonged to our people.
The location of those 10 and a half acres was incredible. We were standing right next to it. It's so close to downtown Vancouver. This was the biggest economic opportunity in the history of the Squamish nation.
When we got it back, I brought my whole team together. I said, we got a plan.
The land they got back was a prime piece of real estate in one of the most expensive cities in the world. And now they had to decide, what were they going to do with it? Hello and welcome to Planet Money.
I'm Alex Mayassi. And I'm Jeff Guo. In most cities in North America, regulations put limits on how high or how quickly you can build. But Sanak is the sovereign territory of the Squamish nation. They are not bound by these regulations. they can build in a way that almost no one else can.
Today on the show, we follow the Squamish nation as they live a kind of economic experiment. What would you build on a piece of land when all the normal rules go out the window? Chief Gibby and the Squamish Nation had this once-in-a-generation opportunity. In 2003, they'd gotten back those 10.5 acres of undeveloped land, about the size of a large football stadium, in the middle of Vancouver.
And right away, Chief Gibby knew what he wanted.
I sat down with the whole consulting team. I said, this is our first opportunity, my people's first opportunity to get into development. This has to be a signature project.
And Chief Gibby wanted their signature project to make money. After decades of being displaced, generations of Squamish had struggled. Growing up in the 1950s, when Chief Gibby was a young kid, he didn't have plumbing, didn't have running water. And since then, it had been hard for many Squamish people to catch up economically.
So Chief Gibby's dream was to turn these 10.5 acres into a dependable money-making machine.
Thoughts? I want to do an ATM. That's what I call these. Plug the card in. Every end of the month, the money comes out.
Pay the bills, you know. In the U.S., some Native tribes might choose to build casinos. But in this case, Chief Kibbe and his team were looking at a piece of land in the middle of a major city. They realized the best use of land was rental apartments.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What historical events led to the Squamish Nation's land reclamation?
0:01–11:15
2
How did the Squamish Nation navigate zoning laws for their development?
11:15–12:44
3
What was Chief Gibby's vision for the reclaimed land?
12:44–19:44
4
How did community members react to the proposed development plans?
19:44–22:13