ADMINISTRATIVE REPORT

Date: January 22, 2002
Author/Local: L. E. Cantrell/7407
RTS File No. 2512 CC File No.: 5527

Council: February 5, 2002

TO:	Vancouver City Council
FROM:	Street Naming Committee
SUBJECT:	New Public Street Name - Suzhou Alley

RECOMMENDATION

A. THAT a an existing lane running generally eastward from Shanghai Alley to Carrall Street be named Suzhou Alley.

B. THAT the naming of this lane is not to be taken as a precedent for the naming of other lanes in the City of Vancouver.

C. THAT the Director of Legal Services be instructed to bring forward the appropriate amendments to the Street Name By-Law.

CITY MANAGER'S COMMENTS

The City Manager RECOMMENDS approval of A, B and C.

COUNCIL POLICY

Council uses the Street Name By-Law, No. 4954, to name and regulate public roads in the City of Vancouver. The Street Naming Committee, a staff team, is chaired by the City Clerk, and comprised of the City Surveyor, City Archivist and representatives of the Planning, Permits & Licenses, and Fire & Rescue Services Departments. The Committee is responsible for the management of a consistent, integrated and duplication-free street name system.

PURPOSE

This report seeks Council approval for naming an existing lane that runs between Shanghai Alley and Carrall Street. (See attached plan)

DISCUSSION

Block 17, bounded by Pender Street, Carrall Street, Keefer Place and Taylor Street, with Shanghai Alley cutting through its centre, is the place from which Vancouver's Chinatown grew. Efforts are currently underway to restore Shanghai Alley and its surroundings and to return public attention to their history. In June of 2001, a copy of a 2200 year-old Western Han Dynasty Bell, the gift of Vancouver's sister city, Guangzhou, was unveiled in Allan Yap Circle at the centre of Block 17. In mid-February of this year, a series of nine panels will be put on display in Allan Yap Circle to recount the history of Block 17's original families and now-lost buildings from 1870 to 1940.

Having expressed its intention to clean up and even to landscape the existing lane between Shanghai Alley and Carrall Street in order to enhance its use as a pedestrian walkway, the Block 17 Commemoration Committee has requested that the City put a name on the lane. As the lane leads from Shanghai Alley toward the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden, the Commemoration Committee suggested that the name be Suchow Alley. Letters endorsing the application for a name have been received from S.U.C.C.E.S.S. (United Chinese Community Enrichment Services Society) and the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Garden Society. The latter, however, has pointed out that the currently accepted spelling of the Chinese city, upon whose gardens their own Garden is based, is Suzhou, and advocates use of that form, especially as they use it daily when speaking of the origins of Vancouver's Chinese Garden.
While it is the long-standing policy of the City not to name lanes, the unique historical circumstances of Block 17 and its intended use as a walkway leading toward the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden have led the Street Naming Committee to recommend that Council apply a name, provided that such naming not be taken as a precedent for the naming of other lanes in the City.

With regard to the form of the name, the Street Naming Committee found no evidence of any historic association of the older form with Block 17. As a contemporary name, the Street Naming Committee found the currently accepted, wide-spread form and its daily usage by the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden sufficient reason to recommend the name, Suzhou Alley.

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(c) 1998 City of Vancouver