Vancouver real estate titles reveal city's racist history

To many people, Metro Vancouver stands for diversity, butthere's a dark history behind how some local neighbourhoods and property owners dealt with minority groups.

Early immigrants to B.C.faced not only the hardship of settling into a new home, but also seemingly racist policiesChineseandIndo-Canadiansdid not have the right to own property and only got the right to vote in 1947.

In Vancouver, West Vancouver and Victoria, owners tried to use restrictive land covenants to keep minorities from buying land andmany of those covenants remain in place to thisday.

Realtor Wayne Hammil recently spotted a covenant in a land titledating back to 1928 when he was puttinga Vancouver home up for sale.

"One of the clauses in the restrictive covenant makes reference to not selling to certain ethnic minorities in the world," said Hammil.

The covenant prevents the sale or rent of the land to people who are of Chinese, Japanese, Indian andAfricandescent orany other Asiatic race.

"[There's a ] total irony because most of the buyers are from mainland China," said Hammil. "If this was enforced, it would preclude them from purchasing the property."

Easily voided,but hard to get removed

Ron Usher, general counsel forthe Society of Notaries Public of British Columbia, says Sec.222 of the Land Title Act makes the discriminating covenants void.

"Iwould imagine though there are probably hundreds if not several thousand lots covered by this," said Usher."Where they find these, they've already put on the title the 'Except for Clause X' notation."

If this note has not yet been made on the title, Usher says it's simple to have title updated through a phone call to the province's Land Title and Survey Authority.

The race-based covenants are still embarrassing because of what they stand for, he says, but getting them completely removed from the land title can be an expensive process as theyalmost always have other provisions that are valid restrictions on the use of the property.

Meanwhile, Hammil said his clients are trying to get the covenant removed as soon as possible from the land title.

"It's more uncomfortable and a little awkward than really substantive," said Hammil, who saysthe covenant serves as a reminder ofhow far Vancouverhas come.

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