Hogan's Alley, the only Black community in Vancouver. Development was stopped due to opposition from the community, led by residents such as Bessie Lee, Mary Lee Chan, her husband Walter Chan, and daughter Shirley Chan, who banded together to form the Strathcona Property Owners and Tenants Association (SPOTA). Important municipal figures such as mayor Mike Harcourt and the TEAM and later COPE party emerged from this movement. In 1971, residents came into conflict with the north-south rail line that had bisected the neighbourhood since 1909. Mothers of children who attended Admiral Seymour Elementary School were concerned that trains often blocked the route that their children took to walk to school. This group, which became known as the Militant Mothers of Raymur, occupied the tracks, leading to the construction of a pedestrian/cyclist overpass at Keefer St. Just as the neighbourhood organisers were making headway at preserving the neighbourhood, city engineers proposed putting a freeway through the southern part of the neighbourhood which would have connected to a proposed waterfront route. The connectors along Gore and Carrall Streets would have partially destroyed Chinatown and Gastown. The Mau Dan Gardens Co-operative was established in October 1981, the last of five projects initiated by the Strathcona Area Housing Society (SAHS) to provide housing for the residents of the Strathcona area whose homes were expropriated and demolished in the urban renewal clearance scheme of 1965. In 1972, after protest by the local community, the city abandoned its plan to build a municipal fire hall on the vacant site and reserved the property known as site "C & D" for family housing. The land, owned by the City of Vancouver, is now leased to the Mau Dan Gardens Co-operative Housing Association. The founding membership of the Co-operative was predominantly of Chinese ethnicity, but included families of Vietnamese, Cambodian, Japanese and Canadian origin. In recent years, Strathcona has been subjected to a significant gentrification process, reinforcing the economic disparity of the area. The late 19th and early 20th century architecture in the area is a relative rarity in Vancouver and many houses in Strathcona are designated heritage houses. This housing stock in particular is being renovated, thus raising property values and attracting wealthier home owners to the area. A number of homeowners have restored their houses in the original Victorian or Edwardian styles, with a particular attention to the "true colours" of the period, which in some