The other day The Tyee asked me for an idea that I think has traction: something that will shape our city in the coming year.
Well, okay. How about some new housing that effectively addresses affordability and sustainability without changing the character of low-density neighbourhoods? – in other words, an EcoDensity wet dream.
How about if it were simply built, appropriately west-coast, with a touch of elegance? What if it gave options for the elderly – or for students – but didn’t require carving a house up into secondary suites?
What if gave first-time homebuyers a real option that doesn’t require (a) living in a highrise, or (b) mortgaging their first-borne?
What if it didn’t even cost the city a lot in the way of new infrastructure, taxes or traumatic rezonings?
You know I wouldn’t even ask unless I had an answer.
And so ….
Ta da! A suite of cottages by Smallworks, a company turning out solutions from their Southlands studio, willing to truck their little cottages to you, pre-fab, easily assembled and ready to fit nicely into your backyard. If you have a 33-foot-wide site with lane access at the rear, it will take up the room of an existing garage.
Jake Fry is the guy who designed and builds these little gems, and so far he’s distributed 16 around the city. Likely there would be a lot more if the bylaws of the city were tweaked a bit, particularly with respect to height and placement of the car – but nothing that would change the physical look of most neighbourhoods, given that garages already allow for a similar volume.
Here are the numbers: a 400-square-foot (37 sq m) cottage, fully outfitted and serviced, would cost about $250 a square foot – or $150,000 installed. You could likely rent it out to cover costs at about $900 a month – a tad bit more than the cost of maintaining an average car, which can still be placed next to the cottage on an average 33-foot lot.
A great idea – and an obvious first step for the EcoDenisty Initiative.
Councillor Peter Ladner, who passed on the link to Smallworks, believes these units could add another 8,000 homes to the city – equivalent to all the towers around False Creek – in a dispersed way (actually offsetting the decline in population in some areas). And, with other offsetting initiatives when the main house is upgraded, there need be no net load on the city’s support infrastructure (or budget).
What’s not to like?
Want a house? Work for one. Buy one. EARN IT.
Life is not a free ride.
I love the idea – but as a renter I suspect that it would actually go for market rent which would be probably closer to $1200 or more for ground-oriented new housing, even if it’s just 400sqft.
I don’t know how we alter the fact that market prices for all housing has moved way beyond what regular people can afford. I’m skeptical that we can flood the market with enough new housing at once to have much of an impact since there’s a virtually unlimited international market for housing here. And after the Olympics there will be an even bigger international market for what we’ve got.
A better idea still is GMP – (genetically modified people) who are shrunk to easily housed, microbial dimensions. That way we won’t have to fill up all of the space in yards with pretty little mock Tudor shacks. Ta da!
yikes. 400 sqft feet is tiny.
btw, 400 sqft x $250 = $100,000 not $150,000
however, if you just wanted to convert your detached garage, i’ll bet you could do it for under $40,000. the only tricky part would be the plumbing.
I live in such a house in Strathcona, in the back of a lot where the garage would be, except it’s a renovated old cottage. It’s about 350 square feet plus a loft big enough for a bed and some clothes storage, and it’s cozy but manageable for the two of us. It helps that we have storage and laundry access in the basement of the main house.
What’s really nice about living here is that it is a detached house at a fairly low price—we don’t share walls and have good insulation, so we aren’t bothered by noise by other people and can play music or have parties without bothering anyone. We even have a patio and a little shared garden space.
Rent’s under $1000, but if it had spiffy modern design, nicer finishes and amenities like a dishwasher or a bathtub it could probably go for a bit more. Even in this city, $1200 seems a bit high to me for a place like what’s described here.
I love it. Frankly, it reminds me of the “smart sprawl” that you get in the major metropolises of Japan — where dense housing that is close to transport and jobs is still within reach of all classes affordability-wise, and it’s street-level at that.
This is what will have to be part-and-parcel of a rolled-out EcoDensity program in order for it to work. Densification has been a rousing success in downtown Vancouver, where urbanites have flocked to apartments and condominiums. But in Vancouver proper, the concept is still very much on shaky ground. It’s too easy for neighbourhoods like Norquay, Dunbar, etc to reject dense projects such as highrise condos, on the grounds that they change the character of the neighbourhood, block views, etc.
But this kind of program (introduction of cottage homes) would also require a rethink from the City, the real estate industry and others. Are we prepared to parcel up properties — and do away with front and back yards — in favour of a small garden, perhaps? I’d like to think so — but the traditional nimbies might have something to say about that.
At any rate, I envision this style of home flourishing along the edges of (but not right on) our major arterials (off-Broadway, off-Lonsdale, off-Cambie etc)
There’s a lot of activity around the idea of tiny, modular houses. My favorites (especially as the Katrina Cottages are getting a bit large) are those from Tumbleweed Houses.
The fact of the matter is that the largely single-family housing stock of postwar cities like Vancouver isn’t fit for today’s society of smaller households and higher mobility. 400 sq. ft. might sound cramped, but it’s downright generous by the standards of many cities with high housing costs — and it’s all your space, too.