A question from the Affordable Housing Task Force co-chair Olga Ilich in the Globe and Mail:
“I’ve asked and am trying to get answers to, ‘What was wrong with that proposal*?’ ” said Ms. Ilich, who said that the concept of building rental apartments on city-owned land, with a steady stream of revenue coming to the city from them, seems on the surface like an attractive idea.
I think I know.
600 Drake was one of the first of the VLC propertie
s to be developed on a piece of city-owned land next to the Seymour off-ramp of the Granville Bridge. It was an experiment in small-suite development: studio apartments under 300-square-feet – much criticized at the time – that rented, if I recall, for just under $300.
Then a city councillor, I decided to live in one for a month, figuring I would know by then whether it was at least livable. I learned three things:
(1) If the single room, plus bathroom, is appropriately sized and well designed, then it can be quite workable: first a bedroom, then a dining room, then a living room, and back again during the day.
(2) Floor-t0-ceiling windows really help, allowing light and expansiveness through the fourth wall.
(3) Clean out the clutter, count on amenities within the building and handy services within walking distance – and it will work just fine for one.
But it wasn’t really any cheaper than what, at the time, was the going market rate for a one-bedroom in a 1960s highrise in the West End. Why? Because it was new, undepreciated, and built without subsidy other than the leased land. All the additional walls and materials, appliances and amenities (plus cost of construction at union rates) offset the small-space advantage. Indeed, the building did pretty well to offer competitive rents with the aging housing stock four blocks away.
And so the task force members are faced with the same quandary: even if they find ways to expedite housing development, the units may still seem unaffordable to those struggling to find space in an expensive city.
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* At top of mind is the 1989 decision by then-mayor Gordon Campbell to provide discounted city land to the Vancouver Land Corporation or VLC Properties – a company created by his developer friend Jack Poole and backed by union pension funds – to develop low-cost rental housing in the city in response to the affordable-housing crisis of that era.
That privately arranged deal generated criticism for years afterward, with some feeling that VLC – now called Concert Properties and one of the city’s most successful development companies – didn’t build as much rental housing as originally promised.
