Your Home: expectations, needs and what’s real
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Housing prices inflate, seemingly without pause. Modest but serviceable Vancouver cottages are replaced with McMansions.
This City Conversations features presentations by Eveline Xia, who started the “I don’t have $1 million” Twitter movement as an outlet for a new generation that doesn’t have the access to the kind of housing that their parents had. Software developer Adrian Crook, his partner and five children live happily in a rented, 1000 ft2 downtown condo. Planner and economist Yazmin Hernandez is from strategic research consultants Urban Futures, which analyzes and explains housing trends and their causes.
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Thursday, May 7
12:30pm
Rm. 1600, Harbour Centre, 515 West Hastings St.
Free – no registration required.
I question the ‘serviceability’ of many of Vancouver’s homes. Serviceability depends on context, in this case the high land value.
One third of the housing stock has building value less than 5% of the overall package. When one of these changes hands, how many new owners are willing to spend $1m for a property and then live in a house worth less than $50k?
So what are the options? Extensive renovations or rebuilding. Realistically speaking, rebuilding is often the only economically sensible option.
I have lived in a 1912 house in Calgary before moving to Vancouver. It had been progressively ‘upgraded’ over the years. The structural integrity was severely compromised by careless work cutting through joists. And even without any of that, any change that would trigger a structural review would not be possible as the 1912 design was incompatible with modern building standards. The existing spans were too wide. Bottom line: Extensive renovations were prohibitively expensive. We continued with moderate upgrades, with building value probably just about keeping up with land value increases. Building value was around 20% of the overall package. The next buyer kept the house and, by the looks of it, continues with moderate upgrades.
In Calgary, with land values roughly half of what it is here, the house was ‘serviceable’. Here, any money spent on renovations are sunk costs. It does not lift the house out of ‘teardown territory’, the next owner will be inclined to rebuild with something more comparable to the land value.
Given the current environment, in many cases I just don’t see the alternative to tearing down and rebuilding without sizeable financial incentives to homeowners. McMansions are an eye sore. Might as well rezone and build low-rise apartments. Changes the ‘character’ of the neighbourhood just as much as the McMansions, but more effective in combatting the root problems.
Driving east of out Vancouver to Hwy 1 (along Hastings, 1st Ave or Powell) one drives through a sea of single family houses, left and right major urban 4 lane throughfares. Those areas need all be rezoned, houses all need to come down and be replaced with 4-8 story mid-rises and perhaps 4 stories a block away. Plus a subway below that now 4 – lane road with bus service on it. Only then will Vancouver get enough affordable housing and enough RAPID transit. Land zoned strictly for single family houses, 10 to 20 minutes from downtown will always be expensive, and as Jens indicates, will be used to tear down old structures if land is $1M-$2M and the house perhaps less than 10% of it.
Where is the subway to N-Burnaby through E-Van (below Hastings) to allow revitalization and building of surely needs high-rises and mid-rises all the way to Burnaby ?
As we can see from the traffic on Canada-Line any subway will be used and attract investment .. for affordable housing (aka condos in high- or mid-rise buildings). The currently proposed transit plan, based on more wobbly buses, will not do that.
Yes, it all needs to get denser. Except, of course, in your neighbourhood, right Thomas?
It is already dense @ UBC. Hence: I need a subway here, not more wobbly buses that do not decongest.
We also have to make more land, which MetroVan could easily do in the marshlands off UBC, off Richmond, off Delta or off Surrey.
Affordability issues are solvable, by higher density, better zoning decision to force rental properties into every 10+ unit project (say 10%), higher property taxes on foreigners or outright restrictions, more land and better RAPID transit.
Far more bold leadership is required here at City Hall or Provincial Government.