Geoff Plant, recovering politician (Provincial Attorney-General), writes in the Globe and Mail about fundamentals. Change, expectations, and the status quo.
In particular, he writes that housing must change from low to higher density everywhere — the way forward. I think he sees, as do I, that the 1950’s are gone. Single family homes for everyone, with a white picket fence, lawn and two Buicks in every driveway, are gone forever in Vancouver. That expectation (source of so much hand-wringing) must die away.
“Change cannot be avoided, but we need equal parts vision and fortitude to imagine and then implement the new city.
The way forward is clear. The neighbourhoods of single family houses in the heart of residential Vancouver are not sustainable, except as virtually gated communities for the very rich. The city simply has to grow up by growing upwards. There are no single-family houses in the heart of Hong Kong, London, Paris, Singapore or New York. People live and raise their families in apartments and townhouses. They do it now in Yaletown. They will have to do it in Dunbar, Kitsilano, Mount Pleasant, Point Grey and Fraserview.
There is no government program or law that will return us to a day of affordable single-family homes in Vancouver. Surtaxing non-resident land owners and subsidizing so-called affordable housing projects are all well and good, but they are just Band-Aids. If we want to live in this city, we will have to change the way we live, in smaller spaces, closer together. Our city council must increase the supply of housing by intensifying. Carefully, sensitively and respectfully, but firmly and relentlessly. And faster.”
Geoff Plant was British Columbia’s attorney-general from 2001 to 2005. He practises law with Gall Legge Grant & Munroe in Vancouver. His Twitter account describes himself as “lawyer, recovering politician, learner”.
Concise, heartfelt and to the point. Kudos!
Creating less costly housing using less land in Vancouver while protecting neighbourhood character can be done. Subdivide standard 10 m lots front to back and build smaller houses in back. Create suited quadruplexes on larger single lots. Subdivide two end lots into five or six rowhouses, all with suites. Build basic starter two up two down rowhouses with no basements. Build many more rowhouse types to afford graduated home ownership. Turn the corner from four to six-storey multi-family development on arterials to three-storeys on the first block either side of arterials. All this can be done and the city is the one to foster this positive change.
More people living in what is now low density single detached home districts will require more transit. The position of the province and feds are known. But it doesn’t take multiple billions to supply more articulated, high-capacity trolleys on the arterials in these neighbourhoods with bus priority signal control, and to add diesel express routes to many more arterials (or a parallel trolley wire service), and build more bus stop bump outs. The city and the Metro could get together to run expanded local bus transit and pay for it as a utility.
Just do it already.
Certainly the city must schedule surgery for our neighbourhoods, but unless we start applying some of those Band-aids many of the patients are going to bleed to death before they reach the operating room. The speculation and fire hose of foreign money must be dealt with now before people who actually want to live here are driven completely away.
Geoff Plant is saying what most people just don’t want to admit to already knowing. SFHs in Vancouver are for the rich. It’s giving up on the dream for a lot of people. At a certain point, I would think that it’d affect the local economy.
For instance, imagine if the Premier went to local universities and told the graduating class, if you ever want to own a house, you should leave and take your education to a different city. Or, if Ryan Holmes included a letter from the mayor telling prospective new hires that they will never afford more than a small condo if they relocate here. That’s essentially what we’re admitting Vancouver has to offer.
That’s all well and good but what the hell is the point of building multi family townhomes, laneway houses, apartments, etc. when they are just bought up by the mainland Chinese anyway? We have to stop building density just so some mainland Chinese family can have a safe secure future while escaping the pollution of Beijing. Its not our job to house the worlds rich refugees.
Did you see this?
http://www.vancouversun.com/business/real-estate/vancouver+house+left+deteriorate+market+million/11752938/story.html?__lsa=f48b-269f
The average Vancouverite works 40+ hours a week, paying taxes, contributing to the economy and their communities. Their jobs help spin off other jobs and pay for schools and healthcare. Many barely eke out a living. They work a thankless job they don’t like. They sacrifice seeing their kids. They deal with the stress of the daily grind. Wake up early. Leave their cookie cutter, shoebox apartment. Commute for an hour. Squeeze onto the crowded, smelly B-line in the dark, pouring rain. And, repeat this for forty years with no pension when they retire. Meanwhile, Geoff Plant and Bob Rennie tell the them hard truth, it will be worse for your kids. Their apartments will be smaller yet more expensive, and their commutes longer.
In their ENTIRE lifetime of work, they will make less money than the single flip of this one empty house. The house contributed nothing to the economy. The owner might not even pay capital gains taxes. It didn’t create jobs or contribute to society. It didn’t even perform its fundamental task of housing someone. Flippers used to at least pay development fees and employ local construction crews who tore down and rebuilt. But now, the land itself is worth so much that it makes more financial sense just to keep flipping empty lots.
What a joke.
Interest rates rising to the previous Canadian average of 7-10% would probably have a huge downward effect on prices, more than any legislated discrimination against “foreigners” could achieve. But no one wants to pay that price.
For now the rates are almost subprime, which without published warnings is tantamount to creating a massive debt bubble largely based on mortgages.
I also thought until very recently that Canada was mainly for Canadians and hard working immigrants.
Unfortunately Canada – especially SW BC and some select cities like Toronto – is now overrun and exploited by passport seekers and wealth exporters who give a damn about Canada.
I don’t really know anymore what Canada and Canadian values stand for.
Canada’s immigration policy is fundamentally flawed. Canada’s housing taxation is fundamentally flawed. Incomes are overtaxed while housing, especially by affluent immigrants and non-Canadians is grossly undertaxed.
The country is indeed moving in the wrong direction. It has too much debt and allows far too many immigrants that have zero interest in learning English ( or French ) and integrate. Our laws especially tax laws are blatantly ignored and poorly enforced.
Time to change the laws of the land to benefit Canadians first !
Thomas, I applaud you for actually putting your money where your mouth is and actually writing and reaching out to politicians. Perhaps we need to protest in the streets, block traffic for a period of time or heaven for bid riot to get the goddamn point across
“Unfortunately Canada … is now overrun and exploited by passport seekers and wealth exporters who give a damn about Canada.”
We are a victim of international gentrification.
Ron, something more than anecdotal, angry opinionization would help. How about some Stats Canada numbers? Sure, there are “Mainland Chinese” buying homes here — along with of thousands of Europeans, Canadians and other Asians — but no one that I am aware of has evidence they are buying up every average condo. Far from it.
Prove to me that they aren’t. I have real estate agent friends in South Surrey and every sale is going to Mainland Chinese, especially in the Semiahmoo High School catchment because of their IB program. Who the hell pays $735k over asking price for a home when the world is heading into a global recession? Chinese laundering money. Wake up
http://bc.ctvnews.ca/this-vancouver-home-just-sold-for-735-000-over-asking-1.2792886
Fearmongering.
The “Mainland Chinese” also built this province while suffering through horrible working conditions and a discriminatory head tax. Their descendants are now into their fourth and fifth generations who know only the Canadian way of life and suffer from the housing crunch.
You have no proof because no one has done enough research to blame one single group out of an entire planet of immigrants for the housing affordability issue. “Mainland Chinese” do not set the interest rates or restrict the supply of housing or produce planning failures.
You are making these assertions and therefore it is up to you to back them up with hard core, unbiased research. Mere spouting off is easy and weak.
Wow, do you work for Christy Clark? Thats the kind of BS rhetoric that keeps the masses at bay while we search for data.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-02-29/pretty-freaking-nuts-vancouver-home-sells-735000-above-asking-price
Any person not blind can see who the buyers are. They are usually not Italians nor Polish nor Liberians nor Egyptians nor Brazilians nor Americans nor Norwegians.
The 2% land transfer tax is the new head tax. Far too low in my opinion for non-Canadians. It ought to be 15% like in London or Singapore. Maybe only 7.5% for condos. Plus we ought to enforce existing tax laws on sale. At least we are now recording citizenship for buyers as per the recent BC budget. I wonder, why not for sellers ?
Ron, I don’t live on the West Side and I’ve never supported the retreaded Socreds. But I am interested in the housing issue without the bombastic, fact-free rhetoric blaming one ethnic group for all our housing ills. Not one single link or data point backing your intolerant assertion has been presented by you that relates to the entire Metro, all housing types, all in-migration and all potential effects on prices including interest rates and constraints on land.
If all you can do is spend your energy vociferously harping on the Chinese while ignoring everything else, then you need to broaden your horizons and find ways to be more constructive in your arguments and less myopic in your view of the world.
And no, Thomas, “Mainland Chinese” are not buying up my East Vancouver neighbourhood. In fact, people of Chinese ethnicity are in the minority in the existing, renovated or new housing or rental suites. There is another world beyond West Point Grey.
In fact, my neighbourhood is United Nations in appearance.
You are right. Only Point Grey, Richmond, UEL and other high end neigborhoods. The other folks are then forced into E-Van, Victoria, Ladner, Delta, Langley etc.
We never felt “forced” at all in our choice of East Van. It was a freely realized decision between it and another a bit further east.
Zzzz, yet another member of the 1% telling ordinary folks they should give up the dream of owning their own home. Of course Plant doesn’t say why he or his BC Liberal cronies did nothing while these same homes were sold off to offshore investors.
Go back to your private life Mr. Plant, you left the public one, so we really don’t have to listen to your pontificating anymore.
Now the Chinese are buying up Victoria…
http://www.vancouversun.com/business/affordability/buying+wave+sparks+bidding+battles+victoria+real/11757037/story.html?__lsa=04c2-273f
OK. I read the article. There is nothing there that follows your lead and blames “Mainland Chinese” for higher housing prices in Victoria, or elsewhere. You are clearly fishing for a scapegoat in a heated market that has taken an intolerant turn. How unfortunate.
So, who is buying Victoria real estate? The article you linked to itself makes an unfounded comment about demand driven by wealthy Chinese, but then incongruently lists people largely from Victoria, but also ” … California, Paris, Vancouver, Calgary …” In addition: “… migration from Vancouver that isn’t retirement-focused …,” and “…young professionals trading in Vancouver homes for Vancouver Island properties, then commuting …” And, yes, some Chinese, not all from the mainland.
That’s a lotta different folks there, Ron.