” … the perception of change increases.”
That’s a Priceism I’ve used for years, based on my political experience. I noticed it particularly in the West End, where the rate of change had dramatically diminished since the 1960s and ’70s – yet people believed, with the approval of a handful of towers, that the rate of change had dramatically increased. The same with the city, and even more in the region.
And yet:
That data is for the CMA, the Census Metropolitan Area – or basically Metro Vancouver. Here are the actual population numbers:
So even though the population has increased, the rate of that growth slowed down over the past five years compared to the previous half decade.
And the rate in the last five years in the City of Vancouver was even less:
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In 2016, the enumerated population of Vancouver (City) was 631,486, which represents a change of 4.6% from 2011. This compares to the provincial average of 5.6% and the national average of 5.0%.
In the longer view, the population growth has been steady, with little in the way of major increases or declines:
Choose where you like on the Goldilocks scale, but one observation I think we can rule out: Growth is “out of control.” Not. But it’s often the precondition used by some to justify disruptive changes in policy, particularly in migration. There may be other reasons to intervene in the type of growth, or for reasons of environmental sustainability – but an unprecedented change in the rate of growth is not one of them.
Unprecedented housing starts in the City of Vancouver for 2016, an insane 25,500 empty homes in the City of Vancouver, and some of the lowest growth ever recorded. Something seems broken….
25,000 empty homes …. Well, that needs some research and citations.
I mean, it was all over the news since the census numbers dropped (which is where the number came from). It’s not like this was pulled from thin air…
http://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/census-counts-25502-unoccupied-homes-in-vancouver-more-than-double-the-estimate-by-city-hall
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/vancouver-has-the-highest-ratio-of-empty-underused-homes-in-35-years/article33961876/
http://www.metronews.ca/news/vancouver/2017/02/08/vancouver-empty-homes-rises-census-2016.html
https://betterdwelling.com/city/vancouver/heres-metro-vancouvers-66719-unoccupied-homes-interactive/
Low growth is related to affordability. Affordability is related to land use. Land value is equal with or a bit higher (standard lots) and often over three times (small lots) per square foot than the house value. This is extremely important when the Floor Area Ratio is stuck at 70% of lot area in too many zones that do not permit subdivision, creating a shortage of land when demand is high. The empty home hype is irrelevant in this context, and the distasteful dog whistle tone about foreigners is a distraction from the real issue. The numbers are also questionable.
In my view, the media is barking up the wrong tree on empty homes. The census growth issue correlates roughly with the Mountain Math property value map linked below, not occupancy. There are obvious patterns.
https://www.mountainmath.ca/map/assessment?zoom=12&lat=49.2494&lng=-123.1241&layer=12
I don’t get your comment. First you questioned the fact that there are a ton of empty homes in Vancouver, when census data showed that was in fact true, you stated that bringing up the very existence of empty homes was a “dog whistle”. “Dog whistle” for what? Empty homes aren’t good in any city, it has nothing to do with foreign versus local, it has everything to do with used versus unused. So take your over the top hyperbole elsewhere, it weakens your point.
Your post also makes no sense in the context of what I was talking about. We have record housing starts in the CoV, empty homes for more than 50,000 citizens (using the 2+ person per household metric that comes from StatsCan), record prices and low population growth. That’s a problem, and it is a problem largely in areas where there are empty homes. The neighbourhoods with high rates of empty homes are seeing decreasing populations, this in a city with high housing costs. That makes no sense. If some of our increased density in certain neighbourhoods is being offset by decreasing density in other neighbourhoods, that is a problem. So yes, rezoning needs to happen. First things first, cut down on the number of ridiculous view cones. Second, consider rezoning, preferably by adding medium density and infill options to current low density neighbourhoods instead of leaving them as purely SFHs. Rezoning and crafting policies to encourage the 50,000 residents worth of empty housing stock to become lived in properties, whether by owner or rented, are not mutually exclusive concepts. Both necessary to solve the housing crisis.
Empty homes are not the issue. Affordability is the issue. The value of a property (or more specifically, the land) is not relative to its occupancy. Two neighbouring houses in Dunbar can be worth $3M each even when one is vacant.
I also question the stats when no one actually went around to every home in the city to determine occupancy. The stats I’ve seen are a mixed bag, BC Hydro usage over 6 months, conjecture, statistical averages and anecdote. The media has published some pretty breathless pieces on empty homes with direct and indirect references to ‘dem foreigners. They (and you) have made empty homes The Central Issue.
Your last paragraph is exactly what I was saying about land use policy restricting the supply of low rise and attached freehold single family homes. In my opinion, not nearly enough homes of these typologies have been built, and if they were they would be roughly a third cheaper and sell like hotcakes because they use less of our expensive land. They’d sell even more if they came with legal suites to help with family income.
Lower housing costs, increased family income … what’s wrong with that picture?
“As the rate of change slows down, the perception of change increases.”
This captures the phenomenon perfectly, and it is so true. I have observed it with technology: we have gone from nuclear weapons and moon shots to iPhones and Ubers, yet the perception is that change is accelerating. I wonder why this is so?
The census explains some important facts.
Yes, some people have moved to downtown Vancouver to live but it looks as though quite a few have moved out too. In the five years measured, the growth of the population in Vancouver is only 4.6%. A tiny bit more than the 4.5% of Toronto.
Yet, while Vancouver tries to stem the tide of expansion of roads infrastructure by simply not building any more roads and insisting that roads and bridges do not need to be expanded or built, the growth of Surrey over that same five years has been 10.6%.
The growth of Langley has been 12.6%.
Vancouver is said to now have a population of 603,502.
Surrey and Langley, together, have 572,428.
Vancouver had 603,502 in 2011. In 2016 it had 631,486.
I stand corrected. My figure is from 2011.
Eric – The number or cars entering Vancouver and entering downtown have been on a downward trend for decades. Car trips among residents is now less than 50% or all trips. I can’t fathom why we should have more roads. Anyway, where would you put them? If we were to implement the 1960s freeway plan, the expropriation costs would be well into the $trillions. And would this make our city better?
Arno, we’ve been through that before. That’s the reporting diary thing set up by Vancouver that is heavily weighted to retired people living on the east side and completely excludes commercial tradespeople.
You’d better tell TransLink that they should build some rail out in Langley quick. It’s not the Broadway corridor that’s growing the fastest, it’s Surrey and Langley. Otherwise, there will just be more SUVs and more trucks.
Yes, we have been through this before, but perhaps it didn’t register.
It is not just the trip diary, you are confused. Apart from the fact that the trip diary is weighted to population, and it oversamples. The results are statistically significant, as can be seen by reviewing the methodology.
the number of cars entering Vancouver and downtown comes from the screen counts. And they count tradespeople, at least if they cross the screenline.
The data is useless. The trip diary data is preceded with an explanation that they had continuing difficulty recruiting a younger demographic, even though they offered free tickets to the PNE.
Those so-called ‘screen counts’ are created by groups of people camped out at various roadside points around the edge of the city.
The data is faulty because if there is a commercial or trades person alone in a vehicle they record it as a SOV commuter. They count tradespeople as those in pick-up trucks. There are people like and such as: doctors, nurses, cleaners, salespeople, surveyors, artists, architects, accountants, appliance service technicians, IT technicians and even urban planners, etc., etc. that drive around in vehicles, such as SUVs and sedans, alone.
Anyone studying the methodology used to collect this data recognizes it immediately as fake news.
Benjamin Disraeli: “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”
And there are two kinds of users of statistics. Those who know how to use them, and those that don’t. Those that claim “data is useless” are often in the latter category.
Just look at the conflation of the terms SOV and commuter.
Eric – like Jeff mentions, there are several sources for this data. Screen count show the number of cars entering Vancouver and downtown Vancouver. Trip counts come from Vancouver Trip Diary which are corrected in many ways including rationalizing the data with TransLink Trip Diary data. Furthermore, the commute data has been confirmed by a recent Insights West poll. I am waiting patiently for the 2016 Census commute data which will be released in November.
But then you probably don’t trust the Census data either because citizens are legally obliged to fill our the Census form. Full disclosure – I helped Statistics Canada to collect some of the census data. Is there any data you trust?
Population growth alone is not an indicator of a healthy community. Bedroom communities are not the shining examples of a robust economy Eric portrays them to be. The number of jobs, mixed use zoning, office and industry floor space, company count and even per capita energy consumption, CO2 emissions and GDP are all leading indicators of the health and completeness of a community.
Quite perceptive, Gordon, and thanks! I’d underscore that Vancouver’s urgent problems in need of being addressed do not include growth per se. They do include housing prices, alternative – to cars – transportation, including truck access,2 and a few other bigees.
You can interpret stats many ways. For instance it could be that working families are fleeing the city in their search for housing, leaving homes occupied by empty nesters or not occupied at all.
That’s one rather myopic interpretation.
Another is the population of the downtown-central Broadway-UBC-arterial axis is more than half of Surrey’s and Langely’s combined in a far smaller land area, while the economic performance and regional importance is orders of magnitude greater.
Statements like “working families fleeing the city” requires substantiation. While growth rates may be higher, not every working family is suburbanizing. They are looking for an extra bedroom, not a 7,000 ft2 lot with a three-hour commute and $25,000 a year in additional auto transportation costs attached.
They are looking for affordable townhomes. Do yourself a favour and go out to Granville Heights in South Surrey, or anywhere in Langley. See the masses of development of townhomes, mostly all for families. 1,600 sq’ and popping up everywhere.
Prominent architects, developers and planners agree that substantial swarths of Vancouver need to be zoned for townhouses and 6-9 storey mid rises. The overwhelming issue is supply.
Then there’s the distance and the travel. It’s a trade off but as long as the berry fields stop any building closer to the city and the zoning maintains single-family all over most of Vancouver, nothing will stop the over double and almost triple growth in those two areas.
@ Eric
I agree on the Vancouver zoning and missing middle housing types. However, those who seek a home in Granville Heights or a neat little hobby farm in Hazelmere Valley while working on the Burrard peninsula need to practice more in-depth family financial planning and stop sucking up the cost of multiple car ownership and commuting time while wondering why they aren’t ahead and feel their family time has been stolen.
You are a contractor with a mobile shop and work all over the Metro, and it’s understandable you would support road projects. I know many good contractors and highly value their skills in the projects I manage at work and at home. However Massey and Port Mann were not proposed for contractors, they are there for the suburban car commuter / voter. I hope Christy sees the light and offers a half-price discount to registered commercial vehicles on the tolls for new bridges — if she’s re-elected. At the same time, the evidence everywhere proves that investments in decently planned transit with quality service will help level off or reduce non-commercial traffic and the needless sums spent on over-designed car infrastructure.
I am not a contractor running a commercial vehicle, and I made the job switch to be closer to home for very good reasons over 20 years ago. I don’t feel the need to pay for more road infrastructure. When people like me advocate for transit, it’s for everyone, including contractors like you.
As long as there are large tracts of developable land within the Urban Containment Boundary (as you correctly pointed out) and a dearth of transit, I don’t see any logic in carving up the berry fields for townhouses or 27,000 ft2 ticky tacky mansions.
Some are looking for an extra BR and some want a yard and a house or TH. As such, we need both.
Btw: do people with kids blog here, or only single white males ? Any Asians with three or more generations per household, or mothers with two or more kids for some diversity of opinion ? Truckers ?
I can’t wait to leave. Some days I just want to live about 50kn away from everything