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NPA candidate calls for moratorium on laneway houses

November 9th, 2011 · 69 Comments

Okay, a bit confusing that a council candidate is opposing the laneway houses that the NPA’s mayoral candidate is supporting, but anyway, this ought to get Bill some support from irate residents in Dunbar and Point Grey.

NPA Council Candidate Bill McCreery calls for a moratorium on laneway housing.

Over the past two years laneway houses have been an unwelcome addition to many Vancouver neighbourhoods.  Local residents have complained to the Vision Vancouver City Council about their loss of privacy and their loss of on-street parking spaces, along with a variety of other concerns.  However, the Vision Vancouver Council has chosen to ignore these concerns.

In addition to improving laneway housing’s standards and guidelines, NPA Council Candidate Bill McCreery calls for an immediate moratorium of future laneway housing development permits pending the results of a thorough review of standards, guidelines and approval procedures.

McCreery, an architect, says: “This is necessary because of the negative impacts these new homes are having on their neighbours.

“In a nutshell these are the principle concerns:
• The one and a half storey, really two storey, laneway house is an unacceptable fit into most neighbourhoods because of privacy intrusions.  Parking requirements are also increased so there is inadequate street parking, especially for laneway projects on narrower lots.  They also create significant changes in neighbourhood character.
• There are neighourhoods where this concept has been accepted, and there are others where it has not.  Individual neighbourhoods should have a say in whether laneway houses are for them or not.
• The current approval process is too complex, and uncertain.  It also takes too long and is too costly.”

McCreery suggests: “Vancouver needs to research how laneway housing is being done more successfully in other cities – such as Seattle.  If Vancouver laneway housing is to continue in a way that is acceptable to local residents, we need to improve the end product because current practices are not working and are not acceptable.

Categories: 2011 Vancouver Civic Election

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  • Bill McCreery

    @ MB.

    I’d like to see if we can’t find a place in Vancouver where we, and the neighbourhood, could test your sub-sub-division model. Such a demonstration project could help Neighbourhood Roundtables in the local area planning process see other options when it comes time for them to decide how they will handle their share of Vancouver’s density distribution.

    But, in addition, rather than asking someone else “to propose these ideas”, perhaps you’d like to actually be the one to “propose these ideas to those who dwell on the Sacred Ground known as the single-family west side”, or for that matter the east side (please note Joseph Jones, above, lives in Norquay). Why don’t you join me and not just ‘talk the talk’, but ‘walk the walk’. I’d appreciate your company.

    Your critiques of my comments appear to be highly selective and designed to allow you to arrive at conclusions that suit you. Such thought processes tend to result in top down, we know what’s best solutions.

    It’s there, among other places where you and I part company. I have a fundamental respect for the right of citizens in a democracy to make decisions to control their own environments. The disastrous, even dubious at best, results of top down planning are legion. Recent spot rezonings throughout Vancouver are but one more recent example of how not to do it.

    I was one of the elected people way back when in the 70’s who set up the City’s 1st local area planning processes. These have served our city well. They’ve been an important part of helping to create our liveable city. In my view they must be continued and updated and improved to suit today’s world. That’s one of the reasons I’m running for Council. I know that if you give people the necessary information in a form they can understand and utilize that they will make good decisions.

    Perhaps I’ve not fully explained my neighbourhood planning model well enough. It’s a bit to much to try to deal with comprehensively here, but I’d be pleased to sit down with you and go over it.

  • MB

    @ Bill: “Why don’t you join me and not just ‘talk the talk’, but ‘walk the walk’. I’d appreciate your company.”

    Despite my critiques I hold a huge amount of respect for you and know that your primary concern is for the well being of city dwellers.

    I would gladly join you and others in a non-political (if that’s possible!) forum. However, now is not a good time for personal reasons (elder care, for one, weighs big at present).

    My preference is not for politics but for writing and I intend to hone these ideas (which I admit require much editing and further research) and apply architectural renderings and references before posting on a future urban design / sustainability blog or web site.

    Though I disagree with your proposal to have a moratorium on lane houses, and was concerned about your residency, and therein did not vote for you, I would be happy to see you elected to council and contribute your many articulate ideas and insights.

    I wish you the best.

  • Chris Keam

    “I know that if you give people the necessary information in a form they can understand and utilize that they will make good decisions.”

    People regularly make idiotic decisions despite a wealth of good information suggesting they do otherwise, esp. when that decision has an impact on their immediate lives or pocketbooks.

  • Bill McCreery

    Thank you MB. I look forward to meeting and exchanging with you. You have some good ideas and I’d like to see them tested. But, to do that we’ve got to set the stage. If we work with the neighbourhoods maybe we can find one, but it’ll have to be on their terms.

    Cheers.

  • A Dave

    @MB #50

    Well, you’ve just taken a huge step towards debunking the current policy direction of the CoV — you know, towers for every neighbourhood and transit stop, under the false guise of Eco-Density.

    Bartholemew, way back in 1928, envisioned 2 million people living comfortably within city limits, without a single high-rise, not even downtown….

    Imagine now (as I’m sure you have), if you took maybe half of those end-grain lots and put some nice row-houses on them. You would again double your density gain.

    As noted, we have fine examples of both types of subdivision in Vancouver, and rather than detracting from the local area, they tend to add charm, provide a break in the SF lot monotony, and help to develop a better social mix.

    The most obvious “negative” is that large, corporate developers don’t build this type of product…

  • jesse

    ” I believe a lot of the concern about parking is overblown or outright hogwash.”

    It is, there are ample opportunities for 3-car garages (double and single) on lanes with front-back subdivision. Any look at denser cities and how they manage garages provides ample fodder for viable solutions.

    I hope that ALL options are discussed openly and revisited on a recurring basis.

  • jesse

    “If we work with the neighbourhoods maybe we can find one, but it’ll have to be on their terms.”

    We’re all in this together, Bill. If neighbourhoods don’t want density we need to understand the externalities of this and attempt to properly price it.

  • Bill McCreery

    @ Jesse 57.

    Agreed. That’s a part of the neighbourhood centred planning process. the Neighbourhood Roundtables must be given all the information and sides of the arguments so they can make informed decisions. With respect to growth or no growth for instance, what are the implications for quality of life, transportation, sustainability, cost of housing, etc. of no growth? What are they if there is low, medium or high levels of growth?

    The City and Metro also have their priorities and requirements of which the appropriate parts of must be shared into the neighbourhoods so they do their part.

    So, yes we are all in this together and we need to make decisions together. And, unfortunately I’m being very brief around a complex topic. Hope you get the gist of it.

  • Roger Kemble

    MB @ #50

    WOW! Why didn’t I thinq of that!

    You have come up with a creative, useful, do-able plan: I hope it isn’t talked, researched, studied, promised into oblivion.

    That should caution professional poseurs to thinq twice before beguiling the ingenuous with received and potted flim-flam!

    Your plan does naught for inflated prices (that’s a wider issue) but you will do a lot to help genteel, under water OAP’s who quietly suck it up for sake of the g’kids.

    Good show. Keep up the good work.

  • Richard

    @A Dave

    Remember, we are not building a city from scratch. Building a few taller buildings means tearing down fewer houses to see the same increase in density. In the end, building fewer buildings will be less disruptive to communities. Remember, all this started with people being concerned about impacts of laneway housing.

  • Roger Kemble

    MB @ #46

    “But that begs for a better planning process, perhaps the best one being neighbourhood workshops on urban design.”

    Attending charrettes, urban design workshops and the neighbourhood colloquial is great fun. Watching the dynamic of people-interaction is fascinating.

    The “commander” talks her way in and out of issues. The “leader” has experienced every thing. The genteel listener politely accepts every thing: why attend? (Lonely!)

    I no longer favour the charrette symposium after having attended many.

    The format is vulnerable to personal peccadillos of professionals. The neighbours have no clue until Thu Plan cast in stone.

    http://members.shaw.ca/urbanismo/DTES/DTES.charrette.2.html

    No one knows better than Mr. and Mrs. Back Yard planner!

  • voony

    “If we work with the neighbourhoods maybe we can find one, but it’ll have to be on their terms.”

    If the candidate saying that was in office in Richmond, he could close the airport because it has to operates on the neighborhood own term…and can’t

    If we have to listen each and every neighborhood own term,
    the port, the airport ,should be shutdown, the trucks banned of each and every route…etc…
    The economy of the region could go to a dumspter, plain in simple…and it could be no need for densification !

    Vancouver, Richmond, and other don’t need of this populist “nimby” approach. There is something called the “general interest”, and it seems unfortunately to be the great absent of the conversation.

  • Bill McCreery

    Voony, you’re selectively reading what I have written. I have said, and will repeat it to make sure you get the message, that the neighbourhood planning process must be a combination of Citywide and neighbourhood needs and priorities. If the neighbourhood planning process is to work successfully the neighbourhood needs to buy into accepting the over arching priorities and needs of the City. That will take some discussion. But, it is their purview to decide how to handle those based on their own neighbourhood’s values and priorities.

  • MB

    @ Roger 59: “You have come up with a creative, useful, do-able plan: I hope it isn’t talked, researched, studied, promised into oblivion. ”

    I can’t take any credit for the notion of a two-lot end-of-block subdivision. I happen to live in one, and the subdivision ocurred in 1910. Moreover, more than one street in my neighbourhood is full of them. It’s an old idea, but extremely relevant to our modern urban growth pains.

  • MB

    @ Bill 54: ” I’d like to see them [ideas like end-block subdivisions) tested. But, to do that we’ve got to set the stage. If we work with the neighbourhoods maybe we can find one, but it’ll have to be on their terms.”

    See my previous comment, Bill (64). They’ve withstood the test of time for a century and are now in very high demand because small lots are cheaper overall than the neighbouring standard lots. Trouble is, people like me don’t wanna sell out because the neighbourhood is exceptional.

    Now, I live in East Vancouver, and such a thing may be a hard sell on the west side unless, I believe, residents there can see the results for themselves, or at least some good graphics on what they would look like in a workshop.

    Roger is of course right, that such ideas do not lower the value of a unit of land. What they do accomplish, though, is to use increasingly expensive land more efficiently.

    Does anyone really need (or even use) a 792 square foot front yard as mandated by the standard 24-foot front yard setback? One block with 40 standard lots consumes 31,680 ft2 (0.73 ac) in front yards alone. That’s over 17 acres in the 24-block Point Grey neighbourhood I mentioned above that could have a far more useful purpose. New houses with front-back subdivisions could be allowed to use half of the front yard setback.

    You get the picture.

  • MB

    @ Roger 61: “I no longer favour the charrette symposium after having attended many …
    The format is vulnerable to personal peccadillos of professionals. The neighbours have no clue until Thu Plan cast in stone.”

    I have also attended quite a few charrettes and you’re right about human nature. Strong (and often overly-insecure) personalities gravitate toward power, or at least occupy too much space.

    However, I find the workshop format much, much more effective than a talking head up at the front armed with a microphone and Power Point, with a bunch of screamers and complainers dominating the otherwise silent majority in the audience.

    Workshops can challenge citizen participants to roll up their sleeves and come up with their own ideas of how they could willingly accommodate demographic (thus developmental) pressure. Just saying ‘No” is not a constructive answer. If they don’t like a particular project or idea, then enable them to mold and shape other ideas with graphics and examples from the real world.

    The development on the O’Keefe lands (12th x Arbutus) was originally proposed with 15-storey towers everywhere, and the neibourhood overreacted and said keep it single-family.

    The planning dept, the developer and neighbourhood reps workshoped that one and actually settled on 8-storey in some locations, less in others, more open space between, a pretty decent streetscape with small shops on Arbutus, and everyone in agreeance.

    I’m not sure what happened to that process since, but it strikes me that even after City Plan, there weren’t enough workshops where everyone was challenged to actually listen, to discuss ideas intelligently, and to compromise.

    I’m not going to blame one administration over another because there have been several three-year mandates where the neighbourhood process since O’Keefe seemed to suffer.

    But the next few administrations had better listen and work on their consultation process.

  • Roger Kemble

    MB @ #66

    Here’s the last charrette I attended . . .

    http://members.shaw.ca/urbanismo/Newcastle.Brechin.pdf

    One and one half days of good neighbourhood input: mostly against towers: especially on the waterfront.

    I am in favour of appropriately designed, urban-context-integrated towers: I live in one.

    Malevolently, IMO, the city planners’ version eventually came out siting towers in the worst place possible: on the waterfront.

    Go figure.

  • Bill McCreery

    @ MB 64.

    If your subdivision approach were part of the bag of housing options available in a Neighbourhood Centred Roundtable planning process I believe it might be an option neighbourhoods might well like to test out for themselves, even on the west side.

    Assuming of course that ‘people like me don’t wanna sell out because the neighbourhood is exceptional’ so such tests can be done. [said light heartedly]

  • Michael Lyons

    I work for Smallworks, a small home builder that worked with NPA to develop laneway housing and Vision to implement it. We have built by far the most laneway homes of any other builder in this format and so I can speak to the point.

    I speak almost daily with the neighbors of laneway home owners and with few exceptions the vast majority are in favor of the program and are curious about what it would take to do the same on their property. Especially in controversial Dunbar.

    It’s the price that causes pause, not lack of support. Many thought it would cost about what a fancy garage should and I must frequently disappoint. But for those who compare it to buying a condo of similar rental value, they are pleasantly surprised at what a great investment it is.

    65-70% of our clients are building for family use (aging family member, to downsize into or for the next gen’s starter home). The remaining rental units get a high rental rate because the market wants them and there are still so few to choose from.

    At only $200-250k, they generate great positive cash flow ($1000 mortgage, $1800 rent approx.) that is helping people on fixed incomes stay in their homes, and helping new buyers afford to live in the neighborhood they grew up in.

    A temporary moritorium may make McCreery look thoughtful, and may buy Michael Geller time to ramp up his own laneway house operation, as the companies who set up to build them (for an overwhelmingly positive market of homeowners who need them) suffer or perish, while Vancouver slowly remembers why we have this program in the first place:
    – to add density to all of Vancouver, not just downtown and arteries
    – to invigorate neighbourhoods with new families
    – to help buyers afford a home (by way of mortgage helper on the property or to accommodate family)
    – to add more rental units sooner than later
    – to allow people to live closer to where they work, play, shop, get an education…
    Density and laneway housing does this while eventually reducing freeway traffic and urban sprawl into our agricultural land reserve.

    As a Smallworks employee I am certainly biased, but as a middle class Vancouverite with a sustainability streak was a proponent long before I joined the industry.

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