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Character houses in Vancouver being demolished at higher rate than newer ones

June 11th, 2014 · 15 Comments

That was one fact that emerged from the presentation by general manager of planning Brian Jackson yesterday, in advance of today’s council vote supporting new policies that are an attempt to slow down the demolitions.

More details in Jackson’s Power Point here and my story here.

By the way, I popped over the the inquiries desk at city hall yesterday to check on demolition permits granted. Here is what was on the books, just since June 1:

3049 West 21st
4049 West 33rd
7457 Laburnum
2225 McMullen Avenue
6775 Fleming
2066 West 47th
7289 Adera (a deconstruction)
4157 West 13th
5811 Dumfries
7741 Elliott
5961 Wales

Prior to the meeting, I’d heard from an architect that there are so many applications to build new single family (which is Vancouver almost inevitably entails a demolition) in the last few months that application processing times have jumped from about eight weeks to 14. My guess would be a lot of people are rushing through in order to beat the city’s new character-protection policies. (Which is a sign that at least some people think they’ll be effective, even if some heritage advocates don’t.)

Jackson told me that, in order to unclog the backlog, he got the permits department to send out a message to the 250 people in the queue saying that if their applications were ready to come in right away. That brought 38 people down to the hall hotfoot and almost all of those have now been processed.

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  • brilliant

    The locusts who have descended upon our city’s real estate care nothing for heritage. Until the door is shut this is all just pissing into the wind.

  • Everyman

    Applying this just to First Shaughnessy is too timid. If they want to aid affordability they need to apply it to formerly middle and upper-middle class areas like Dunbar, Point Grey, Kerrisdale and South Granville. It is there that what were once modest starter homes are being demolished in favour of mini Mansions.

  • Kirk

    City council finally doing something? Hey, must be an election coming up soon!

    In case, you missed this article, get ready for more high-end foreign purchases. From the article’s reference to Vancouver, we must be a cliche now.
    http://finance.yahoo.com/news/ipo-nears-alibaba-prepares-employees-004716569.html

  • Bill Lee

    Hmm, that short list is west-side (mainly west of Alma), and south slope (south of 41st),

    Go back and see Andrew Yan’s map of property values. btaworks.com/2014/01/29/changes-in-total-property-assessment-values-in-the-city-of-vancouver-by-percentage-2013-2014/

    And it seems that
    “New Development and Building Services Centre now open
    In May 2014, we opened our doors to a new Development and Building Services Centre on the ground floor at 515 W 10th Ave (at the NW corner of Cambie Street and West 10th Avenue).
    Why we’re moving”
    http://vancouver.ca/home-property-development/permits-and-regulations.aspx

    Can’t seem to find the list of demolitions easily in the present vancouver.ca webpages.
    Used to be more easily found.

  • Threadkiller

    The horse is not only gone from the barn whose door they’re trying to close, he’s already in the next county and still running.

  • rph

    That’s because they bulldozed down the barn (and the farmhouse) and replaced it with a mini-mansion.

  • Silly Season

    I do laugh when our ‘objective’ media covers these stories with vastly different headlines (the Star and G+M’s talk about th ‘income equality’ problem, the Post about how private insureers should be picking up th tab…).

    Anyhoo…

    Here is the nub of the story: The OECD say CMHC should get out of housing insurance game. Apparently the cost of housing (and especial condo developments in TO and Vancouver) just don’t make sense, given the vast differences in price—and income.

    Hmmm. And here I thought that the more developers built the ‘more affordable’ housing becomes! (Oh, I just made myself laugh!).

    Sure—more affordable. For whom? What could be driving these housing prices up through the…er…roof?

    http://business.financialpost.com/2014/06/11/oecd-calls-for-canada-to-shift-mortgage-risk-from-taxpayers-to-private-sector/

  • teririch

    If you can afford to buy a $1M + house, pay for the cost of demolishing it and building a new house, adding a few thousand dollars in additional demo fees isn’t going have any impact on the buyer’s decision.

    Houses like the ‘Legg’ house, should have been protected outright.

    Vision has a habit of acting after the fact. This falls into that category.

  • brilliant

    @teririch 8-Vision has conveniently discovered heritage in an election year.

  • Jon Petrie

    “Saving” a smallish single heritage building in a neighborhood which has or will be radically changed is often, in my view, a waste of money and effort. What works visually are “saved” rows of heritage buildings — if they are not hidden behind vegetation.

    Recently Council approved a project on north side of King Edward just west of the Canada Line station on Cambie. The project “saves” the Hobbit Cottage – the one with the very curvy roof – in place. Problem is given the Hobbit Residence setback, the considerably less setback of the new row housing and the planned tree planting within ten years the “saved” building will be barely visible from a passing car and if viewed from the sidewalk anachronistic /vaguely ridiculous.

  • Adam Fitch

    There is one force that is driving the demolition boom that is not being addressed, or even discussed.

    It is the growing attraction of immigrants to Vancouver, who want to live in a particular area, and can well afford to do so, but do not want to live in a house with someone else’s memories.

    For these buyers, due to the cultural norms, they would no more want to live in an old house than would Canadians want to wear second-hand underwear, or eat second-hand food. The demolitions
    will not stop unless we address this phenomenon head-on.

    I suggest that we consider a dramatic change in zoning regulations, and in the limitations put on single family lot development. If character houses were allowed to be moved forward on the lot, closer to the street, and large new houses built behind the old houses, that would save some character houses and possibly provide some new rental housing.

    Likewise, if character houses were allowed to be moved to the back of the lot, close to the lanes, and large new houses built in front, that would do the same.

    I know there would be lots of opposition to this, but it does address several current issues: affordability, demolition, densification, school enrollment decreases.

    I would like to see how that works.

  • rph

    Adam, for the rich who can afford to buy these homes, I cannot imagine why they would want to take on the upkeep and hassle of old secondary homes on the property. They do not need the income provided by renting them out to strangers, and I imagine the same adversion to second hand would apply to extended family.

    They will simply choose to buy/build a new home in a different area of Vancouver that does not have a heritage preservation law.

    So more competition from overseas buyers for a smaller pool of buildable land, and thus even higher prices. Eventually there may even be political pressure brought to bear from owners with restrictions on their land when their homes do not increase as much in value.

  • Everyman

    @Jon Petrie 10
    I understand where you are coming from, but in my opinion it’s better to save even one house to surprise, delight and break the boredom of modern condo design.

  • Adam Fitch

    RPH, I agree with you. This whole thing is not an easy problem to solve. I was just trying to suggest a solution that involves something proactive, rather than just the same old complaining and suggesting more restrictions.

    I don’t think that will work.

  • MB

    Adam 11

    Moving an existing character home on a lot is a good idea, and it’s been tried in several locations in Vancouver where the economics allow it. This is, unfortunately, more common in neighbourhoods like Shaughnessy where wealth and large lots are prevail, and where there is sufficient space to appease the Planning Department with heritage preservation in return for greater density.

    Considering there are ~73.5 hectares of land locked up just in the standard 24-foot front yard setback over 10,000 standard lots, using that land more efficiently makes a lot of sense.

    But moving a house and rebuilding the foundations costs in the range of $150,000. There needs to be a way for the owner to benefit from assuming those costs, such as allowing the remaining portion of the lot to be subdivided into two freehold rowhouses in addition to creating two or three units in the character home, if desired.

    It’s my view that the city should go out of its way to assist single owners or small but creative developers to accomplish this proactively over our vast tracts of detached homes, and to enact stricter recycling of materials and demolition bylaws to put a damper on binning heritage.