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Rowhouses: Missing from Vancouver in the past, about to arrive in the future

June 11th, 2012 · 58 Comments

Rowhouses are a feature of most European and eastern North American cities. But they’re oddly missing in Vancouver — Vancouver, the city, that is.

As it turned out when I started doing the research for this story, there are lots of rowhouses — or a facsimile of them — being built in many of the suburbs around Vancouver.

Surrey, for example, saw 27 per cent of all the new housing build there in a rowhouse form. (So much for all those cranky types who think that every census showing people are moving to the suburbs is some kind of confirmation that it’s a single-family, white-picket-feence, triple-car-garage life they’re moving to.)

But Vancouver somehow skipped over them and, even though they’re clearly a popular form (7,000 built in the last four years in the region overall), the city still lags behind in latching on to this mini-single-family house that serves those who don’t want to be in an apartment but don’t want the big honking single-family yard and house.

As my story makes clear, plenty of people would like to build or buy more. But one thing that came through loud and clear to me, as I talked to most of the developers who do them, was that there’s not going to be a big rush right away. There are a lot of municipal rules in the way — no specific zoning for them, parking HAS to go underground in some municipalities — and, as well, developers have gotten very used to selling rowhouses as parts of stratas.

Many of them said they think that strata is the only form that allows them to build at densities that make the units affordable. Others said buyers actually prefer stratas in many cases, because then an unknown pool of people in the neighbourhood are forced to keep to some basic standard of maintenance. That’s not true with thee freehold rowhouses, where owners are free to maintain, landscape and paint garish colours as they wish.

Is Vancouver really such a strata-minded city as they think? I wonder.

 

 

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  • voony

    Elizabeth@50

    You are right that most of the value is in land (even for new house), but why?

    I will paste here my opinion of the land value rational (posted in the plumber section before)

    “more generally, land price is driven by yield potential.
    as stated in introduction, a typical built Vancouver lot can host 3 dwelling (the main unit, the basement suite and the laneway house) -> rental yield $4000 to $6000/month…

    in a nowadays environment where bond yield below 2%, 4% yield can be considered good…That put a price of $1.1M (to $1.4M) on the above.

    Building cost being at 450K to 650K, it put the fair market price for the lot land at 550K (to 750K).”

    building a laneway house alone cost somewhere in the $250K according to Michael Geller, this to yield ~2000$ monthly rental income…very attractive 10% yield (it is unheard of -even in depressed market)-

    That can pay a $400K mortgage.
    In other word, the laneway house potential lift the land value of a lot by $150K.

    want to make homeownership more accessible without reducing density? subdivide land, that more people can enter the market.

  • Roger Kemble

    From Michael Geller’s Round Table.

    “ When I first agreed to participate in this Task Force initiative, a number of people questioned whether any positive benefits would be forthcoming.</I. I would have been one of them, Voony @ #51 and after reading the report remain a skeptic for the following reasons . . .

    “They noted that many of the factors contributing to the cost of housing in Vancouver, such as the high cost of land and the impacts of foreign investment, are beyond the mandate of the City.” Michael should have stopped there for, indeed, the rest of his report is boiler-plate raising the question why such by-law amendments were not implemented before.

    For instance . . . “ . . . by modifying the RS zoning, it will be possible to facilitate the development of smaller, more affordable single family, duplex, semi-detached and coach house homes.” From the evidence, the inventory of this stock, so far, is very expensive for what it offers.

    Paper money, the dollar in all denominations, is losing value rapidly. Precious metals, commodities and real estate (evidently Vancouver’s especially) are now currency. All the evidence points to Vancouver’s high real estate and exponential land prices caused by currency hedging and speculation.

    Fiddling with the size of the lot or party wall legislation wont change a thing.

  • Roger Kemble

    PS A financial collapse will definitely have a positive effect on bloated Vancouver real estate prices!

  • MB

    Elizabeth Murphy 50:

    In established neighbourhoods planning should not be done as if nothing exists and it is a blank slate. It is not sustainable to assume that whole neighbourhoods should be cleared for redevelopment.

    The objective should not be to concrete over every square foot of landscape in the city.

    That is nowhere near what I said or implied.

    I was merely illustrating the aggregate amount of land locked up in setbacks in single-family zones, and that this land begs to be used more efficiently.

    Supply and demand, plain and simple.

    In addition, nowhere did I say or imply that heritage is not a value worth treasuring. Of course heritage houses (and sometimes their gardens — e.g. Arthur Erickson’s Point Grey property) need to be protected. Class A or B heritage houses (and heritage trees) can be designed around, or even repositioned on a lot to free up more land.

    I would hardly classify the one-for-0ne destruction of tens of thousands of smaller older houses for the constructon of cheaply built stucco boxes on cleared lots as ‘heritage’ or anywhere near a good example of efficient land use planning. Block after block of often tacky Specials now occupy the same spaces older character houses sat.

    Moreover, the value of our unaffordable dwellings is mostly in the land and views, not always just in the structures.

    Land and economics — and if necessary, design guidelines, including protecting existing heritage buildings– would play an important role in the implementation of row houses.

    What exactly do you know about trees? There are species that are even too large for city boulevards, let alone private yards. It’s a real shame when they have to be cut down after 40 years after breaking foundations, uplifting sidewalks and uprooting sewers because someone mistakenly planted an oversized species better suited for parks.

    As the city densifies, more runoff infiltration and capture needs to be implemented. Cisterns, bioswales, infiltration wells and end-of-system biofiltration ponds need to be built. Many of these techniques are now widely accepted in narrow confines and underground today and go a much longer way in dealing with runoff than the oversized cul-de-sacs and triple driveways of suburbia.

    If we were redesigning a new city we may reduce yard space and change building lot forms, but in an existing neighbourhood it is limited where this should be done.

    There are very creative design professionals out there, a plethora of products and hundreds of tree species available to address all of these concerns.

    Regarding existing neighbourhoods, I’d rather see a block of a dozen non-heritage single family homes recycled into 30 row houses than to continue to see their incidious, one-by-one replacement with another 12 single family homes — often after clearing all the trees despite the bylaw– with no greater advantage to the city as a whole or to the neighbourhood.

  • MB

    Row houses are just as capable of containing secondary basement suites as a stand-alone single family house. They are also capable of being totally unique in character, from simple small structures without basements (slab at grade) to four-storey luxury homes.

    London has several hundred thousand row houses carved up into suites. Most often there is a split-level entry, i.e. steps up from the sidewalk to the main floor, and steps down to a small courtyard and a ground floor suite (separate entry). They accomplish this with a ubiquitous retaining wall to allow the excavation of the entire block of “terraces” (in my grandfather’s old place it was seven attached houses) to extend right up to the streetside property line. The houses are set back usually 10 feet.

    Families starting out or empty nesters would no doubt find basement mortgage helpers in row houses very attractive, not the least because the houses are 1/3rd cheaper than their detached neighbours.

    We’ll see how the best row house developments manage on the sound attenuation front. Yes, staggered stud or double-wall + gap stick frame construction may be the cheapest, but these are often breached with plumbing or electrical repairs in future. We experienced this issue in our former rental condo; though the neighbours were quiet, they smoked, and the seal the interior drywall skin provided was perforated and allowed the smoke to drift into our suite.

    The 19th Century row houses of London and Brooklyn were contructed with independent load-bearing walls between them. The mass of up to 18″ of solid masonry in two parallel walls deadens amost anything short of fireworks testing.

    Will people be willing to pay 5% more on the value of the row house for features like these?

    The jury’s out.

    But it’s clear row housing will have to be treated differently than condos.

  • tf

    I live in a co-op. As much as I appreciate the benefits of a co-op, I do “hope” some day to be able to move on.
    But where to?
    After the experience of living in a co-op, I would NOT move to a Strata – the same cons and more responsibility!
    And a private home is definitely out of price range for me in Vancouver.
    Reading about row houses, that seems the best idea ever! Bring them on!

  • Bill Lee

    Since Madame Bula never revises her postings once she has chiseled the stone tablets, readers should note that in her “CITY PLUMBER. Ask a question” section on the top right, she has posted:

    Can strata townhouses be converted to rowhouses?

    “Question: I live in a 6 unit strata townhouse project in Victoria. I would be interested in learning more about the rules respecting townhouses that are not strata and whether we could convert our strata to a non strata (freehold?) row of townhouses. – Elizabeth

    And there follows a long answer, no comments yet.

    DO NOT REPLY on this comment.
    REPLY on the “PLUMBER”/QUESTION
    URL:
    http://francesbula.com/QUESTIONS/can-strata-townhouses-be-converted-to-rowhouses/

  • Frances Bula

    @Bill. I’m shocked. I frequently revise posts. But thank you so much for your help in all other matters. If only this blog were monetized, I would be happy to hire you as my assistant.

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