Do the micro-lofts still need to provide a minimum number of parking spots?

we used to live on our boat in False Creek and paid the city for a occupation permit. When we sold, our next place was a batchelor suite in the west end, which we figured was huge. If people accept the small space, go for it. Most anything beats the slum landlord hotels in the town. But the rent seems a bit steep for the space.

People live in their cars, but do we really want to draw lessons from that?

I worry that a micro suite with a window opening onto Hastings Street or any other of our arterials as presently designed would not meet my criteria for livability.

If the city of London is your back yard, then 270 s.f. may be a real good thing. If you are up at SFU doing courses, maybe you’re real address when you are not in class is the Library, the Pub, and the Gymn.

In Vancouver, where I sense we are failing to meet the need to innovate is not with “doing more with less”, both land and space are plentiful, but rather with getting the urban planning basics right.

Chris, I appreciate your question is somewhat rhetorical…but as noted below, we are having this debate….

I know a lot of people in Dunbar and Point Grey who would like to move out of their half empty houses, but stay in their neighbourhood. One of the problems is that the zoning prevents new townhouse and apartments from being built in their neighbourhood so they can move.

But you are right, the size of houses has increased quite significantly over the past 5 decades, and that is why there are debates happening in Surrey and elsewhere over the maximum permitted size of houses.

If you want to see smaller houses, then let me build on smaller lots…townhouses on 16 foot lots, and houses on 25 feet in Vancouver, 33 feet in the burbs….

we need to speak up, because larger lots lead to larger houses. As for smaller houses and apartments, they are not for everyone, but let’s offer the choice.

Size of housing? Lets use the 1950s Shanghai method and all large houses have to share families, a minimum 2 persons for each 3 x 4 metre room.
Suddenly, Point Grey gets the density it needs to be lively and support for public places to ‘get out of the house’ Surrey is denuded of people as everyone wants to live in Point Grey and streetcars appear by magic.

I see a calculation on the lively CBC.ca/bc story that “These so-called micro-lofts are expensive per square foot. For comparison, an apartment in the West End, on the Park, with a view of the ocean is $1.88 per square foot (1,200 rent divided by 635 square feet). These micro-lofts are $2.77 per square foot ($750 divided by 270).”
So, disregarding height, location, amenities and a host of other things, these are, or can be seen as expensive.
ttp://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2010/01/25/bc-micro-lofts-vancouver-burns-block.htm

What were the floor plans on the Brad Holmes thingies in Gastown, where ceiling height and “loft platforms’ increased usuable floor area?

“Bill, the oftentimes squalid 10 by 10 rooms in an SRO building with a shared bathroom rent for $375 to $425 a month…that’s twice what the average rent is in the West End”

Let me clarify, on a rent per square foot basis.

“I support the size, noting it is slightly larger than the 260 sq.ft. minimum we established for the mini-suites within suites at SFU.”

Michael Geller, with this statement you’ve managed to achieve a new low of your own self.
Your home, walk-in closet (with custom made shoes condo) is probably bigger in size. Shame. Architect… your minimum was established by greed and not by acceptable comforts. And we wonder why the state of affairs is in such a bad shape in our city.

I don’t know what planet Chris Keam has been living on but on Earth the size of your bank account is all that matters.

It is not gentrification but accommodation. Are people who make just 25K a year also supposed to be unwelcome in this neighbourhood?

“Shame. Architect… your minimum was established by greed and not by acceptable comforts.”

Higgins, I don’t know why you equate smaller suites to ‘greed’. The goal at SFU was to create self-contained units that would rent for the same price that students and others were paying for shared accommodation.

The rental suite also allowed apartment buyers to purchase suites that were larger than that they might otherwise afford, by renting out a portion.

Now please tell me why this is ‘greed’?

May I suggest you talk to some of the people who managed to rent a brand new, fully equipped apartment for the price of a shared basement suite before making such an inappropriate allegation.

As for my closet, it is quite large, with a window, in a very large house. However, I often lived in rooms that shared a bathroom and kitchen with many others; and subsequently in a one bedroom apartment that I shared with another man (since the living room had a door). I subsequently lived in an older 430 sq.ft. one bedroom apartment, and was very happy to move into a very small, but brand new studio suite in the Plaza International Hotel apartments.

So I have experienced many different modest housing solutions, and that is why I believe a brand new 270 sq. ft. self contained suite with a murphy bed and new appliances that rents for 60% of the cost of the average 1 bedroom apartment is a good idea.

While I appreciate that there’s a popular belief that “on Earth the size of your bank account is all that matters” (many thanks to Gordon Gecko?) another set of numbers might be marginally more important. Specifically, the set of numbers that establishes “a safe operating space for humanity” (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v461/n7263/fig_tab/461472a_T1.html#figure-title). It seems our efforts to build our bank accounts and quality of life while greatly increasing the number of inhabitants demanding their own piece of the pie has put us in a bit of trouble with the very biophysical systems, a.k.a. ecological accounts, that are critical to our and other species’ health and well-being. While these nine systems have generously provided us with the conditions and resources to make and trade things, shelter and nourish ourselves, process our wastes and shop ‘til we drop, we are in debt. Forecasts suggest greater debt in the future due to increasing wealth and population globally. More troubling is that it’s a structural debt. We cannot address this debt without addressing the structural issues of how we use resources and produce wastes. How we live is profoundly important in this regard. Generally, a bigger home = more withdrawals. Smaller home = fewer withdrawals. Car use = more withdrawals. Bike, transit, walking = fewer withdrawals.

So, while I don’t think max house sizes or minimum occupancies should be a priority for the city, this article posted by Clr Anton (http://www.suzanneanton.ca/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=628&Itemid=155) suggests that compact fluorescents, cloth shopping bags and Priuses aren’t going to get us out of debt either. They might make us feel good for a bit but all they amount to is a marginally lower interest rate. Inflation (i.e. when one system is compromised, others are impacted, increasing risk) is a whole other problem and strong motivator for reducing our debt. Fortunately, land use is one of the places where many of these accounts (e.g. fresh water, climate, nitrogen, phosphorus) merge so how we build and live in our communities has important implications for paying down or growing our debt.

However, this leads to a gripe related to paying down our city’s debt. When the Ecodensity policy was introduced the city trumpeted reducing the city’s ecological footprint as a primary motive. We were told that we would need four Earths if everyone lived as us Vancouverites do. But when the policy was approved we were left without a commitment to monitor and report our progress in reducing our footprint. Why? Are we to just trust that our footprint will go down now that more LEED Silver mixed-use towers and laneway houses are going up? If reducing our eco-footprint is so important why don’t we have a target in place? What other programs are in place to help us pay it down? The connections have not been made by the past or present councils as far as I can see. Instead it appears that all the footprint talk was a convenient way to justify further intensification, which due to higher performance standards increases the cost of new housing (e.g. SEFC). So, if the city is concerned about our ecological debt a more concerted effort to manage, communicate and reduce our footprint is needed. One option might be to develop neighbourhood footprints so that some healthy competition is created. Kelowna does this with water usage. BC Hydro offers something similar for some of its customers. Reporting could be done on an annual basis, through a council report, online and with tax bills. Another option might be to phone Calgary or Edmonton. They’ve both developed plans to reduce and report back on theirs.

$750 is in my price range, but I can’t imagine how intolerable life would become if I had to share 275 square feet with my 9 year old son on a daily basis! Our hockey bags would have to double as couches and beds. Every day would be lights out at the 9 o’clock gun. A playfight would destroy the place in under a minute. Entertaining guests and sleepovers would become problematic in more ways than one…

Oh wait, I forgot, working/middle class life in urban Vancouver is now only for singles, DINKs and empty nesters. The urban design legacy of the post-Expo era is rapidly crescendoing into: working/middle class people with children need not apply.

And no, Lewis, I don’t think it would work.

33% social and 67% market just ingrains the gap between rich and poor, and institutionalizes the dearth of middle classes. All those tiny social housing units will house poor singles, and all those slightly larger high-end condos will house rich ones. There will be no buffer in between, no integration, no demographic mix. The key question that Andrew, the author of the “Empty Condo” report last year, framed as a result of his study was: what kind of city do want in the future?

Well, to take another example: every year my son’s school in Mount Pleasant has been losing families to eastern neighbourhoods or other municipalities due to quickly escalating rents in the area. What was, only five years ago, a relatively affordable family neighbourhood has rapidly become out of reach. A two-bedroom rental in a low-end three-story walk-up is at least $1500 per month now. The area’s rapid densification and resulting smaller, more “affordable” units – most of the old houses around City Hall have been carved into 4 or 5 strata units and resold at $3-500,000 a pop – may be adding population density, but it isn’t adding a realistic and affordable alternative for working class, low income, or even middle class families.

And neither are micro suites. They serve a niche, for sure, and I’m not at all against them in old SROs. But do they help create a diverse, liveable city with all strata of society? Hardly.

The affordability crisis isn’t necessarily creating ghettoization, but without any attempt to create a middle-income balance in a 33/67 split, you would be creating the perfect scenario for a good, old-fashioned class war.

Just ask Michael Geller’s old friend, Wendy Pederson at the CCAP. She’s already declared, “War on all the condo owners!”

Lewis, Stephanie, GJG – good comments.
Sure thing Michael. Everything you say; and pigs can fly…

Correction: family oriented co-ops in South False Creek.

How about a 3 story rowhouse with a locked off basement suite containing a 2bd unit, and the upper 2 floors containing 3bds. The upfront price of a 5bd unit might seem bad, but if you end up renting out the top unit it should become affordable for a lot of people, as you require the upper unit for yourself you then have the lower unit to rent out, for those that need the space you always have the option of using all the space. This is all possible on 16ft if the city allowed. There would only be space for a single car so there would need to be some flexibility from the city.

Ghost, you don’t have to be a fancy designer… But if Joe gets his way, you just may just become a property owner with a deluxe rental suite as a “mortgage helper”.

My urban design plan would be built of just such units, and the charrette process would interface with local banks and credit unions to ensure they would be ready to help that kind of a property qualify for a mortgage. My formula is “rent paid today + suite rental income = mortgage”. Furthermore, the lenders have to be savvy about the fact that rental incomes can have months when the property is vacant. The downpayment is a sticky-wicket. But, someone might pipe in on that.

However, you’re making a lot of sense and Joe is picking up on it, as has Geller in the past, and even Brent Toderian. He has mentioned the Tax Increment Financing scheme they applied to East Calgary (I don’t have the neighborhood name quite right), and “raised his eyebrows” when we discussed the quirk in Vancouver history that the 16-foot unit—that Joe, Geller and myself are advocating—is ruled out in the Vancouver Charter (I haven’t seen the exact text).

Add to that the fact that we are still planning one site at a time (i.e. without “urban” or “neighborhood scale” design tools) and we have lots of things to talk about. Including the dawning possibility that we are going to give away the Craddle of our City to tower developers. More on that later.

So, Joe, the hang up with the 16-foot unit (let’s get technical: it’s a quarter-chain or 16.5-feet) is land title: making it “free-hold” in Canada-wide terms and “fee-simple” in local parlance. Can you imagine building co-ops 16.5-feet-wide one at a time? Or two to a 33-foot lot? Can we make a co-op out of a single 33-foot lot? Does a co-op need to occupy a contiguous piece of land, or could we “assemble” five or six 33-foot sites scattered in the same block or street in a single co-op title? Any real estate or legal eagles out there that can comment on this?

Design wise, we can fit 8 800-foot units (or 16 400-foot singles) and 5 cars with room left over for both a rear yard and a roof deck in a 33×122-foot lot. And, we can add a floor to Joe’s scheme and make it 3.5 storeys high above street level, resulting in good human-scale and a very animated street space.

The “animation” is a function of having suites with front doors on the street. You go from the sidewalk to your door, turn the key and you’re in. Your windows and your front doors are the “eyes on the street” that Jane Jacobs talked about, that all the planners rave about right up until the time the gotta do a neighbourhood plan, and then its back to towers and elevators and underground parking ramps and doors. Some “urban” design.

Of course, both social housing and luxury town homes fit in this building type and they can form the centre of the neighbourhood as well as shape the periphery. Fronting an urban room, like Oppenheimer Park, they fit in with the historic stock (wood frame 3.5 storey houses) and they help define the park space with “continuous streetwall enclosure”. The units face two ways (dual aspect), so that when things get too loud on the street, you can live in the back rooms for a while. Access to daylight, cross ventilation and fresh air are all far superior to any condo you can point to. Did I mention delivering human-scale to the neighbourhood? And humans to the street?

Joe’s locked off basement unit has a street-side patio in our version, and access to the rear garden. The upstairs unit gets the roof deck and the garage on the lane.

That may not fly in the so-called DTES because in Chinatown and most of the other four neighbourhoods that comprise the DTES, the lots are 25 foot wide. However, we can do fee-simple at 25 feet, and slipping in an accessible unit in that footprint is made easier than at 16.5-feet where wheel chairs really don’t fit.

The real story in our historic neighbourhoods is that most blocks were platted with a rear lane. That turns out to be a huge advantage, and not just because you may fit a lane-side house or two per block. The lanes provide access and that frees up the urban planners to create truly walkable neighbourhoods.

The density, by the way, is the equivalent of what you get in a 20-storey condo tower. Simpson and I showed how you can achieve 65 units per acre (160 per hectare), and Ghost, that intensification along Vancouvers 10 north-south arterials alone would provide enough housing to double the existing population with city limits on lots now available for redevelopment.

Since we are interested in driving home the point that Canadian Urbanism must be made up of several moving parts, all working together all at the same time, proposing an urban design plan for Vancouver’s five most venerable neighbourhoods should be part and parcel of proposing a transit implementation.

The idea is that transit implementation might be paid for in part by the tax increment delivered by new construction (we have to be conservative in this calculation since in this urban footprint we will have just 33% of the units paying full municipal tax), Furthermore, we will rely on the presence of transit on Hastings Street to attract new people to invest in our 5 original neighbourhoods.

A Hastings Streetcar running from Stanley Park to New Brighton Park behind the PNE is the transit I have in mind. You hop on this thing, say at Gore and Hastings, and 5 minutes later you can be on Hornby Street. There would be fibre optics in the ground stretching from Harbour Center all the way to Templeton Street. Any business locating in that corridor would have access to the under-water cable that connects Harbour Center to Seattle at the fastest possible data transfer rate. Very cool.

But lets close on an economic stimulus note. The real difference between the 16.5-foot house rows that Joe is talking about, and the 15-storey towers coming to Chinatown, is that the house rows can be built by small construction firms and financed by local banks, while the towers require large developers and typically off-shore financing.

Now, does this turn the tables on who’s micro & local, and who is macro and global?

Lewis, this is certainly an exciting plan, and sounds a lot more like the city that I (and I suspect most Vancouverites, if they knew there was a viable alternative to towers towers towers) would like to see emerge over the next two decades.

There are a couple door-on-the-street townhouses in Gastown along Alexander Street. One is an old ship’s chandlery converted, and on the next block east, across from Four Sisters (thanks Otis), Merrick designed one from the ground up. Both are higher end, but of course need not be. These don’t have basement suites or rear access, as they back onto the railyards and are at the water table, though. I doubt any of the units in either building are over 16 feet wide.

As fond as I am of bashing Brent Toderian, I do recall him talking about “human scale” row houses as a good alternative sometime last year. But as you suggest, the talk is one thing, and the reality of the HAHR towers proposal is quite another, and it really baffles me how Toderian, Ray Louie, Jim Green and other influential people have arrived at the conclusion that towers are the magic pill to revitalizing the DTES neighbourhoods. It’s already a high-density area! Are they really that ignorant, or is there something else at play?

As for transportation, well, I heard a story last week about the 12 kilometre Broadway skytrain costing 3 billion yet servicing so little, compared to many many many more kms of street cars winding through the downtown neighbourhoods and around False Creek and west to UBC, servicing a huge portion of the inner city and costing half as much to build. Again, if Vancouverites knew the alternatives, I’m sure we’d all delight at this prospect. Why our Premier insists on throwing money away on Skytrain is anyone’s guess, but at least our mayor appears to be on board with this.

Is there any link to your plan or presentation, or will there be an opportunity to air it here in Vancouver sometime? I’ve read so many DTES reports that all recommend this kind of direction, but when it comes to the actual planning and by-law amendments, all we end up with is “more condos and towers.”

Its good to hear back encouraging words. Proves that if you can get to just plain common sense folks not only get it, they will often add to it. And guess who has the best ideas about place? Yep. Them that live there everyday.

No plans, links or websites yet. Next year CIP comes to Vancouver and I have already mentioned to my team that we should propose to do the DTES intensification plan all over again here in Vancouver. I also make a habit of showing the work from the national conference at the BC Land Summit, or provincial planning conference. Depending on interest, some sessions could be open to the public, I suppose.

Ghost, there are a number of “row houses” built out of wood sprinkled through Vancouver. Two or three are in the footprint of the original Hastings Townsite, the blocks sourth of Powell on either side of Victoria. That place is a gem of a neighborhood, heavily impacted by the CPR in 1886, a decade or two after Hastings Townsite was up and running. Another one is on the east side of Clarke Street. If you come out of the back street of the Cedar Cottage (Schooner) Pub towards Clarke, its there in front of you across the street on the right. Still another one survives a block or so up from Clarke just south of First Avenue. And there are three or four, including a 1970’s job, in Strathcona near that little corner store, around Hawks (sorry I am not being too specific).

However, the amazing thing is that at the time these were built they were very clearly worker’s housing, probably for singles, and … well, bit of a fire trap for being built of wood not brick (think the famous London Fire of 1666—our buildings are not too far from what was razed to the ground two centuries before, across the ocean).

What Geller and the rest of us are advocating is building like this, but in brick, block, concrete, etc. And, having each 16.5 foot building stand alone, even if it is a part of a row, as a property that is not “strata title”. If Stephanie is right, and we can have “scattered co-ops”, then we may have a way to make it past the problem of the down payment, and we can have one tier of housing consisting of the “what I am paying in rent now+rental income” mortgages.

On income mix, what we know is that it is possible to do. Furthermore, from Chicago, from San Francisco Bay Area (Suisun City), what we hear is that the goal is to mix income levels, even people on subsidy, in buildings that look exactly alike as top-end product. But keep Mayor Campbell’s quote in mind: it won’t work in tower condos.

And if we can achieve equivalent densities and compatible character with house rows at 3.5 storeys above the street (with a high water table, maybe 3.5 is all we get in some areas), then are condos really desirable for families? And, flexible enough for cora-area neighborhoods? Never mind historic preservation.

However, to have income mix there has to be income. And the missing pillar in the DTES all along has been the ability to attract jobs. Without that it is hard to do recovery successfully, and let’s face it, its hard to do neighborhood successfully as well.

The small-scale of the house row should translate into small scale construction firms bidding and getting the work (large developers can still participate). And my gut feeling is that many small firms will be able to tap into the neighborhoods labour force in a way that the big firms cannot.

As for transportation, take your son on the False Creek tram, Ghost, for what has been described to me already as a Rolls Royce ride (i think its free). Then, buy a couple of rolls in the Granville Ilsand market, some sliced ham and a drink, and create a lunch for yourselves as if you were in Venice (certainly the pidgeons are pretty much the same), then head back on the tram.

That’s the promise of our future transportation.

Surface rail costs some 7x less than skytrain, solves crime problems along its path (rather than generate them), it takes car trips off the road, and reduces the amount of R.O.W. (right-of-way) available for traffic. Thus, a Hastings Streetcar could be used to redesign Hastings so that we could cross on foot without having to walk to the corner, or taking our life in our hands each time we try it.

It is the stimulus component of surface LRT, or the “bang for the neighborhood” aspect that we have not really studied in Canada, and that my group will be digging into by studying Toronto Streetcar neighborhoods. All our gut instincts are that if you can match a streetcar line with a walkable neighborhood design, that’s dynamite.

In the historic areas of Vancouver, every block was designed to be walkable. That’s why it is so important to understand where the “Craddle of our City” lies (i.e. in areas platted before the CPR), and to intensify in a manner that is both compatible and magnifies or augments what is already there in these places, rather than heading in the other direction.

The Director of Planning, at the end of the day, is but one person in a very hot seat. The best we can do is show that there is positive, very positive in this blog string, support and ideas for going forward.

Now, the towers being approved really suggest that we may be too late. Maybe the deal has been cooked already.

My group was not going to present the DTES intensification plan until next year. We’ve moved it up based on my concern that the wedge-shaped tower at Woodwards really does symbolize the “thin end of the wedge”.

That would be a shame, because in terms of “good” urbanism, the five neighborhoods that comprise the DTES hold lessons unlike any I’ve seen any other place in Canada west of Winnipeg’s superb Market Square warehouse or Exchange District. You would have to go to Tornoto’s Cabbage Town to find an equal; to Montreal’s 19th century neighborhoods that are still intact; and in a structural kind of way, right back to the Quebec Citadel. Those original places in our city really are that good.

We could relearn here, in the cradle of our city, how to build place and make community in a way that has not been seen in Canada for a long, long time.

I should clarify my position a little. I’m definately in support of the style row houses I described, but I’m not anti high-rises or mid-rises either. I beleive there needs to be an ever adjusting balance between many different styles. Personally I’d love to see row houses down what are currently residential arterials like 41st, oak, cambie, 1st ave etc.
My understanding is Art Cowie had managed to get a non-strata rowhouses project thru the system but I never heard details, can anyone on here confrim or deny?

As usual, the calibre of discussion from all sides is terrific. I haven’t felt this intimidated since I was in BC Youth Parliament long ago (I know, what a nerd).
I both love and hate these microcondos.
Love: It’s about time high-quality, efficient and self-contained “micro” dwellings were offered as a rental option in this city. People who make snarky comments on the Vancouver Sun site such as “this isn’t China” need to give it a rest. There are hundreds of people living in much smaller units in the DTES, and that doesn’t seem to bother these glib commentators a bit. On the other hand, there are thousands of others renting shoddy, substandard and outdated accomodations in this town at inflated prices because anything better is simply out of reach.
That would be the working poor, condemned to making the lowest wages in the entire country, while paying a punitive amount to the taxman. The middle class ain’t got troubles like these, so I’ll cry for them another day.
Which brings me to hate: this project is ethically cursed, as it replaces badly needed seniors housing in the area. The owner who let the building slide into an unliveable condition should be held accountable by the city (I know, dream on). Why, then, this building for microcondos? Refurbishing the seniors housing should have been priority number one.
More hate: the developers are clearly not interested in setting a positive precedent, nor are they taking local residents into account. Technically, I could afford the $750/month rent they’re fishing for, but when I hear the developer enthusing about what a great housing opportunity this would be for college co-eds and business people living out of a suitcase on a expense account , I can think of only one response: “Oh, scr*w you”.

Since it will only take a second to respond to the above post….

Vancouver Sun 25 January 2010
Darah Hansen

“First Look Inside Vancouver ‘micro-lofts'”

VANCOUVER — The city’s smallest rental suites were unveiled Monday at a media event held in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.

Located in the century-old Burns Block building at 18 West Hastings St., the 270-square-foot so-called “micro-lofts” are expected to fetch an average of $750 a month, and, according to a company press release, attract “students, people in transition and those looking to work and live in the heart of the downtown area.”

Here’s the source:

http://www.globaltvbc.com/First+look+inside+Vancouver+micro+lofts/2483809/story.html

The second paragraph quotes “a company press release”. Whose company could that be?
All I did was put a little honest thought into what that “students and transients” thing could mean, especially since they were the first and second items on the wish-list for prospective renters.

And Mr. Developer told me I got it all wrong 🙁

Oh, well, back to my Japanese historical soaps – they’re gonna raid another castle soon..

Andrea, well done. Anyone commenting here should know well enough that disagreeing will work out fine, but insulting everyone’s intelligence will get you slapped well and truly down. Not an auspicious debut, Mr. Stovell.

Bill,

Hah – good one! Only the grand poobahs of Japan (past and present) rate a whole 15 jo room. Now, a 15 jo won ru-mu… there are literally a million of those.
Japanese proverb: ” Why have a 1000 tatami house when all you need to sleep is one tatami?” (or something along that line).