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Vancouver housing report suggests some thin-street projects and townhouses/duplexes next to arterials everywhere

September 26th, 2012 · 173 Comments

This just out from the mayor’s office. I’ll scrutinize it more carefully later.

Vancouver — Today the Mayor’s Task Force on Affordable Housing released its final report, and Mayor Gregor Robertson is urging City Council to give unanimous support to begin implementing the first set of actions.

“Launching this Task Force was my first action after being re-elected, because tackling housing affordability is one of Vancouver’s most urgent priorities,” said Mayor Gregor Robertson. “The Task Force’s report outlines a set of bold and pragmatic actions to confront our city’s lack of affordability. I’m hopeful that Council will support it unanimously.”

A staff report arising from the Task Force report recommends a number of priority actions to be voted on at next week’s City Council meeting. These include:

  • ·         Developing an operational model and business plan for a City Housing authority;
  • ·         Initiating “Thin Street” pilot projects through the three Community Plans underway;
  • ·         Enabling duplexes, row houses and stacked townhouses to be built within 1.5 blocks of an arterial street.

The full list of priority actions and additional recommendations can be found here:http://former.vancouver.ca/ctyclerk/cclerk/20121002/regu20121002ag.htm

“There is no magic solution that will solve Vancouver’s housing affordability challenge, but the Task Force’s recommendations provide a clear framework for progress,” added the Mayor. “Making Vancouver a more affordable city is crucial for our economy, our livability, and for future generations. City Hall needs to take action and now is the time to do it.”

The recommendations from the Mayor’s Task Force on Housing Affordability are targeted to residents with an annual income of $21,500 annual for an individual, up to a combined annual household income of $86,500.  Co-chaired by the Mayor and Olga Ilich, its 18 members included real estate experts, academic leaders, home builders, elected officials and not-for-profit housing managers from across Vancouver and the region.

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  • Everyman

    The arterial plan will lead to some very dreary streets. Walls of 6 story condos, similar to Kingsway but on steroids. Ever notice how these new developments tend to have the most uninteresting and predicatble assortment of retail: a Subway; a nail bar; a sushi restaurant.

    However, I believe it will be a long time in coming. IMHO everyone is underestimating the effect of our recent real estate bubble which is now shuddering to a halt. For every Marine Gateway, there are three developments still desperatley and quietly peddling units months later.

  • Julia

    Chris – if this was the only city in the country to work in and live in – I might agree with you – but it’s not. We can enjoy the same quality of life (perhaps even better) in endless other places that offer similar tax rates, health care, job opportunities, air quality, social justice etc.

    If people really insist on living in Vancouver – they will need to measure that desire against the realities of what it costs to do so.

  • Frank Ducote

    Julia – Vancouver Metro is the only large city/region in Canada with an average winter temperture above 0 degrees Celsius. Given this, I don’t think there are “endless other places” in the country that can meet this fundamental aspect of quality of life.

  • waltyss

    @ Julia: the attitude of people like you and several others on this thread is the “i’m all right, Jack, pull up the drawbridge approach.” I doubt most people agree with you, even in the right wing NPA.
    This city can be much more densely populated and make room just for our children, never mind those interlopers arriving from elsewhere.
    While some of the ideas being proposed do not appeal to me, I give the Council credit for at least trying to come up with ideas for greater density and accordingly greater affordability.
    There will be the usual boo birds who either will oppose anything this city council proposes or who want to keep things just the way they are. Fine. Most others will try to understand, suggest alternatives or improvements to what is proposed. An example in that category is Michael Geller who I noticed yesterday was being pilloried by some of the usual suspects because he had the temerity to see merit in some of the proposals.
    it’s a sad commentary on the blogosphere.

  • West End Gal

    “The owners of corner lots would instead be subjected to multiple offers and requests to negotiate. ”
    MB, in my book this would be called persuasive harassment and intimidation by authority. Even if it wasn’t called as such in the initial piece “Expropriation for Public Utility’ rings a bell?
    It’s exactly what it is proposed, only nicer and in more evasive terms. Ask any corner lot owner what they think, then do tell. 🙂

  • teririch

    @West End Gal #155:

    I believe home owners in the Cambie corridor area felt the same pressures ‘to sell up’ when the Canada Line went and and developers were looking at cashing in.

  • MB

    @ WEG 155, outright expropriation is in an entirely different legal ballpark than “intimidation by authority.”

    Entire blocks may on occasion come under siege by developer’s dragons for a large project, but I hardly think the owners of corner lots will receive similar treatment.

    What I do foresee is entire blocks coming under siege for weeks by excavators and Engineering Dept. trailers and F-bombing workers at 7 a.m. (my own recent experience) to shift sewers and water mains a few metres over at great cost if ‘thin streets’ is approved.

    After that will come the tree chippers, then the construction crews, then the sales reps who will undercut the neighbour’s private property values by offering land leases on public street land to new residents in new rowhouses or condos 4-feet from the front fence line of existing neighbours. Well, they may keep the sidewalk in place

    Land availability is the real issue here and the city is fishing around for “free” land by turning its gaze to the land occupied by roads, and totally forgetting their function as conduits for utilities. It would be far easier to build parks and lease out allotment gardens on roads than to build houses on them.

    Promoting ‘thin streets’ housing is a much easier path for the politicos who are weak-kneed when it comes to addressing the zoning of existing single-family detached lots beyond lane houses.

    Of the ~50 square km of single-family lots in the city, about 22% of the land is locked up in generous frontyard and sideyard setbacks. We’re talking about 11,000,000 square metres (2,700+ acres) of land here. If we could only tap half that for rowhousing or duplexes or low rises, then we’re off to a good start.

    I still say use public land very sparingly, if at all, and offer low-rate leases only to subsidized housing, not to private buyers.

  • Higgins

    MB 157 sad thing is you are right but so are WEG & Mira. The only ones who’ll suffer and fight with stress and depression are going to ber the people falling under the new “rules”
    Look what happens(ed) at @Little Mountain Housing Coop (look at the way it was dealt with, a most unforgivable renoviction, look at where the former tenants are now (nowhere) and watch this video

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOyzaM1b9o0

    This is what Vision, Robertson and City of Vancouver is preparing for the unprepared.
    Thank god if you are not one of them!

  • Jay

    It’s starting to sound like Fox News around here.

  • Everyman

    The more I hear about this idea, the worse it sounds. If the city really needs to increase the land available for housing why don’t they:
    a) Pass a bylaw forcing gas station owners to remediate their vacant lots within a year.
    b) Pass minimum zoning laws. There’s a very nice, shiny, new empty 1 story with mezzanine retail complex at Main & Broadway – why was such a low density structure allowed to be built at the confluence of transit routes while Rize-Alliance’s monster was forced on residents just a block away?
    c) As someobody else said, let CPR build housing on the Arbutus right of way.
    d) Lobby hard to get the province to redevelop the appallingly low density George Pearson rehabilitation site: 7.7 hecatres for 120 residents? It can be done smarter.

  • Jay

    Idea b makes sense. Why have low density housing along high frequency bus routes like 41st and 49th.

    Everybody is so against concentrating density in one spot, with high density and tall towers, such as with Rize at Broadway and Kingsway – so now here’s a plan to spread the density evenly throughout the city with low rise buildings. A plan that would integrate density very seamlessly, and still people complain.

    We are way past the point of band aid solutions.

  • Chris Keam

    “let CPR build housing on the Arbutus right of way.”

    My understanding regarding that parcel of (formerly public) land is that it was given to the railroad to operate as a railroad corridor. If the company no longer wishes to use it as such, in my opinion it should revert back to public land, and then if it is to be sold off, the taxpayer receives some benefit. Having said that, IMO it would be better to keep it and repurpose as a transit/greenway corridor. Density is low enough in those neighbourhoods that there’s plenty of capacity before we need to encroach on those relatively uninterrupted ribbons of land that are ideal for turning into LRT corridors.

  • Lee L

    Densification Sprawl….A future Vision

    … English Bay?

    http://ca.news.yahoo.com/photos/world-s-20-economically-strongest-cities-1347961034-slideshow/world-s-20-economically-strongest-cities-photo-1347960562.html

  • Lee L

    Ooops..
    http://ca.news.yahoo.com/photos/world-s-20-economically-strongest-cities-1347961034-slideshow/world-s-20-economically-strongest-cities-photo-1347960562.html

    Photo 3

  • Morven

    I wonder if the authors of the report ever thought that their tactics are equivalent to the old developers trick of block busting to free up land/houses for redevelopment.
    -30-

  • gasp

    Chris Keam @162:

    Your understanding regarding the Arbutus right of way is incorrect. That land is and always has been the private property of the CPR. It was part of the original land grant contractually given to the CPR (a private company) by the Province of B.C. as compensation for building the railway through to (what is now) the City of Vancouver.

    The City zoned that land as a “transportation corridor” in order to stop the CPR from using it for any other purpose. While the City was entitled to zone it as such, it is not entitled to use it for anything without either purchasing the land or obtaining the CPR’s agreement. In addition, since the land is a railway right of way, its use is governed by federal legislation.

    The current market value of that land is probably about $350 – 400 million. Given the losses from the Olympic Village, it is unlikely the City has the money to purchase that land now or in the immediate future.

  • Lee L

    “One thing is for sure. No city exists in stasis. We can optimize for what (or who) is coming, but pulling up the drawbridge isn’t a realistic or fair option. Of course people want to come here to live. Let’s deal with reality and find something resembling a workable solution.”

    One thing for sure … huh.. talk about rhetorically blunt.

    Take ALL your arguments and substitute the word Detroit for the word Vancouver.
    Then…
    Reevaluate.

  • Everyman

    @Chris Keam 162
    With the decision to align the Canada Line along Cambie St, the need to preserve the Arbutus Corridor for transport was nullified. The low density, with no major transit traffic drivers along the route means it could be served as well with busses on Arbutus. But it would make sense to include a bikeway with future residential development there.

  • Jay

    gasp – “The current market value of that land is probably about $350 – 400 million. Given the losses from the Olympic Village, it is unlikely the City has the money to purchase that land now or in the immediate future.”

    The Arbutus CPR land amounts to 45 acres. If it is zoned strictly as a transportation corridor, how could it possibly be worth that much?

  • gasp

    Jay @69:

    You’ll have to ask BC Assessment Authority about that one!

  • Nelson100

    I have been harping on the need to get away from dropping 50 story sterile glass air conditioned luxury towers in neighborhoods that don’t want them or suit them and look at other densification alternatives. My viewpoint stems from the fact that Vancouver is not the size of Tokyo, Seoul or even Toronto, and that last time I checked, our huge empty nation wasn’t quite facing the same space shortage as, say, Hong Kong. I also contend that Vancouverites have not been so much opposing density as to the glass tower form that keeps getting robotically imposed.

    While I’m skeptical that Vision would actually refrain from imposing a chosen project on a neighborhood that they didn’t want it (I’ll need to see that to believe it), I concede that the thin streets initiative seems to be an attempt to look at densifications options other than towers, so I am in favor of at least studying it further.

  • Nelson100

    To Lee L #167 – Here’s another spin. Take everyone’s arguments and now substitute the word Manila. I’ve spent time there. Developers rule there and the gawdawful result is a cautionary tale for reckless development. Have a look:

    http://cache.virtualtourist.com/6/4567211-Manila_Skyline_City_of_Manila.jpg

  • West End Gal

    Nelson 100 @171
    Right on, buddy boy!
    “While I’m skeptical that Vision would actually refrain from imposing a chosen project on a neighborhood that they didn’t want it (I’ll need to see that to believe it)”
    Me too!

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