Hmm. 273K per apartment, 1954 build. Not cheap enough?
See the financial details on the Goodman link that Mme Bula left us.

It make make the schadenfreuden stories on
Vancouver Real Estate Anecdote Archive >
http://vreaa.wordpress.com/
Always good for a bitter laugh there.

Everyman, the existing RM-5A zoning doesn’t forbid tearing the building down. The rental replacement policy requires that if the building is to be torn down that any new building would need to “replace” the rental existing suites.
“Base” FSR under the zoning is 1.0 and maximum (apparently) “earned” FSR is 2.2, with an additional 10% bonus heritage density from be purchased from another developer.
It’s unlikely the site would redevelop under the existing zoning with the rental replacement requirement, so we’ll probably have to wait and see what the West End Community Plan holds for sites like this – a situation that will repeat many times over in the West End for buildings of this type.
(By the way, regardless of the rent for a renovated studio, as long as it is not owned, the current city administration deems it to be “affordable.”)

Maybe a candidate for a cooperative? The city keeps talking about needing a greater diversity of housing/tenure options.

Bill Lee (comment 1, above) is misreading the tone of my site, the Vancouver Real Estate Anecdote Archive. Please humour my response.

There have been a very small number of voices in this city that have for years warned of the dangers of a speculative mania in housing. Most of that small number have been anonymous bloggers like myself.
Frances, in my opinion, numbers amongst these voices, but only in a very quiet way. She did herself say: “This is a city where we’ve built our economy, and many of us have built our personal lives, on speculating on real estate. Even our own houses, we pay crazy prices for them, in the expectation that prices are going to rise, not because our incomes can in any way cover them.” [CBC radio, Feb 2011]

The (now very obvious) housing bubble has been very, very bad for Vancouver. It has misallocated human and financial capital, and distorted the economy of the city. People avoid Vancouver because of property prices; households spend so much on accommodation that they have little discretionary funds to support other local economic activity; individuals are drawn away from their skill areas into construction and flipping; etc, etc …the list would be long.

The mania is now beginning to unwind. It inconvenienced and distorted the behaviours of many on the way up but it will do even more damage on the way down. There is, unfortunately, nothing that can be done to significantly ameliorate it’s consequences. It is too late for that. The problem was letting it develop in the first place; and not allowing it to unwind earlier. Almost nobody listened to any of the bears on the way up (nor, in a fascinating way, learnt anything from all the other housing bubble crises in other countries). But that is common behaviour when a population is locked in the jaws of a speculative mania; when cult thinking prevails.

Bill should not mistaken the documentation of this socially and economically important process for some kind of relish for the damage.

At our site we have attempted to document the whole process through the collection of personal stories from the boom (and will do so from the coming bust). We have also added opinion regarding the nature of the bubble, and the implications thereof.

True, the occasional commenter at VREAA will express the opinion that they will gain pleasure from the losses of speculators… but this is far from the commonest position.

The very few Vancouverites who have seen this speculative mania for what it is most commonly express genuine concerns about the potential consequences for themselves, their families, and their fellow citizens. Don’t kill the messengers.

@bablu1-if people are still coming then the demand should be enough to stimulate demand for rental construction. STIR wouldn’t be needed.

I’m not aware of any “near pathological behaviour” regarding opposition to STIR and given that only 18% of West End residents are condo-owners, I would be surprised if they were dominating the neighbourhood discussion. I have however heard some compelling arguments against defining development potential on a “site by site” basis with little regard for land economics or impacts on liveability and neighbourhood character. It’s particularly unfortunate for sites like low-rise West End rental buildings that the City has adopted the “Rental 100” program which precludes mixed rental/condo developments. (The project at Bidwell and Davie Streets was presented as a “culturally-sustainable” tower – a building where (gasp) renters and condo-owners would share the same elevator. Horrors! Since the approval of that mess of facadism and brutal podium development shading Davie Street, staff and Council have decided that only 100% rental buildings should be encouraged through rental incentive programs).

With regard to Bill McCreery’s inquiry on the City’s definition of “affordable housing” I regret that I’m unable to provide a citation. Reports on “affordable” housing and STIR projects include statements like “provides a measure of affordability” and “part of the continuum of housing” but the City has been very vague on their definition of “affordable.” CMHC defines affordable housing as that which results in not more than 30% of gross income being spent on housing. Does anyone think that water-view townhomes proposed in the Beach Towers rezoning – housing that will benefit from a density increase and a waiver of DCL’s and is expected to rent for between $2500 and $3000 per month will meet the CMHC definition? The scary thing is that it may – for people making $120,000 a year. I think most would agree that such folks have other housing options available and shouldn’t be occupying expensive housing created through the shifting of development costs to other taxpayers.

Some excellent comments above, and lots of partisan mis-information. That being said, I’ll offer the following additional thoughts since I think this is an important topic.

There is a serious problem in Metro Vancouver related to older rental buildings that are in poor condition and under-utilizing the site relative to current zoning, and current rezonings elsewhere around the city.

While the City’s rate of change policy and requirement of 1 for 1 replacement of rental units would seem reasonable, especially from the point of view of renters, the realty is that very few older rental buildings are being redeveloped with a mix of condo and rental units since the numbers generally don’t work…not just in the West End but in other parts of the City.

In our report to the Mayor’s Affordable Housing Task Force we did look at the possiblity of ‘laneway apartments’ that might be added to some sites occupied by older buildings, and there could be some opportunities for this…but they too are limited.

As we generally seem to be accepting increased densitities around the City, I suspect that what will be needed is some further density increases in the RM zones where many of these buildings are located, if we want to see older rental units replaced by newer rental units (along with condominium units).

Now I can hear some of you gasp at the thought of newer units since you know they will likely be more expensive to rent than the older units. This is true…just like new cars are generally more expensive than old cars. However, at a certain point older cars are taken off the road since they are no longer roadworthy or worth the cost of maintaining.

Unfortunately we are not taking older apartment buildings ‘off the road’. Instead , in many cases, they are being allowed to further deteriorate, since the owners don’t want to renovate them for fear of being accused of ‘renovictions’, or they under-utilize the site and the costs for major redevelopment do not make sense.

I am in conversation with a number of apartment building owners who are interested in exploring whether they might be able to obtain approvals for an FSR above current zoning in order to redevelop their sites with a mix of new rental units and condominium units.

With a mix of rental and ownership units, they will not need the almost fivefold increase in density that the developer of 1401 Comox rental building sought…and ultimately received. But they will need some increase.

Otherwise, as noted above, in many instances the buildings will simply deteriorate (and yes, provide lower rents) until they burn down or fall down, or are destroyed in an earthquake, putting lots of tenants out on the street.

Then we will all ask why wasn’t this situation predicted and why didn’t we do something before it was too late?

Fair comments Matt…let’s see if anyone else agrees with us! 🙂

@Westender 1
A belated thanks for the clarification. It is too bad this topic didnlt generate more discussion. There’s a huge amount of density tied up in these aging walk-ups. I know many West Enders wouldn’t agree, but it seems to be that redveloping them with higher building makes perfect sense. The existign units could be replaced with smaller ones (a trend that has happened with privately owned condos) and new units could be added. This would allow higher density not just in the West End but Marpole, Kits, Kerrisdale, Mount Pleasant etc. No quickly built post-war wood frame walk up was meant to last forever. it is time we stopped pretending that they should.

Now, I know some will say this will lead to higher rents which will force lower income earners from the city. That’s overstated IMHO, if the replacement stock is capped at a certain rate vs. the unit it replaced.

You’re welcome Everyman. I suspect some people may have stopped commenting due to a concern that they not be accused of “partisan mis-information.” I suspect most West Enders are not opposed to some increases in height or density. But as a very dense community already, the question will be how to define the amount of increase that is appropriate, and how to ensure that other community objectives are achieved.

As a follow-up on the City’s definition of “affordability,” I did come across some wording in the recent Staff Report below:

http://vancouver.ca/files/cov/secured_market_rental_housing_council_report.pdf

This statement from the report in particular highlights the City’s approach to developer subsidies for market rental housing:

“Under the STIR program, affordability was targeted towards moderate-income households with the intent of creating market rental for households that cannot afford ownership. Affordability was to be achieved through the tenure, level of finishing, size of units, and other design considerations. STIR has accomplished this goal — rents for all proposed STIR units are significantly more affordable compared to the monthly costs of home ownership.”

These units being created are not “targeted” to moderate-income households or to anyone else – there will be no “means test” to rent or to move into a STIR unit or a “Rental 100” unit. The concluding statement highlights how far the City is stretching the definition of affordability: renting a Mercedes costs less than owning it – but that doesn’t make the car “affordable.”

CMHC and Metro Vancouver continue to use the “30% of gross income” measure to define housing affordability. If the City wants to create rental housing, then explore that, but don’t sell it under the guise of affordable housing.

Michael G #13 writes: ” …at a certain point older cars are taken off the road since they are no longer roadworthy or worth the cost of maintaining. Unfortunately we are not taking older apartment buildings ‘off the road.'”

I question both the metaphor and the word “unfortunately.”

Buildings do need care, maintenance and every
forty years or so significant upgrades. Generally in my opinion, the urban human, physical and ecological fabric is better served if buildings are upgraded rather than torn down. And if increased density is desirable sometimes that density can be accomodated on site or density can be transferred to an adjacent site IF planners etc don’t get in the way.

A property I owned in California, a single family residence between 1904 and 1945, was converted into apartments (rentals) in 1945, and I organized the renovation and strata conversion of those units in the
1990’s — expanding without building department permission into the basement. It took a fight and some lucky misinterpretations of old documents from the 1945 renovation to get post facto approval for that basement expansion. (Permission in advance would almost certainly been denied or if granted would have required way too expensive alterations to the basic structure of the basement.)

I live now in a 1975 walk up located a few blocks north and east of Kingsway and Main. We in the building did a significant renovation in 2005 — the worst building visually within a few blocks became the best. That renovation cost about 10% of what a new building would cost. The property was I think zoned 1.5 FSR in 1975, the same as it is today. Because of parking requirements the developer built to only 1.0 FSR. (The parking lot is half empty at peak occupancy.) At some point in the future it would make more sense to sell the unused .5 FSR to a neighboring site along with some of our parking than to redevelop (two vacant lots immediately adjacent to my building). But if the City prevents the sale of density (and parking) to neighbors then probably the building will be knocked down.

@Westender 1
The City could purchase the property, or swap for something in their land bank.