Lessons from the West End – 1(a)

“The rate of change slowed to practically zero in the West End.”

That was the point I made in my previous post, and provided the census figures as illustration.  Some readers actually read them!  And noted that growth in the West End in the 90s was 9.2 precent.  Hardly zero.

So let’s clarify.

The census tracts used to calculate population by the City don’t precisely fit the “West End” as commonly understood – everything west of Burrard to Stanley Park, and south of Robson with a jog at Denman Street to Alberni.  Which looks like this:

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The surrounding neighbourhoods – the Georgia-Alberni Corridor, Triangle West and Downtown South – are different zones and have distinct urban-design guidelines and densities.  Above all, they were previously non-residential zones, consisting mainly of empty or surface parking lots or low-rise commercial buildings prior to the rezonings of the late 1980s.

These were the high-growth areas  in post-Expo downtown.  Here are the tallest condos and the highest residential densities in the city.

However – and this is the point – the census-tract area that the City uses to determine the population (and which were the source of the stats posted in the previous post) looks like this:

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The Georgia-Alberni Corridor is included in the West End population count.

And just to complicate this a little more, the actual residential zoning districts – the RM5s – don’t coincide with the census tracts either:

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Most significantly, the properties on the west side of Burrard street are not technically in the West End.  The residential highrises that have gone up there – mainly on old commercial sites – are more typical of those north of Robson.

So there has been significant growth – but not in the ‘Old West End’.  Depending on what you include, and from what date you count, the growth rate in the West End slowed dramatically in the RM5 zones after the 1989 rezoning, while it increased dramatically on the edges and in adjacent neighbourhoods.

Knowing how technical these issues can become, I’ll be way more specific following the break, and we’ll go through the last two decades building by building.

Here’s a complete list of all the new developments in the West End since 1989:

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All the buildings in bold are outside the Old West End, or RM-5 zones, and north of Robson; they’re included in the census stats for West End population – but I’m subtracting them.   The buildings in italics, while technically outside the West End zoning district, are still in what most people would consider the West End.  I’m including them.

I’m also only counting the buildings after 1990.  The zoning changed in 1989, but everything in the hopper was grandfathered, and could proceed under the old zoning.  It takes about a couple of years for the new zoning to affect proposed development, but I’ll use 1991 as the starting date.

So, the number of new units in the ‘Old West End’ over two decades, from 1991 to 2011: 1744.  If the 918 units in the ‘edge’ buildings in italics are subtracted: 828.

In short: the Old West End has seen 87.2 new units a year, including those built on the edge on previously non-residential sites.  Half that – 41.4 – if the edge units are not included.  (Average size of households in the West End: 1.5 people.  Number of units: 28,955 in 2006 – but based on the same census area that includes Georgia-Alberni.)

Nor does this net out the number of units lost when a previous apartment building was demolished.   The Eugenia on Beach, for instance, with one floor per suite on average, actually resulted in a net loss of units since there were more apartments in the building it replaced.

This doesn’t say how many new units there should be to accommodate demand – obviously a subjective issue.  But it does, I think, make the case that the rate of growth in the West End has slowed – and will continue to do so now that the ’empty’ sites on the edge have been filled in and any new development will meet fierce resistance if it means demolishing an existing rental building and adding density.

The pressure, however, will not go away.  Indeed, it will likely increase dramatically, now that the adjacent neighbourhoods like Downtown South and Triangle West will not provide the kind of escape valve that they did for the last two decades.

The calm that enveloped the West End, post-1989, is likely to be disrupted.