Pete McMartin profiles the housing dilemma of Matthew Bond, a councillor in the District of North Vancouver (and graduate of the SFU Next Generation Transportation certificate).
From The Sun:
To him, housing affordability is more than just a generational issue. It’s also one of densification. He estimates that 60 to 65 per cent of the district is still comprised of single-family homes, a preponderance that has created housing stock most people can no longer afford. Blue-collar and middle-class families have been priced out, and with them the service people that make a city go.
Meanwhile, Bond said, the district’s population has stagnated for the last 15 years. According to B.C. Stats, he said, it was 85,000 in 2001: it’s 85,000 in 2016.
So while an older generation resists change that could affect traffic and services, and impact the bucolic quality of their neighbourhoods, their resistance — which Bond said he completely understands and sympathizes with — has unintended consequences for a younger generation. “It’s going to be my kids and their kids affected, and so the question is, is the way our community is being currently developed going to provide them the same opportunities that it did to the people who moved here 30 years ago?
So while an older generation resists change that could affect traffic and services, and impact the bucolic quality of their neighbourhoods, their resistance — which Bond said he completely understands and sympathizes with — has unintended consequences for a younger generation. “It’s going to be my kids and their kids affected, and so the question is, is the way our community is being currently developed going to provide them the same opportunities that it did to the people who moved here 30 years ago?
One of the connected issues is the increase in traffic on the North Shore. With no accommodation for them, those who work, serve and literally build homes for the resident population have to commute in. Here’s one of the comments to the story in the e-edition.
The lack of affordable housing is causing huge traffic problems as employees stream onto the North Shore in the mornings and off again at the end of the work day. Lineups for Second Narrows and Lions Gate to get into Vancouver in the afternoon stretch the travel from 15 minutes during normal times to an hour or even more at peak times. Tough if you have appointments on the other side of the bridge. Quite seriously, it’s faster for me to ride my bicycle to False Creek or downtown at that time of day, but it’s not always practical.
It’s not uncommon for Highway 1 leading to the Ironworkers’ bridge southbound to be backed up to Westview Drive during the afternoon rush, and at least once a week it’s backed up to Taylor Way in West Vancouver. This is a recent phenomenon, developing only in the last 3 years. Prior to that, as Shelley Fralic wrote a few years ago, North Vancouver’s lack of traffic congestion was one of the best kept secrets in Metro Vancouver. I moved here in 1979, and the traffic delay going downtown via Lions Gate Bridge in the morning was less in 2012 than in 1979. No more.
Affordability isn’t just a problem for the person looking for a home. It’s a problem for everyone when the transportation infrastructure gets overstressed from people having to travel too far to their jobs.
The Sun article only gave two options for Councillor Bond: buy a 2-bdrm house well out of his and most people’s price range or continue to rent a 1-bdrm basement apartment in Lynn Valley. I was unaware those were the only two housing options that existed.
The debate over housing affordability is far too skewed towards buying/owning as the ‘normal’. Much of this undying rage over affordability is the entitled assumption that buying a home is some kind of birth rite and hence must be available to anyone. But since it is not we should therefore be angry about it. People don’t get this worked up over their mortality, and they have far less control over that eventuality.
We would be far less angry if we accepted the fact that like many large cities, outright ownership is likely to become a minority condition. IT IS OK NOT TO OWN A HOUSE. Please repeat that several times. According to Metro Vancouver, renters make up about 40% of units occupied, yet currently the discussion is centered almost exclusively around the price of purchase. This needs to stop.
The last vacancy figure I saw for North Vancouver was 0.5%. Basically there is almost nothing available to rent. If you have young kids or a dog you can pretty much forget about finding a decent place to rent at this point in time, unless it’s an entire house.
The article mentions 2-bedroom and 3-bedroom apartment prices in Lynn Valley, not only houses. $1 million is for a 3-bedroom apartment or maybe townhouse, not a house.
I think you’re ignoring the obvious direction of the story. This is a pretty well-off family with diddle for purchasing power.
If you’re not as well-off as a city councillor, then you have next to no purchasing power.
Who cares about the semantics?
No, I’m not ignoring the direction of the story. You ignored the direction of my post. The very concept of the expectation of “purchasing power” for middle class professionals is a product of our inflated sense of entitlement. The fact that people such as this (and myself, and most others) cannot afford to purchase a house outright is not the tragedy it’s being made out as. It’d be nice if we could all stop complaining that our diamond shoes are too tight.
Dan, this is not about not affording a house, but an apartment for a family of four. Are you suggesting middle income families should live in small basement suites or move to Maple Ridge or Langley and commute every day to North Vancouver/Vancouver?
I’m suggesting we all stop the teenage angst over the sticker price of houses.
Why? It’s probably the most important social issue to hit the city in the last decade.
This significance of this story is kind of reduced by the Councillor’s pay though. I looked it up, DNV Councillors only made about $40K/yr in 2014. I can see why he’s having financial problems.
Councillor pay in smaller municipalities is on top of a day time job.
Not being able to afford an $800K house is hardly a “financial problem”. It’s a “normal situation”. It’s puzzling to me why so many people are dead-convinced that home ownership is an absolute basic requirement of life. Where is this written? If water were too expensive for people to purchase, I could see. But a house?
What do you propose young families looking for housing should do?
Rent. It’s a lot cheaper and rental housing does exist.
Remind me. What was in the Mayors’ Plan for rapid-rail transit for the North Shore?
A shiny new SeaBus. How did they vote?
Dan, look up the rental market in North Vancouver and try renting a 3-bedroom apartment.
I have. It’s no walk in the park, but’s not terribly hard either. I have also met the Councillor. He’s no dummy. He and his spouse will figure it out.
I’m sure he will. The point is not his individual housing situation, but that of many others and what it means for North Vancouver as a whole. I’m fairly certain he is not in the media to find affordable housing for himself, but to help change policies in the longer-term.
I’m sure you’re right. The NIMBYism over housing is particularly strong on the North Shore. “Market opportunities” are always “more appropriate” somewhere else. It’s painful.
While I agree about the uselessness of al the hyperventilation over prices, I wouldn’t characterize the CITY of NV the same as the DISTRICT of NV. The district has made its own bed (65% low density detached homes on large lots — on a mountainside) and now must lie in it. The city has built many mid and high-rise residential developments and as the result created a pleasant, mixed-use community on Upper Lonsdale, and a high-density hub on the waterfront below. It’s classic city vs suburb.
I have crossed that accursed Ironworkers Bridge thousands of times; have been stuck on that vicious commute for precious chunks of my life that will never be recovered; completely wasted time; expensive, high-stress, wasted time. Horrible.
Not only is your daily life wasted but, I’d wager, you knock a year or two off the totality of your life. It’s not worth it. If you can’t find a way to not commute, you’re killing off part of your life.
Hey, how about resurrecting the Fast Ferry – big government likes big projects that pump up their egos while spending OPM – our tax money; or some tunnels, bridges, and subways.
Employers used to provide free parking to employees, but some of those who didn’t use it pointed out that it was a benefit for which they should also get something. That’s fair. In the same vein, those who don’t commute, or share their ride, could also get a benefit. After all, if they cycle they’re not polluting our air, or killing us with their vehicles.
Or, people are dumb enough to buy lottery tickets. What if a group of ten car share drivers had a contract that at the end of ten years one of them would win the car share kitty – which would be at least a million. A one in ten chance of winning a million sure beats the lottery.
Or, the basement bunny described above should certainly rent – there’s no shame in it – I did it for over ten years. Swiss and German folks are big on renting whereas Spanish and Greek folks like to own – compare their economies.
And it’s not just the idiotic commuting of people doing jobs that could be filled locally: it’s also the ludicrous movement of stuff that should have stayed near its place of origin – this list is so long it’s almost endless.
Some examples: I drank some Scottish beers brought over by a buddy – think how far these glass bottles travelled – and they tasted terrible. How about the frozen rabbit , or frozen duck at Stuporstore. One comes from France; the other from Hungary. That’s insane. I buy fresh local duck for the same money. Are French rabbits special?
Trucking water around is so nuts – we give away our water to cancerous corporations like Coca Cola and Nestle – they bottle it; drive it around; and charge idiots a fortune to drink it.
A start to addressing the above is to ban them from community centres. It boggles the mind that every centre has these gross buzzing electricity-guzzling vending machines filled with crap. They’re fascinating to children – not a good thing.
Of course, importing bananas, mangoes, and oranges is okay, but wine from Australia, or France? – like local stuff isn’t good enough. Remember Australia’s drought – farmers were committing suicide, but wine was still being produced and exported. Eco not. How about sugar cookies from Denmark, or pasta from Italy. We are one of the world’s greatest growers of wheat but we buy pasta from Italy?
The great Vancouver photographer Fred Hezog said that Global trade was a way for rich countries to rob poor countries with a clear conscience. It also creates a lot of unnecessary traffic.
you should go to explain your theory to the New Founland lobster fishermen…
(their lobsters travel in airplane to France, where you can find them alive): let us know how that go.
in the meantime, to answer to your question: wine from Australia, or France? – like local stuff isn’t good enough? When it is time to pair it with a french rabbit, the answer is yes…
you could also have added to your list the butter: pretty much all the “french bakery” (i.e. making decent french croissant) import their butter from New Zealand
the reason? the Canadian butter is noit good enough…
I’m not sure if you’re serious, or just being a troll, but similar arrogance permitted the death of a million people during the Irish Potato Famine. The venal rich dined while their neighbours starved to death. Starved. To. Death. What would you have posted back then? Would you have been so droll.
A few words about lobster: this bug of the ocean was used, not that long ago, as fertilizer. Kids in the Atlantic Provinces were ashamed to take lobster sandwiches to school. New Brunswick even had a law prohibiting parents from sticking it in lunch boxes more than three times a week. To fly it around the world – well, even the lobsters think it’s stupid.
But not as stupid as flying flowers from Africa, so that the former colonizers can dress up their rooms. Why not grow food instead?
And, I guess you’re trying to be clever writing about pairing imported wines with French rabbit, but let me elucidate. I grew up eating rabbit – it was a regular meal – snared by my dad and prepared by my mother. There were two nails on the lower cupboard door of our cellar whose sole purpose was to hold the rabbit while my dad skinned it.
I know what good rabbit tastes like. The first – and only – time I ate store-bought rabbit, I was repulsed. Frozen French rabbit is caca no matter what you pair it with.
And, if a French baker thinks rolling up nutritionally bankrupt white flour, with a bunch of butter that has to be imported, to make croissants for gullible patrons, is de riguer, then he has his head stuck up his buns.
Responding to MB – The District of North Vancouver is approving many high density housing developments in its 4 town centre sites, plus apartments along Marine Drive. Most town centre developments are 1 to 2 bedroom condos.
Is that enough? Should the majority of the District remain single-family housing with almost all houses over $1 million now?
The “centres and corridors” concept underlying the DNV’s OCP is a sound one, both politically and in strictly city planning terms. The creation of dense, mixed use town centres and villages connected by – hopefully – improved transit service is a very good and easily understandable way of moving forward to accommodate the municipality’s share of regional growth.
While it clearly is intended to protect single family ‘hoods from disruptive and radical change, the district’s OCP also has started allowing coach houses, which will gently densify those areas as well.
(Disclosure – Until 2015 I worked on town centres planning for the District of North Vancouver and the review of development applications for their realization.)
When the OCP process started (around 2008?) North Van house prices were far lower than now and were probably affordable by the majority of residents, based on median income.
Now houses are worth twice or even more than 10 years ago. I would argue that radical changes are happening in single-family neighbourhoods because the District’s policy to ‘protect’ them. Especially in neighbourhoods that were largely built in the 1940s to 60s. House sales seem to accelerate and almost every sale results in a house tear-down. The new houses are sold for a minimum of $2 million, including in neighbourhoods where the median household income is less than $100,000 according to Stats Canada.
Is preserving neighbourhoods about preserving the shape of buildings and having a specific setback from the street, or about the people who live there?
I noticed in my neighbourhood that none of the new houses are built with coach houses. Instead they have double garages in the back, and a secondary suite. North Van District allows a coach house or a secondary suite, not both.
Two coach houses were permitted with existing houses. One was an illegal garage ‘coach house’, where the home owner needed to remove a secondary suite in their main house to make the coach house legal (resulting in the net loss of one rental unit). The second is a coach house built for family behind a house on a double lot.
The reason is that politicians and planners are not aware what is happening worldwide and stuck in 1980’s thinking ..
This is a new world and many a politician is timid and unaware. How many politicians are from new immigrant groups ? How many have lived elsewhere for a decade or more ?
WHERE IS THE SUBWAY ON THE NORTH SHORE ?
Say from W-Van’s Dundarave to Deep Cove with 7-15 story buildings on it and 4-8 stories the next 2-3 blocks within walking distance of 20 stations along N-Shore ? Where is that vision in the 2040 plan ?
What is the vision on the N-Shore here ? More bike lanes ?
We need to rock this boat a bit more with on target mind bombs (or depth charges for metaphorical consistency). Arnie for guest editor! 🙂
N-Vancouver, led by a socialist mayor, much like Vancouver and other municipalities loves to get votes and new tax $s from development but fails to invest into subways and other rapid transit infrastructures.
The traffic is a mess and affordability issue are all man-made as land further east is cheaper and a subway / train to Deep Cove along Marine Drive from West Van would allow for much more dense developments along that route.
Since transit does not exist except wobbly, slow, crowded and polluting diesel buses people chose to buy up and down Lionsdale Quay area which is expensive.
Build the subway and they will come.
MetroVan Mayors Council needs to resign en masse, as evidenced by this N-Van isue that is the same all over MetroVan.
No wonder we see Trump rise in the US and UK leave EU as folks are sick and tired of politics “as usual” that serve primarily bureaucrats and keep politicians in power with fat pensions.
Let them eat cake !