Given the more serious consideration being given to addressing the affordable housing issue through rezoning, Byrn Davidson thinks this piece by UBC urban design professor Patrick Condon is worth reprinting.
Carve Up Vancouver Housing Stock Into Smaller Affordable Pieces
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A proposal for affordable housing that is context sensitive and preserves heritage homes.
A large swath of Vancouver virtually all zoned RS-1 for single-family dwellings averaging well over a million dollars each. What if we let those homes be divided into three or more dwellings each?
Right now the average single-family unimproved bungalow in Vancouver is valued at about $1.5 million (and most of that is land value). Given that the average family income in this city is around $70,000, this is about five times too expensive to buy because the rule of thumb is that average house should cost four times the average family income.
A simple solution emerges. Split that average home into smaller more affordable parts. Currently subdividing homes into separate ownerships is prohibited in RS-1 zoned areas, and RS-1 zoning covers over 60 per cent of all residential lands in the city. But if you could split a single family bungalow in Killarney or Dunbar into five units of various sizes, the purchase price would be, in simplified terms, $300,000. A figure much more approachable for families earning the average wage.
Of course there would be reconstruction costs associated with this change in tenure: new bathrooms, dormers, additions, more spacious basements, lane houses etc. But at even gut rehab prices of $150 per square foot that adds roughly $100,000 to the price of each of the five units — $400,000 is (with gritted teeth) doable.
A simple solution emerges. Split that average home into smaller more affordable parts. Currently subdividing homes into separate ownerships is prohibited in RS-1 zoned areas, and RS-1 zoning covers over 60 per cent of all residential lands in the city. But if you could split a single family bungalow in Killarney or Dunbar into five units of various sizes, the purchase price would be, in simplified terms, $300,000. A figure much more approachable for families earning the average wage.
Of course there would be reconstruction costs associated with this change in tenure: new bathrooms, dormers, additions, more spacious basements, lane houses etc. But at even gut rehab prices of $150 per square foot that adds roughly $100,000 to the price of each of the five units — $400,000 is (with gritted teeth) doable.
A large swath of Vancouver virtually all zoned RS-1 for single-family dwellings averaging well over a million dollars each. What if we let those homes be divided into three or more dwellings each?
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You need great architects
Architectural skill is required to insure such alterations respond both to existing architectural and neighbourhood context. Happily we have scores of examples of projects where this has been achieved. In the Kitsilano district between 10th and Cornwall and Alma and MacDonald, a special zoning district to do something quite similar has been in place since the mid-1990s. There, single family homes can be “stratified” into three individually owned units per parcel. The results are almost universally quite attractive. The stipulation for adding this density has been a requirement that, even while in many cases more than doubling the habitable square area of the structure, the existing structure must be reused. This tends to result in a proliferation of dormers, additions, side houses and lane houses added to the house and site.
To make room for millennials, do more of this: a Kitsilano conversion of a single family home into three condo units, two in the big original house and one new one built into the previous side yard space.
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I have had the good fortune of living in that area for 20 years and have made a study of these changes. The most important change? The area has become more and more alive as the decades pass. Unlike Coal Harbour and Dunbar, two districts where it seems the vampires have struck in the night, this part of Kits retains its children, and its life. The local schools are full, the resident demographic ranges in age, and in comparison to Dunbar anyway, in income. Sadly this area has also been priced out of the range of the average millennial, but it would not be such a stretch if the city took the next step of allowing four and then five strata units per site.
It’s true that squeezing three units out of a 3,200 square foot lot is a lot easier than squeezing five units out of the same sized lot. But it’s not impossible. Good architects can do it. And the need seems desperate. The alternative is that the next generation will not be able to compete for space in the large majority of this city, and will never have the option of locking down a share of the wealth pie in time for it to do them any good later in life.
We really need a strategy that lets our children compete with those who can afford a $1.2 million home. Today’s millennials, by and large, cannot.
The fact that this strategy will reinvigorate parts of the city that seem to be losing their vitality — with aging residents, emptying schools, empty buses and shops without customers — seems a huge bonus as well.
It’s true that squeezing three units out of a 3,200 square foot lot is a lot easier than squeezing five units out of the same sized lot. But it’s not impossible. Good architects can do it. And the need seems desperate. The alternative is that the next generation will not be able to compete for space in the large majority of this city, and will never have the option of locking down a share of the wealth pie in time for it to do them any good later in life.
We really need a strategy that lets our children compete with those who can afford a $1.2 million home. Today’s millennials, by and large, cannot.
The fact that this strategy will reinvigorate parts of the city that seem to be losing their vitality — with aging residents, emptying schools, empty buses and shops without customers — seems a huge bonus as well.
This idea will not result in affordable housing because it cannot be implemented at the lightning speed required to actually affect the cost of housing. The creation of new housing is an incremental process.
It can be implemented in a day. That feels like lightning speed to me. Policy change speeds can be fast. Individual projects are admittedly slow many times. But allowing thousands of projects at the same time can be fast.
To clarify; you cannot carpenter your way to affordability using the model described.
One problem is the really really poor energy performance of these stand-alone houses – not to mention the car dependence of this urban form. We’re better off identifying large swaths of SF neighbourhoods that can be up-zoned to mid-rise and have the new buildings meet Passive House standards. We need much higher density than what this piece suggests. And we need to address the terrible thermal performance in a way that cheap retrofits simply won’t be able to do.
That isn’t to say we shouldn’t try to retain some single family areas that are dominated by quality architecture and remote from amenities and transit. But much of what’s out there is not worth clinging to.
Thanks to Prof. Condon for his advocacy on this. This is a long-overdue, even urgent, reform.
But can’t we go further and tie zoning directly to affordability? It is insane and destructive to have $1.5+ million houses take up most of the land, in a city with $70,000 family incomes. It’s a recipe for displacement, resentment, and land oligopoly. And yet this is the situation in which we find ourselves.
Tying zoning to price, at least conceptually, if not in policy, could help with this. Linking the number of units allowed on a lot to some affordability index could free up a lot of land for regular folks, especially in the most expensive areas of Vancouver.
For example, if the average family can afford about $300,000, then a $1.5 million property should be automatically zoned for 5 or so units, minimum.
A place on Drummond Drive would automatically be zoned for 40+ units.
Because it is city-wide, a policy or principle like this might not result in the kind of uplift in value that spot-rezonings, or even neighbourhood plans, do. Might not. It would also result in infill spread across the City.
Construction costs vs. land costs complicate this, but the basic idea is straightforward: don’t zone land so that only the very rich can afford to live there. If prices do rise, allow more housing until we’re meeting (at least) the affordability needs of the average family.
“don’t zone land so that only the very rich can afford to live there” don’t think so.
RS-1 zoning is as old as the city and it was never zoned for the rich in the first place.
There is only so much land in the bank, but many ways to use it more efficiently. To not rezone RS areas means the current inefficient land use is frozen. This is not the way to address demographics and affordability.
The land is not in the bank so it is not land that you have access to and you therefore cannot use it no matter what your opinion is about its qualities or lack thereof. The Condon proposal is amoral at its very core; it is against the ancient admonition “thou shall not covet thy neighbor’s property”. It leads to a kind of existential despair. The private homeowner does not have to address issues of affordability. The private land owner needs the protection of RS-1 zoning from those who would steal it away without thought.
This is not to say that we should not respond to population growth because we should, but the constant destruction and reconstruction of the city is an unending process that must be stopped. It displays a failure, a complete and utter failure of imaginative courage on the part of the planning community. We do not all have to live on the head of a pin!
We have the ability to create new communities, complete communities, ideal communities based on current best practices that achieve all of the qualities and characteristics that we currently seek in land use and transportation plans. Take, courage, be brave, stop trashing the place and extend sky train lines to new cities wherever you like.
You people can start a think tank, assemble a design team, you can tap the best minds, you can make a proposal, you can lobby to make it happen, you have it within your grasp through the power of your own imaginations. Just get busy.
That’s a mighty Biblical way of not addressing the problem. The issue of Vancouver’s unaffordability needs addressing here in Vancouver where the problem rests, not somewhere else. What you propose reads like a promotion of a Great Exodus.
I commend PC for bringing up the role of land use as part of the solution, and for not laying it all at the feet of foreigners like too many pundits have done, in some cases to protect RS zones. Speculation has its effects to be sure. But there are limitations to everything, and in this case land availability in our neighbourhoods is too important to ignore while trying to deflect attention away to the end of a fictitious SkyTrain line, or overseas. At least you didn’t propose filling in English Bay to create new real estate.
There will be an exodus if there is an affordable choice and a highly desirable environment in which to live, work, and play. The all-inclusive resort is an occupancy option we can visit at any time. Of course the end of the line is a fictitious place, figure it out, that’s the whole point.
I tried to zone to affordability, using average family income as the guide. Five to six units per parcel is the result of the math.
(Full disclosure up front: I’m an architect, I know how to do this kind of thing because I’ve done it in other places, and I don’t do this kind of work any more so I have no vested interest.)
The fundamental issue here is not whether it can be done or how to do it; it’s not that hard. The issue is what you end up with. When you double or triple the number of people on the block and cars on the street, it changes the way the whole neighbourhood works. Blocks that used to look open and expansive and neighbourly look different when the curbs are entirely filled with cars whose drivers may or may not live in the vicinity. Blocks that once had 20 families who more or less recognized each other as they come and go feel different when there are 60 or 80 families. Front gardens that used to be maintained by the homeowner look different when multiple families are involved in each property; group responsibility changes the character.
I’ve lived in the part of Kits where this has been done. I was in a duplex. The lady next door, who for 40 years had lived in her family’s single detached home, said “it’s all changed so much I hardly recognize it any more.” She also said we were the first renters in years who had gardened the home next door and she was very grateful. Honestly, though, it wasn’t my favourite place to live. We’re very social people and we hardly met anyone in the year we lived in the house. Street life was very limited — mostly just the comings and goings of cars.
This is an interesting argument and is, I’m guessing, the kind of argument that backs a lot of the pushback we see for any kind of additional density.
You’re absolutely right that there are some examples where changes to neighbourhoods had negative effects. However, there are also tons of examples of extremely successful density (gentle or otherwise) both within Vancouver, around the region, and around the world. Rented or owned.
This argument essentially boils down to: “owner-occupied single family housing is superior, therefore other forms should not be considered”. This provides no real way to move forward and does not allow the city to react to change. And you will find many people, myself included, who disagree with that premise.
Actually I wasn’t arguing anything, just observing things that aren’t often considered about densification. Some single family neighbourhoods are much duller before densification. It depends a lot on the demographic before and after. When I was in Kits, the most visible neighbours were the ones who smoked dope on the veranda opposite and drove the Datsun without the muffler. Personally I like denser environments but I think there are better ways to densify than starting with small single family homes and putting them on steroids before carving them up into suites while trying to retain the same character.
Apologies then – it sounded like you were advocating for keeping those neighbourhoods static. I suppose I agree with you, for the most part – although, if the feeling that character must be preserved cannot be overcome, then I’ll happily take house on steroids vs nothing.
Part of my argument is in response to this political reality: There is huge opposition to changing the look and feel of the “fabric” portions of neighbourhoods. Mid rise apartments and townhouses that require land assembly are a non starter, and for good reason. You can get townhouse density without assembly by changing policies along the lines suggested, and preserver neighbourhood character too. This amounts to a more than tripling of density throughout the city, sufficient to radically cut auto use and putting us within reach of mode share in places like Copenhagen. Going to moderate density increases throughout the whole city gets you more gains than giant density increases in just a few spot zoned locations.
(see this for details on relationship between density and transportation https://sapiens.revues.org/docannexe/image/914/img-1.jpg)
@pcond: townhouses do not work as the land prices are too high in existing SF home neighborhoods.
There needs to be some sort equivalent of Godwins Law with regards to how long discussion on an urbanism blog goes before somebody brings up Copenhagen.
OK. Let’s use Strasbourg and other towns in Alsace. How about Annecy and 300 other French villages — or 700 more towns and cities all over the world that were founded on or recently used similar principles as Copenhagen?
Just illustrating that Copenhagen shouldn’t be dismissed so easily.
Patrick: Mid rise apartments and townhouses that require land assembly are a non-starter.
Why?
If the answer is to preserve or enhance neighbourhood character then there will eventually be limits before the available land runs out, putting even more pressure on prices. The math won’t support the current internal lot restrictions forever. There are ~82,000 m2 (20 acres) of land locked up in the front and side yard setbacks for every 500 detached dwellings in Kits. Sooner or later that land will be needed by a growing population. Deferring the difficult but necessary zoning changes will only make it more difficult in future. Perhaps an incremental approach is best.
This section of Kits is not the same socially as Commercial Drive, Mount Pleasant, Burnaby Heights or New West’s Brow of the Hill or lower Queens Park. When you have decent housing that suits the needs of residents, they stick around and develop long-term relationships with their neighbours and local shops, yet the housing may for all intents look similar to other parts of the Metro where the neighbours ignore each other.
Neighbourhood definition is not limited to architecture and zoning, though these elements do have a strong influence on the diversity of incomes and culture with respect to housing and commercial activity. And who says we cannot develop new kinds of architectural iconography even in Kits, thus adding morediversity to neighbourhood character? By all means, preserve heritage houses. But there should be a law against planners who want to impose cheap neo-traditional English Arts and Crafts facades for time immemorial, and who are deathly afraid of nibbling away at the wasteful and un-neighbourly 24-foot front yard setback.
The terraced houses of Amsterdam or West Brompton could be used as models for modern Vancouver fee simple attached family housing. One rowhouse can have a rental suite and a granny flat above a garage on the lane, all without resorting to strata, which I see as the Achilles Heel in Patrick Condon’s otherwise prescient piece. Three RS1 lots could be converted to six freehold attached rowhouses with suites and six granny flats, adding up to a total of 18 individual units of varying size and price on the same amount of land without popping through the current height restriction. Their architecture could strive for excellence if so willed. There should be credit given for preserving a heritage house and veteran trees on the site, and for recycling usable materials by dismantling existing houses of lesser quality rather than binning them.
There is so much more than new forms of residential that comes with increased density. Chances are our current zoning will not permit the commercial vibrancy and diversity of places like Camden Town. Which one of these signs would pass our sign bylaws?
https://translationservices24.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/camden-town.jpg
The reverse is true too. I knew more neighbours when I lived in a condo in a neighbourhood that has only condos and townhouses. Now, on a street with single-family houses, I meet almost nobody. Much depends on the design of the multi-family housing. The 1970s strata I lived in wasn’t particularly nice looking, but the design of the common areas and entrances had just the right amount of “socialness”.
Having taken the SFU course on CACs a few weeks I ago I learned that building townhouses is not economically feasible on existing SF1 zoned land in Vancouver as the demand for SF housing is just too high. As such ONLY combining several lots, say 3-5 to build at least 4 better 6 or 8 or more stories (and thus 40+ units) will produce more housing that is actually profitable for developers, sellable and affordable. Combing say 3 lots and building 12 THs is too expensive and will result in more housing but housing that is still very expensive due to land values !
As such, the ONLY way for MetroVan to get more AND cheaper housing is for
a) governments subsidize it, or
b) further out with rapid transit,
c) higher density, say SFR 2.0 (or better 2.5) or higher, or
d) allow residential housing on top of commercial or industrial areas.
The strategy c could easily be done along all E/W and N/S arterial routes, say Hastings, 76 Ave, Arbutus, Fraser etc. Why is Vancouver not doing it ?
Re strategy d: A new building, for example on Burrard @ 4th on the NE corner, or another one I saw a few weeks ago in E-Van east of False Creek Flats has only 3 stories and has no housing. Why is that ?
btw, where is this statement coming from ” .. rule of thumb is that average house should cost four times the average family income..” in a low interest rate environment ? That might have been true when interest rates where 8-12% but at 2.5% ? A $600,000 condo.house/TH with 20% down and a $500,000 mortgage is less than $2000/month. That would be allowed with a roughly $75,000 salary. This is 8 times salary which is a more sensible guideline.
In the past twenty years (a short mortgage term these days) how much have mortgage rates fluctuated? Basing a mortgage on historically low rates is how people lose their homes isn’t it? Great for those looking for those awesome foreclosure deals I guess. The average working person, not so much. Now, where did I leave that extra $100,000 for my down payment?
From savings ? From parents ? From your RRSP ? You can buy with 5% down, you know. I just used a more common sense, non-insured 20% down. Factor 4 for a house. Dream on. Maybe in rural BC or rural Kansas (with all them Trump voters around you .. yikes ..) but not in any decent city anywhere !
And what’s the current interest rate your average person can expect to pay on a mortgage. Is it 2.5%?
Using your own numbers doesn’t return that rate according to this calculation and shows a percentage nearly twice your claim and a monthly payment roughly $500 more than your back of the envelope erroneous assumptions. Please, next time, provide factual data rather than guesstimates that don’t stand up to scrutiny. Or don’t comment.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bw7vO_fMHTaxV2lXOVhLb3hwZk0/view?usp=sharing
I used a 30 year amortization at 2.5%. A 2 year rate is below that .. 2.2-2.3% right bow for the average Joe. Never get a five year fixed rate as that is too expensive as the bank has to pad in a margin.
No need to be so negative or offensive Chris. Keep it civil please.
Nothing negative or offensive in that comment Thomas. Don’t be so thin-skinned. You traffic in pointed comments by your own admission. My remarks simply aren’t couched in the worship you hope for. So it goes.
FURTHER OUT with rapid transit. Why not a new car free suburb in the North shore mountains with access by subway & elevator paid for by crown land & density sales.
BTW Thomas… what’s 20% of 600,000? When you get the answer, it may provide you with some insight into my antipathy for your pronouncements from on high.
You win. I am such a loser.
20% of $600,000 is $120,000 and mortgage is $480,000. Even less than $2000/month.
And that extra $20,000 would be roughly half of the annual salary of your $75k a year family and could take years to accumulate as a downpayment. It may not seem like a lot to you — and kudos I guess for enjoying the prosperity to have that perspective, but for a huge swath of the population of Vancouver, that’s a huge difference that could put home ownership out of reach, esp if their parents aren’t wealthy and the immediate demands of living in an city, usually to provide kids with opportunities and because that’s where the jobs are.
I hope I don’t have to point out to you that the many of the employment, education, and job security conditions that you might have enjoyed in your youth (and helped you attain your prosperity) are pretty much gone forever.
Nonetheless, you’ll note that my badgering of you is almost always because of your unforced errors that can be discounted in literally seconds with Google. Perhaps a measure twice/cut once approach might be in order. Perhaps with that might come the impetus to question some of your assumptions about how the world works.
“esp if their parents aren’t wealthy and the immediate demands of living in an city, usually to provide kids with opportunities and because that’s where the jobs are.”
such a messy sentence. Would love an edit function:
‘especially if their parents aren’t wealthy and they must live in a city… where the jobs are.’
And yes, the irony of having to post a clarification to my finger-wagging post is not lost on me.
https://www.sadtrombone.com/
If you can accumulate a 5% downpayment which is a mere 30,000 for a 600,000 house/condo on a dual income of say $100,000 then can buy. Easily done in Canada, even in Vancouver, and done by poor immigrants with little education even !
Home ownership is so VERY high in Canada at around 70% because it is so VERY EASY to get a mortgage even for an average schmuck. It is only Vancouver (and not even MetroVan) where home ownership is hard because it is land locked and land prices are so high here. Nice condos in New West, Surrey, or shock: Delta or Ladner at well below $500,000.
If you replace “Vancouver” with Metrovan house or condos are quite affordable, but not Kits, Point Grey or W Van. Or, buy in the Okanagan, for example a brand new 1400+ sq ft townhouse for under $300,000 .. for example here http://www.oliverlanding.ca .. I am happy to mail you one of my books I have written or co-written on real estate if you send me your address (the book is linked within in my bio section) so you too can attain a house if you so desire.
btw: I’d love an edit function too in PT as minor errors are easily done but can’t be corrected such as 20% of 500,000 = 100,000 or 20% of 600,000 = 120,000 ..
It’s appears you have given zero consideration to my remarks — offered to you in good faith. Now the average income you cite just went up $25k. And then you try to sell me a house. Unbelievable Thomas. Don’t flog your condos or books. The comment policy specifically states no spam and your offers are unsolicited.
“even for an average schmuck.” The contempt for working people is palpable.
The ‘good book’ gets it right once in a while Thomas:
“For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.”
– Matthew 12:37
I am merely trying to help you, Chris. You seem to have a grudge, and you appear to pull people down to your level. That is why I don’t like socialism. It tries to bring everyone down to a lower more equal level. I adhere to a more elevated believe that if you help people we will all be better off. Even you Chris. Listen more. Learn more. Disparage others less. A house or condo sub 750,000 is quite attainable in MetroVan with two incomes of around $100,000 together. How many books about wealth creation or real estate have you read to improve your lot? I linked two I wrote or co-wrote. There are dozens more. May I suggest a few ?
I don’t want your help. Absolutely satisfied with my housing situation thank you. Suits my needs perfectly.
Your comments are offensive and patronizing. I have a problem with individuals who think they have all the answers when it’s clear they aren’t even asking the right questions.
Disparage other less? I can’t seem to find the posts where I call most of the population ‘schmucks’.
Listen more. Learn more. Disparage others less.
You do realize that’s the exact advice I just gave you? That I actually have been listening (reading) to your comments? You don’t like being fact-checked. Little wonder.
Groan, yet another time Condon pops up with “the simple solution” to one of the most complex and complicated matters of human settlement. Ever since that East Clayton mess, I associate his name with Yogi Berra:
“In theory, there is no difference between practice & theory; in practice, there is.”
Wow. You hurt my feelings. Lots of good and balanced articles on East Clayton. Here is one. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/surreys-east-clayton-a-dream-community-with-growing-pains/article545557/
Groan. That’s your evidence? Some filler article from a half decade ago, in a paper that wouldn’t dare be too critical of the mess for sake of losing subscribers in that area, and which probably took the deadline-driven writer about 3 hrs to research & type? Guh.
What we do know is that no one, no loc gov’t, no community will ever replicate that again. The biggest abortion was how the UBCers thought commercial & business park areas work. Lesson; don’t give crayons to sophomores for armchair planning.
Sad that you’re hurt, but my guess that is also fiction; look up “resilience.”
I would be more inclined to support such efforts if there wasn’t strong evidence that much of the density being clamoured for is just ending up as empty investment vehicles for Chinese capital.
The tide may be changing on that one with the new tax. But only time will tell. My guess is a great chunk of the foreign money may be turned away, but the value of Vancouver land and desirable neighbourhoods will remain quite high in spite of the pundits for a bubble.
Bryn Davidson’s article is awfully relevant to this informative post.
https://pricetags.wordpress.com/2016/11/22/the-silliness-of-the-unfunctional-front-yard/#comments
Why is putting down coal harbour so common? The buildings are interesting, and the park along Burrard inlet is amazing.
The neighbourhood as a whole is not as lively as some parts of downtown, but why should it be? I’m sure there are more people walking around there than in most places in kits off of 4th or broadway. Kind of a double standard. I’m sure it is much more densely populated than most of kits as well.
Give me coal harbour over kits any day.
Yes indeed, coal harbour buildings are stunning, it is close to Stanley Park, walkways and downtown and modern. The only drawback is that the views all face north and it is thus quite dark in the winter.
We shall see how effectivly the new vacancy tax will be enforced. I bet that at least 50% of Coal Harbour condos are empty, likely 70%+ judging by permanently drawn blinds or no lights on.