You can tell a lot about people by the way they treat their neighbours and their pets-but does the same apply to cars? Imagine that you own a piece of property that is industrial zoned in the City of Richmond. You have a clientele that may be here for only a certain period of time, but that have very expensive vehicles. As Wanyee Li reports in Metro News Trove Developments (really Hungerford Properties) will house your car in its own custom car storage building for $600,000. And surprise! It is already 80 per cent sold.
The $600,000 is the base garage model, but further funds can get you a mezzanine or larger space. And the whole point of this exercise is exclusivity. As the developer raves on the website “TROVE is more than a place to store vehicles, it’s a community of like-minded individuals with a passion for cars and a luxurious way to savour the benefits of owning a super car.”
And there is more: … TROVE will redefine what it means to own a luxury vehicle in Vancouver…With only a limited number of units available, TROVE is an extremely limited ownership opportunity. Along with access to TROVE’s concierge and an exclusive calendar of events, owners will also become members of the TROVE Club, a rare membership that grants you VIP access to Vancouver’s most sought-after automotive events. “
There is much to say when cars get their own bathrooms, bars and upstairs offices in a customized garage. While car storage may be in an accepted use for the zoning, the idea of car condominiums with a clubhouse (there’s a common area and a patio space) as a private amenity was not what was anticipated. The 22 units of car condos will gross the developer over 13 million dollars for fabricating a cement shell and paving over the rest of the site. Motordom and a strange kind of exclusivity reign supreme in this project, while the developer sells off the land for much more than a true industrial use can garner. The developer argues that this is a commercial use of the site but has not yet submitted a development application for their luxury car condos. The YouTube video below contains the marketing for this project. And you can also check out the “members only” car condo club here.
That’s just stupid and wasteful and utterly symbolic of what’s wrong with Metro Vancouver.
Vegas is orders of magnitude worse.
I think it is awesome to see what variety of interests humans can exhibit. As such interests get catered to by product suppliers.
It is THE result of immigration: more variety, tastes & culture.
The role of government ought to encourage that and not suppress human interests.