Residential growth looms as a significant municipal election issue throughout the Lower Mainland

Larry Pynn
Sun

The traditional single-family detached home, once considered a virtual birthright along with a luxury car and job security, is fast becoming a dream in burgeoning Greater Vancouver.

The region we once knew is transforming before our eyes, and the single-family home is struggling to reinvent itself as rising prices and a limited land base force residents to live in more compact homes on smaller lots or switch to townhouses and condos throughout the region.

“We’re going to see more and more innovation all the time,” predicts Peter Simpson, chief executive officer of the Greater Vancouver Home Builders’ Association.

“People still want a place to put their lawn chairs and barbecue. They treasure their own little piece of land, even if it’s a lot smaller than we’re used to.”

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. statistics track the dramatic shift since 1980, when single-family housing accounted for 56 per cent of 16,780 housing starts in the region as opposed to multi-housing units such as condos, apartments, and townhouses.

The proportion of single-family dwellings dropped to 35 per cent of 17,970 new housing starts in 1990, and is forecast to drop even further, to 29 per cent of 20,000 units in 2005.

That trend is generally good news for proponents of regional density, creating compact town centres where residents have access to shops, services, transportation and jobs, while reducing pressure on an overburdened transportation system and a land base constrained by the Coast Mountains, the Pacific Ocean, protected areas such as Burns Bog in Delta, and the agricultural land reserve.

The tough part is finding the right fit — one that works for people and the regional good.

As voters gear up for the municipal elections on Nov. 19, residential growth looms as a significant election issue, which includes debate on the future of the single-family detached home.

Robert Brown is a principal of Resource Rethinking Building Inc., a Vancouver-based development and consulting firm specializing in creative, sustainable residential projects.

Brown recently converted a 1910 home on West 11th Avenue, next to Vancouver city hall, into three strata townhouses. Density credits for saving the heritage home gave him another 1,200 square feet of building space, enough to create a detached coachhouse dwelling unit on the same site.

At Hawkes and Keefer in Strathcona, Brown converted a car repair shop dating back to the early 1940s into two loft townhouses, and the parking lot into four new row townhouses.

His latest project is to renovate five detached single-family homes dating to 1912 on a 50-foot deep lot with 125 feet of frontage, on East 27th Avenue near Main Street, helping to invigorate an otherwise weary block.

Brown said his philosophy is to work with older buildings rather than simply tear them down, a policy that saves both materials and heritage. At the same time he likes to add density, put more people into already established urban areas instead of creating new developments that rely on cars to get anywhere, while ensuring the flavour of neighbourhoods is respected.

“Densification on its own is not the perfect solution,” he says. “Neighbourhoods must still be livable.”

Mark Holland, a Vancouver urban planner and director of the Community Energy Association, says densification can carry a negative connotation, but progressive modern projects put an equal focus on livability, something that must be communicated to the public. The alternative to densification, he warned, is “traffic nightmares” and increased costs for building and servicing highways and other municipal infrastructure.

CMHC statistics for the region show 3,711 single-family detached housing starts this year to the end of September, of which 38 per cent, or 1,425, are in Surrey. Langley township recorded 12 per cent, or 463, of the housing starts, slightly more than Vancouver‘s 11 per cent, or 431.

Richmond and Maple Ridge took about seven per cent each, with 281 and 263 single-family detached housing starts, respectively, followed by Burnaby‘s five per cent, or 182 starts.

In Surrey, much of that development is taking place in areas such as Panorama Ridge and East Clayton, a sustainable community near the old Hillcrest Drive-in, featuring rear laneways and garages, homes set close to the street with small front yards and porches, with secondary suites.

Langley‘s fastest growing residential area is Willoughby, around 200th Street and 72nd Avenue, an area predicted to reach a population of almost 40,000 by 2021.

Subdivisions with optimistic names such as Nature’s Landing, Star Point, Jericho Ridge, Sunny Berry and Parkside strike an ironic pose against swaths of forest land being levelled to make way for construction.

Here you will find some of the lowest-priced new homes in Greater Vancouver. According to the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board, a new 3,245-square-foot home (up to two years old) in Willoughby costs $135 per square foot, which compares with a 2,967-square-foot home in Clayton at $132 a square foot, a 2,849 square-foot-home at Sullivan Station, in Surrey at 152 Street and 64 Avenue, at $140 a square foot, and a 2,738-square-foot home in Aldergrove at $148 per square foot.

Builders in Willoughby put up 322 single-family homes and 516 multiple-family dwellings, mainly townhouses in 2004 alone, about 2.5 times that of Langley‘s Walnut Grove residential area to the north, near the Colossus movie complex.

All those residences are ramping up the pressure for more highway infrastructure, especially along the Highway 1 freeway. But they are also part of an orderly planning scheme that complements the commercial mecca that exits just down the road in the Willowbrook area at Fraser Highway, argues Langley township Mayor Kurt Alberts, a former township planner.

In counterpoint, veteran Coun. Kim Richter claims the municipality is beset by excessive population growth, lack of highway infrastructure and an emphasis on compact housing developments that stand to become future ghettos.

“We’re growing far too fast,” she said. “We won’t recognize Langley in 10 years.”

The retail tangle in downtown Langley is so extreme that it’s impossible to know where the township ends and the city begins. An imaginary boundary line even extends right through the heart of the Bay department store in Willowbrook Shopping Centre.

“The menswear is in the city,” confirms Alberts.

That kind of oddity makes you wonder whether merging the two communities might make good planning sense. Alberts is receptive to discussing the idea, but he said the city — founded in 1955, and “celebrating 50 years of divorce” — isn’t the least bit interested.

The city has fewer than 25,000 residents, while the township’s population is approaching 100,000.

Langley city Mayor Marlene Grinnell said the rate of growth around the city is breathtaking to residents of both Langleys, with the added concern that rainwater on the developed slopes on Willoughby could lead to flooding in lower-lying areas.

Langley city is receiving kudos in planning circles for its vision for downtown, and Grinnell has no plans to amalgamate with her larger neighbour.

The city is unusual in that its homes have water meters, a conservation measure year-round. The development focus is multiple-unit buildings rather than detached homes, complete with a pedestrian-oriented downtown that includes a new hotel-casino-convention centre. Seniors especially like that they can walk to shops, including Army & Navy.

“People enjoy smaller government here,” says Grinnell, noting the last political wannabe who touted the idea of amalgamation was “soundly stomped” by city voters.

The going rate for even the cheapest new homes in Greater Vancouver forecast the day when the price of a single-detached home lies outside the reach of all but the affluent or those lucky enough to inherit one.

One potential alternative currently being touted by the GVRD is freehold row housing, the sort of development popular in cities such as Toronto yet almost unheard of in B.C., where strata condos are the name of the game.

The concept could prove especially popular with young families, seniors and anyone downsizing their homes or moving to Vancouver from areas of the country where housing prices are lower, says housing policy planner Beverly Grieve.

She is aware of only five freehold row-housing projects in the region — four in Burnaby and one in Port Coquitlam — and they date back about 35 years or longer.

The advantage is that you don’t have to go to others to seek permission to alter your place; the drawback is that you have no control over what the next person does. Neighbours do sign an agreement covering matters such as maintenance of common walls.

“People say they’re happy to live in more dense situations, but they want to own the land,” Grieve says. “There’s a huge interest in this.”

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 26th, 2005 at 12:00 pm and is filed under Real Estate Related. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.