Keep driving until you see something you can afford. Thats how Chris Turner describes our approach to affordable market housing in North America. Young families trying to rent or buy a house in Vancouver know exactly what he means.
Turner was the keynote speaker at the Canadian Home Builders Housing Affordability Symposium in Vancouver last week. In his most recent book, The Leap, Turner suggests that we need to take a great leap sideways. He breaks it down into three areas. Transportation and infrastructure, energy policy and urban design. The Leap is propelled by disruptive techniques. New kinds of policy, new metrics, new design parameters for vehicles and homes and whole cities.
Turner is a masterful storyteller. He talked at length about the innovative urban spaces that have already transformed neighbourhoods and cities in Europe and North America.
He highlighted flexible and adaptive urban spaces that have been created in neighbourhoods in cities like Copenhagen, where people can live, work and shop with minimal reliance on cars. In most cases, the spaces were three to six storeys, a mix of townhomes, apartments and individual dwellings, dense but not crowded, public space was more important than private space and people were more important than cars.
While the symposium was focused on innovative affordable housing options, there was a heavy emphasis on providing housing and other amenities for the young creatives who are the engine of our economy.
Dan Garrison, a senior housing planner at city hall, came at the same issue from a public planning perspective. Its important to have creatives and young people in our city. Its what makes us vibrant. We want people to be able to put down roots and raise their families in Vancouver.
He outlined the challenge facing the city as it addresses the affordable housing issue.
The median income of rental households in Vancouver is $34,900. If we define affordable housing as spending no more than 30 per cent of your wages on accommodation, thats $875 per month. Rent for the average one bedroom in Vancouver is $1067 per month.
There are 67,000 purpose-built rental units in the city right now. The key to expanding the base is to hold on to existing housing stock while accelerating the construction of new rental units. From an affordability perspective, Garrison said that rent on the older units is 50 per cent less than on new properties. That said, many of them are in need of significant upgrades that will ultimately require creative financing or increased rents.
Garrison pointed to the community plan for Norquay Village, the area around Kingsway and Earles, as an example of the kind of planning being done in response to calls for more affordable housing and liveable neighbourhoods.
The plan proposes new zones that could have stacked townhouses, rowhouses, duplexes and small houses along with pedestrian-oriented improvements such as walkways, bike-paths, street trees, lighting, planted medians, public plazas and so on. A similar plan is being articulated for the Marpole area.
One of the proposals is for townhouses stacked on top of secondary suites that will make them more affordable for young families.
Charan Sethi, president of Tien Sher, a Richmond development company, has a stacked townhouse project in the works for Richmond. The two-storey townhouses will be stacked on top of a 500-square-foot garden suite.
And then there are the micro-condos, a 56-unit project that Sethi has underway in Surrey. Five stainless steel appliances, hardwood floors and a balcony are included. Sixty per cent of the suites are less than 305 square feet. With prices starting at around $110,000, theyre affordable for low income buyers.
They wont be the first teeny-tiny apartments in Greater Vancouver, though. A couple of years ago, property developer Reliance Properties refitted the Burns Block building in the Downtown Eastside with micro-lofts that rent for about $850 a month. The suites range in size from 226 to 291 square feet and come furnished with murphy beds, flat screen TVs and built-in desks.
The conference focused on a range of practical, affordable and innovative housing solutions for millennials (under 30s), families and seniors. In short, those least able to afford the high cost of housing in Vancouver. But, as Vancouver architect, planner and real estate developer Michael Geller has said, as long as Vancouvers land supply is constrained and we continue to be an attractive place to live, homes here will never have the more affordable prices of those in other Canadian cities. But maybe we can make some homes more affordable.
Deb Abbey is a real estate agent at Royal LePage City Centre in Vancouver. She is the author of two best-selling books on sustainable investment. You can contact Abbey through her website, www.abbeypartners.ca, or email any questions or comments to deb@abbeypartners.ca
