Monthly Archives: April 2017

It’s not just the criminal and chronic housing shortage that makes me crazy, if you haven’t already guessed, it’s the loss of the sense of character in our neighbourhoods.

One of the more demoralizing aspects of the prospect of development in our neighbourhood is the way that older houses are being demolished to make room for new, larger (and usually uglier) ones.  Sometimes these larger buildings take the form of multi-family dwellings, but often they are single-family homes, just on a much grander scale.

But whether your current older home ends up charming your street or ending up in a landfill all depends on the neighbourhood you live in.  And the age of your home.  If your house is the wrong age — or in the wrong area — it could be targeted for demolition and replacement. As this story in the Vancouver Courier explains,

Over in Kitsilano, the zoning laws are different. There, if you want to tear down a house built before 1940, you can build a new home only if it’s smaller in size. In exchange for the restriction, you’re allowed to create suites and infill housing.

That sounds very nice.  Secondary suites and laneway homes increase the housing stock and — this is where I leap in — don’t change the character of the neighbourhood.  And the cut-off date of 1940 is too early, in my opinion.  Lots of east-side developments were put in after the war.  The entire area between Rupert St. and Boundary Road south of Grandview to 22nd was built for the returning soldiers and their families (hint to the heritage, Anzio, Normandy, and Dieppe Drives).  At one time you could see street after street of small bungalows.

These houses are the perfect size for today’s smaller families!  With a full basement (also handy to hold a secondary suite for empty-nesters. And they respond well to renovation.

But that area is now chock-a-block with 3 storey New Vancouver Specials, with the occasional older bungalow sitting like a wren in a cuckoos nest.

Fellow boomers and millennials know that’s OUR heritage that is being thrown away when these homes are destroyed.

But what can we do?

Luckily, we can go directly to Stop the Demolitions and fill out a handy-dandy form that will get our message directly to the politicians.

Go ahead, do it!  I’ll wait here.

Now, didn’t that make you feel better?  Also attend any town halls on the subject.  Let your voice be heard!

All through the East Vancouver neighbourhoods along Broadway the signs have been going up.  Realtor “For Sale” signs set up in the front lawns of consecutive houses.  Four or five homes for sale, all by the same realtor, all at the same time.

It doesn’t take Jessica Fletcher to figure this out.  Densification has been taking place in these areas through laneway homes and secondary suites, but now developers are assembling larger building lots, buying up the single-family homes that sit there, and are planning on installing multi family buildings there.

As we watched the signs proliferate we worried about what form these new buildings would take.  A row of stylish townhomes would be fine.  A nice two-or-three-storey apartment is OK.  But what if they want to build something bigger?  Our laneway backs onto the alley that runs behind some of those homes for sale.  What kind of chimera would appear?

Then the “Sold” signs went up on a section between Lakewood and Nanaimo.  And in a matter of days a sign appeared stating that they want to build a SIX storey apartment building along there.

Six storeys.  That’s a lot of storeys. Something that high would block a lot of our sunlight.  I was prepared to lose our view, but to live in a behemoth’s shadow would be too awful to contemplate.

It also might be wishful thinking.  There’s been no application made so far, at least none that show up on the City of Vancouver’s Development Application Information Web Page.  But we will keep our eye on what is happening just 10 blocks down the road from us.

Now comes the twinge of conscience.  I am completely comfortable with the idea of densification.  I know that the supply of homes (whatever form they take) in no way comes close to the demand in this city.  I want more people to be able to live here.  But I don’t want the entire character of our neighbourhood to be destroyed.  I have lived in a neighbourhood that was a mixture of heritage homes and low-profile condo buildings and it was a pleasant sort of place.

What alternatives do we have?

* Not In My Back Yard