DEMOLITION SEASON
Older homes continue to be torn down in Vancouver, in spite of new regulations
Almost 1,000 houses are being torn down in Vancouver each year. So far, the city’s efforts to slow the trend have failed.
Heritage activist Caroline Adderson recently sent me an alert saying a “Dunbar castle” was in danger of being demolished at 3815 West 39th.
The term refers charming little houses with turrets that were popular on the west side in the 1930s and 1940s. With their turrets, arched windows and white stucco exterior, they look like miniature versions of the Disneyland castle.
This particular one belonged to Jack Wood, whose company Master Craft Homes built the Dunbar castles. Wood built a sister castle next door, which made them similar to the “Two Dorothies” Tudor homes in Kerrisdale that were recently rescued from demolition.
When I drove over a couple of hours later, the demolition crew was already at work. A giant claw smashed through the roof, toppled over the brick chimney, then crunched up the turret. Everything that made the home special was gone in 10 minutes.
What was odd was that the exterior of the house seemed pretty much intact until the bulldozer started tearing it apart. The arched windows were still in place, as was the arched front door. The weather vane was still on top of the turret.
The city of Vancouver recently enacted new regulations for demolitions of pre-1940 “character homes” like this. Ninety per cent of the home is supposed to be reused or recycled.
It was hoped the new regulations would slow the spate of house demolitions while the city worked to update its heritage register, which was compiled in the mid-1980s and missed many significant buildings. Whether it’s working is a matter for debate.
Since December, 210 demolition permits have been issued in Vancouver, 126 of them in January and February. If this pace keeps up, 750 buildings will be torn down in Vancouver in 2015. But it could be more — demolitions often pick up in spring, which some heritage activists call “demolition season.”
Dunbar-Southlands has been the hardest hit area. For the past four years, over 100 buildings in the neighbourhood have been torn down annually. No other neighbourhood has topped the 100 mark. A few years ago, Dunbar was seen as one of the west side’s most affordable middleclass neighbourhoods. But that’s changed.
Jack Wood’s old house sold for $2.58 million in July, 2014. Tim Wong of Kingstone Developments said he intends to build a 4,300 sq. ft house on the 49.5by-165.78 foot lot.
“I think the construction fee should be $1 million, and the (selling price) should be close to $4.5, $4.6 million,” said Wong.
Asked what was wrong with the old house, which was 2,900 sq. ft, Wong said “It was old. Old is no good. The roof is no good. The interior is so bad. There’s so much leaking, rainwater (coming in). That’s why. You cannot fix this one.”
Realtor Phil Gustin sold the Wood home, and confirms that it had some issues.
“The plumbing was starting to go, pinholes were starting to show up,” he said.
“The back porch was six months away from becoming structurally unsound because it was starting to rot. The retaining wall in the back yard was starting to tip over and was going to become unstable pretty soon. It needed a lot of things like that (fixed).”
The owners had been holding on to the home because it had belonged to their parents, but decided to sell rather than do repairs. And when houses like this are sold on the west side, Gustin said “95 per cent” are going to be demolished, because the new wave of Asian buyers want new, not old.
“People that buy these new houses want at least an eight and preferably a nine-foot basement,” said Gustin. “They want the main floor nine or 10 feet high, and they want the top floor eight or 10 feet. You don’t get that in older houses. Styles change, whether it’s clothing or cars or houses.”
Gustin is a lifelong Vancouverite, and is sad at the way west side neighbourhoods are being razed.
“I love this city, it’s a beautiful city, and it’s changing in a way I’m not really happy with, but I can’t change it,” he said.
But he doesn’t know how, or if, the city should move to retain its dwindling stock of character homes, because “restrictive zoning policies” can have a negative impact on property values.
“For most people (their property) is the biggest investment of their lives,” he said. “When you go to resell your property, you’ll want to get the maximum dollar out of it. I don’t care who you are, or what you’re thinking today. Ten, 20, 30 years from now, you get (ill) and your family says ‘we have to look after dad.’ They’ll want every penny they can get to look after you.”
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Architectural historian Imbi Harding is aghast that 3815 West 39th was allowed to be torn down. She emailed city officials for weeks trying to get them to stop the demolition, to no avail.
“That was a very important house,” said Harding, who wrote the local histories for Vancouver’s heritage register in 1986. “It was (Jack) Wood’s own house. It was gorgeous inside.”
The focal point of the interior was the living room ceiling, which looked like something out of Architectural Digest magazine.
“( There was) a bracketed stepped ceiling in the living room, and an oval cut-out domed ceiling with recessed lighting,” Harding wrote in a history of Dunbar she hopes to publish this year.
Heritage expert John Atkin said Wood’s inspiration for the Dunbar castle came from California.
“The story goes that he was in California hoping to break into the movies,” said Atkin.
“He ended up drawing many of the storybook style houses he saw there and came home and started building. The castle is a variation of the French Normandy style popular after the First World War. The turret is the grain silo of the original (French) farm house repurposed to make a grand entrance.”
The city recently hired heritage consultant Don Luxton to conduct a review of its Heritage Action Plan, which will include an update of the heritage register.
Wood’s home was built in 1938, and would have been a prime candidate for inclusion on the heritage register. But it was torn down before the process really got underway. Instead, the new owner hired a demolition crew. Vancouver’s director of development services George Fujii said in an email “the contractor indicated that crews had worked on site to remove interior items two weeks prior to the excavator being on site.”
Tim Wong of Kingstone Developments said the demo crew had removed “all the plastic, metal and copper from inside,” as well as the drywall and appliances.
“We sold the stuff that can be reused to Jack’s (Used Building Supplies),” he said.
But the exterior stucco was still on when the home was knocked down. This contrasts with two character homes at 3441 and 3451 West 16th, which were completely stripped to the bare wood in preparation for demolition.
Asked how the city monitors the demolitions, Fujii said the city requires contractors to submit a demolition and reuse plan alongside the demolition permit application.
“After demo/deconstruction, we require the submission of a recycling and reuse compliance report, including receipts documenting where all materials were taken,” Fujii said. “The information in this report is verified by city staff.”
Fujii said contractors are required to notify the city before a demolition but “we don’t get out to every site.”
The maximum fine for not meeting the recycling requirement is $10,000. In a $3.6 million project like 3815 West 39th, that would work out to .28 per cent of the overall cost.
The city can also withhold a building permit if a contractor doesn’t meet the recycling requirements.
And it has just brought in a $15,000 “performance deposit” that may not get refunded if a demolition doesn’t meet the city standard.
“We have had roughly a dozen houses processed under the new bylaw,” said Fujii.
“The majority have been successful, with one applicant discovered to have had submitted fraudulent receipts. The permits for this address have been suspended and are pending prosecution.”
Still, Harding thinks that if the intent of the reuse and recycling bylaw was to slow down demolitions, it isn’t working.
“It’s a con,” she said. “I guess the city is trying to defend their environmental record, or their pretending to be environmental record. I’m just in total frustration and despair at the city.”