‘Have your say!’ on housing — or, apparently, don’t

Public’s opinion is being ignored, Carol Volkart says.

A while ago, I filled out a rather extensive questionnaire about ways of retaining character housing and encouraging the construction of more affordable housing in Vancouver. “Have your say!” urged the materials for the city’s character home zoning review.

In my response, I was strongly in favour of the plans to slightly reduce the allowable square footage for new housing while allowing extra square footage and infill for older homes to encourage their retention.

Apparently, it doesn’t matter that people like me — apparently a lot of us — strongly favoured the heritage retention plan. Apparently only builders and developers count. I was astonished to hear that this so-called downzoning was cavalierly taken off the table March 7 by the city’s head of planning, Gil Kelley, because of “very strong” negative feedback from the very people who profit hugely from ripping down old houses and building huge new ones.

Removing the one-and-only measure that might have helped preserve our neighbourhoods while encouraging some gentle increases in density is a clear message that only moneyinterests, not the interests of local residents, count.

For the record, I am a longtime owner of a 50-foot property in Dunbar. I don’t know if my little cottage would qualify as having character — probably not — but I would be quite willing to sacrifice the five or 10 per cent drop in value that’s being predicted if this measure went through. The city’s own material acknowledges that single-family property values have increased nearly 200 per cent in the last 10 years — how greedy do we have to be?

I have watched with alarm over the past decade as entire blocks of older houses have been replaced with huge new houses. I would not mind the loss of beauty, character, trees and gardens so much if at least these new houses were providing affordable homes for people. But they aren’t. Many are vacant, with bars on the doors and permanently closed window blinds. I can take you past entire blocks of them.

Even more important is the fact that these houses are replacing older ones that mostly had affordable suites in them. At one point, nearly every house on our little block near Dunbar had a secondary suite, providing reasonably priced housing for generations of UBC students. As the old houses disappear, so do the suites. No matter how many suites the new houses have (if they are occupied at all), they are not affordable. How will this change if council doesn’t discourage this kind of building?

We should be encouraging retention of wellbuilt older houses and gentle densification of the lots they sit on. Increase their allowable square footage. Allow infill housing along with laneway houses. Reduce the cost and complexity of city permits. Relax renovation rules that trigger expensive upgrading. At present, even something as small as a $5,000 renovation — what can you do for that amount? — requires an EnerGuide home evaluation. I can’t help but think these rules are aimed at discouraging renovations by ordinary people and forcing them to sell their houses to keep the development industry happily chugging along.

Kitsilano seems to have densified while saving some of its character and avoiding construction of whole blocks of vacant new houses. Obviously, there are ways of doing this that aren’t rocket science.

Prematurely removing the downzoning option — even though it formed the basis of the plan residents were asked to respond to — ignores our voices and takes that option out of the hands of elected representatives. I urge council to pay attention to the many residents who favour gentle densification and retention of older homes. Tipping the balance away from builders and toward homeowners just may be the best way of developing affordable housing after all.

I have watched with alarm over the past decade as entire blocks of older houses have been replaced with huge new houses.