Peter Busby
Sun

Vancouver is engaged in a debate about EcoDensity. The city has proposed a process to find a vision for Vancouver that will result in definition of new medium- and higher-density neighbourhoods in locations other than the downtown peninsula, and to combine livability, affordability and sustainability with zoning changes that will allow continued growth.

Concerns are mounting: NIMBY voices are rising in consternation; change is being viewed as threatening inevitable erosion of our cherished civic qualities.

The question remains: How do we accommodate growth in a positive manner, maintain our city’s livability, ensure that there are affordable housing options, and reduce our carbon footprint all at the same time? Where will our children find affordable housing? Where will our seniors live out their years?

Contrary to generally accepted notions of what needs to be done, cities are the most important opportunity to fight climate change. Eighty per cent of Canadians live in our largest 25 communities. Cities build and own more buildings than any other entity, provide our water, collect the garbage and recycling, run our transit, build our roads, collect and treat our sewage, regulate building design and construction, and set patterns of land use, zoning, and density. The future of the fight against global warming rests with these 25 largest cities.

Recent data reveal that the average Vancouver resident causes five tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions per year. Compared to Calgary (17 tonnes/year) and Toronto (nine tonnes.) This is encouraging, but when compared to livable, dense, European cities like Oslo, Norway (2.5 tonnes/year), we realize that Vancouver can do much, much better.

Cities throughout the European Union are working towards reducing their average GHG emissions to 2.5 tonnes/year — a reduction that scientists agree could shift the tide of climate change. To do this, Europeans are focused on four major areas to improve their cities: Land use, public transportation, greener buildings, and community-scale district infrastructure.

Metro Vancouver studies show that residents living in multi-family housing in the downtown area emit one-quarter of the carbon of those who live in single family houses. Simply put, multi-family housing is more energy-efficient. Shared walls reduce energy losses and shared utilities reduce overall consumption. Denser living also encourages walking, biking and public transportation over automobile use.

Since roughly half of our emissions come from buildings and a third stem from transportation, denser living can make a dramatic impact on our GHG footprint.

We need to change the way we think about our city. I believe that Vancouver can be a vibrant, dense city and still retain its existing beauty: Stunning geography, parks and neighbourhoods. However, density itself is not the answer.

EcoDensity proposes a diverse mix of development appropriately located in all areas of our city. I envision neighbourhoods that retain their unique character while adding denser housing typologies — duplexes, coach houses, mid-rise apartments, and, yes, (where appropriate) towers.

The developments in False Creek and Coal Harbour may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but they are smashing successes, the envy of the world and many people all over Canada.

Affordability is the greatest problem. Affordability is created by expanding a diverse supply. The downtown is largely built out. So where can we create more opportunities?

Vancouver neighbourhoods also need to be balanced with a variety of services, civic amenities, places of employment and effective public transportation all within walking distance. This balanced mix brings out the best in neighbourhoods and promotes affordability and diversity. Balanced neighbourhoods can accommodate a student living in a studio apartment, a young couple saving to buy a first condo, a growing family needing a larger home, and a retiree downsizing. When I retire, I hope that I will have the option of remaining in my community, where my wife and I have raised four children, without having to leave our neighbours and friends.

Balanced neighbourhoods of a certain scale and critical mass also lead to innovative ideas for district infrastructure.

In the Dockside Green development in Victoria, we have learned that economies of scale apply to district infrastructure development, allowing for integrated waste water treatment, storm water capture and reuse, energy generation using renewable resources and waste streams, even community transportation solutions and strategies to provide socially responsible initiatives such as affordable housing.

By using synergies between the byproducts of one process and the feedstock of another, district infrastructure is able to eliminate waste altogether, transforming waste products into useful outputs, and resulting in a dramatic reduction in our carbon footprint.

Having practised sustainable architecture in Vancouver for the past 25 years, I am confident that EcoDensity will be a positive initiative for our city. It is a vehicle that will allow us to discuss progressive ideas for city-making and will change the way we plan our city’s growth.

Historically, we have made difficult decisions and shown great leadership in our city policies.

Twenty-five years ago we rejected freeways to keep our communities intact, a decision that has been universally applauded for its foresight and vision. At the same time, the city put into place most of the zoning it has today, which has remained largely unchanged.

It is time to open up the debate and consider new zoning and planning directions. We need a future defined by urban densification around transit infrastructure, with mixed-use communities that have a balance of living, retail and employment opportunities without the need for daily automobile use.

The Canada Line is under construction, the UBC line is in our near-term future. East First Avenue, East Hastings, Kingsway and many other decaying automobile arteries are the future transit corridors that hold immense opportunities for affordable new communities.

Council needs to lay out a grand new vision for the future of Vancouver that is livable, sustainable, affordable, and part of the solution for global warming.

Peter Busby is managing director of Busby Perkins + Will Architects Ltd. in Vancouver.

© The Vancouver Sun 2008

 

Freeze on density transfer has Heritage Vancouver worried

John Mackie
Sun

A few years ago, the City of Vancouver introduced a density transfer program designed to help save heritage buildings in Gastown and Chinatown.

It meant that if developers restored a heritage building, they could transfer density to other sites, typically adding a couple of storeys to a highrise tower.

The program was an instant success.

“There was a lot of take-up on it,” says Don Luxton of Heritage Vancouver.

“The density was flowing freely and everybody was happy. And then the city decided that the program was generating too much density, it was too successful, and decided to put a six-month freeze on it.”

Six months later, the freeze is still in place. And Heritage Vancouver worries that all sorts of heritage buildings are now in danger, including those in the historic core: Gastown, Chinatown and Hastings Street.

As a result, the three areas have made Heritage Vancouver’s 2008 list of top 10 endangered sites.

Hastings Street, in fact, makes the list twice. The unit (000) block of West Hastings comes in at number eight, while a larger portion of Hastings (from Cambie to Heatley) is grouped with Gastown and Chinatown at number four.

Why?

Because developers are now casting their eyes on Vancouver’s original downtown, which has been economically depressed for decades.

“Concord and some other developers are starting to buy property in that area because it’s cheap,” says Luxton.

“And look at what’s happening with Woodward’s [where 43- and 32-storey towers sold out immediately]. Everybody says it’s not a precedent — yeah, right. Everybody’s looking at it saying, ‘This is what the city is allowing, this is what we should be asking for.’ There’s a lot of pressure, a lot of pressure.”

This is the eighth annual top-10 list, and there are some holdovers. The number-one slot is retained by the Burrard Bridge, where the city has proposed adding “outrigger” bike lanes off the sides. Heritage advocates think it would destroy the art deco structure’s elegant lines. Luxton says the proposal is to go to council in April.

Vancouver’s heritage schools are number two on the list.

“Schools are a real problem, because the seismic mitigation program is potentially going to see about 40 schools destroyed,” says Luxton.

“Forty historic schools, in Vancouver alone. The process is horrendous. They’ve said, ‘We’ll go through a process with the community,’ [but] we have yet to see a process result in a school being saved. It all comes down to the provincial formula [for seismic upgrading], and until that changes, and the province listens to what’s going on, nothing’s going to happen.”

Robson Square isn’t as old as threatened schools like Charles Dickens or General Gordon, but the provincial government’s proposal to build a “clamshell” roof over Robson Street where the public could gather for civic celebrations has heritage advocates aghast.

“It’s potentially hugely disruptive, a terrible thing,” says Luxton.

“It doesn’t really provide any protection over the part of Robson Square where the public would gather, it’s just over the bus lanes. So it’s kind of stupid.”

Luxton sees the Dal Grauer Substation at 970 Burrard as a good example of “demolition through neglect.” When it was built, it was sleek and modern and let the masses peer inside to see its industrial works, but today it’s dirty and dingy and a pale shadow of its former self.

“There has been a plan in place for quite a long time to do something with that, but it’s been stalled,” says Luxton.

“In the meantime, the building just gets worse — chunks have been falling off it. What we’re afraid of is that they’ll decide it’s too expensive to restore and bring back to its former glory, and they’ll do something cheap and nasty to it.”

The 1913 York Theatre (639 Commercial) may be torn down for a townhouse development. Property records show the 500-seat theatre was sold for $640,000 in October 2007.

Ironically, a couple of blocks away, the provincial government has just earmarked $9 million for the renovation of the Vancouver East Cultural Centre, which is a similar size and age. And the city still has $20 million collected for a Coal Harbour Arts Complex that has never been built.

It looked like the historic Firehall No. 15 (3003 East 22 at Nootka) was going to be saved a couple of years ago, but a new council came in and voted 6-4 to demolish the 1913 building, which neighbourhood groups want to turn into a community space.

Now Luxton says the building “is in limbo,” because a two-thirds majority is needed to overturn a previous council’s decision.

A couple of “orphaned” houses in lower Mount Pleasant (an 1899 Victorian at 144 East Sixth and a 1905 house at 304 West Fifth) take up the number nine slot. Their sites would be ripe for redevelopment as the neighbourhood changes.

The list is rounded out by the Heatley Block at 684 East Hastings. The city has purchased the handsome 1931 building and plans to tear it down for a new library. A pair of old houses built in 1893 and 1899 would also come down.

© The Vancouver Sun 2008

 

He likes Abbotsford, Chilliwack in B.C.

Ray Turchansky
Province

EDMONTON — Don Campbell couldn’t believe a recent scene among wannabe real-estate investors at the corner of Yonge and Bloor streets in Toronto, site of a planned condominium complex.

“People slept there overnight for four nights,” said Campbell, president of the Calgary-based Real Estate Investment Network and author of 51 Success Stories from Canadian Real Estate Investors.

“A sign up above read ‘$500,000 to $1.3 million,’ although you could go across the street and buy something very similar for $425,000.

“Then the developer had the gall to paste a six over the five to make it ‘$600,000 to $1.3 million,’ and the crowd cheered, saying, ‘Look, it’s going up.’ There was even a fight in the line.

“When you line up around a block with 200 people to buy a condo in the sky that doesn’t exist yet, put $20,000 down and plan to sell it as soon as it’s built, look in the lineup and tell me how many people have the exact same mentality.

“Then all you need is for one guy to panic and drop his price to get out, and the average price in the whole building goes down, and you’re completely at the whim of somebody else. You should only line up for U2 tickets.”

Campbell is concerned about novice investors not researching what they’re buying.

“If you don’t have a long-term outlook, don’t invest in real estate, go buy gold or stocks and roll your dice. You have to make real estate boring, because that means you’re doing it right. Go jump out of an airplane with a parachute if you want excitement.

“Right now I am telling everybody to buy resale, to buy something built in 1997 or 1998, when there wasn’t a frenzy and people had the time to finish the properties.

“If I can find a market that gives me an eight-per-cent increase every year and I’m putting 25 per cent down, that means I’m getting 33-per-cent return on my money on a capital-gains basis, and it’s not a frenzy.”

Turning to B.C., Campbell said: “In B.C., it takes 73 per cent of your average income to buy an average house in Vancouver. I love Fort St. John and Dawson Creek as an investment in B.C. I’d be careful about most other regions.

“We’re picking Abbotsford, Chilliwack and Maple Ridge as the big winners in the Lower Mainland.”

Campbell said he wouldn’t buy U.S. real estate until next February.

“We haven’t seen anywhere near the full drop — especially in the Phoenix, Vegas, Florida areas,” he said. “The foreclosures will start peaking around October, which is about three months after the peak of the [mortgage interest-rate] resets. Then the foreclosures have to get on the market and drive the prices down.

“If you’re just going to go buy and live there, go do it. But if you’re going to do a quick flip or have renters in it, I think you’re way too early, especially if you’re going to finance it.”

© The Vancouver Province 2008

 

Second- and fifth-floor decks promise bright, happy light even in the winter

Kerry Moore
Province

Mantra puts buyers within walking distance of the best that city living has to offer.

The attraction, says Tracy Chong, development manager at Cressey, “is split between a great building and a great area. You can have a good building in a so-so area and vice versa, but here it’s all one.”

Mantra’s location at 4th Avenue and Pine is on the eastern side of Kitsilano, where a five-minute walk north puts you on Granville Island and the sea wall.

Five minutes up the street to the south are the shops, restaurants and great shopping of South Granville.

To the west lies the entire sprawl of Kitsilano, including Kits beach, the Planetarium, Vancouver Museum and, in the summer, Bard on the Beach where Shakespeare’s plays are performed under tents at twilight, a magical experience that is also within walking distance.

The site is long, says Chong, stretching between east and west. “There is 275 feet of frontage and the architect has created two buildings, separate but connected by skybridges.”

The exterior features Whistler basalt rock on the second floor.

Blending in with an energetic neighbourhood is important for the developers who have created some very large patios for Kits-style outdoor living and entertaining.

Inside, Mantra condominiums offer an open-planned urban lifestyle with a big exception — kitchens are the size one would expect in a house rather than a condo.

“A lot of people who see our display suite refer to the kitchen with its extra cabinetry, sleek, slim-line slide-out hood fan and pantry. There’s a lot of storage in our kitchen and that gets comment, too,” says Chong.

“In the interests of green living, the kitchen cabinets include a built-in recycling drawer” so there are no brimming blue boxes in a coat closet waiting for weekly garbage pickup.

The appliance package includes a gas cooktop, wall oven, microwave, fridge with filtered water and an icemaker, integrated dishwasher and — we’ll all drink to this! — a 46-bottle wine cooler.

The suites also include two choices for colour schemes, extra-wide plank engineered hardwood floors (maple or oak), tiled bathroom floors and composite stone counter tops.

What buyers will also get is a fully equipped, air-conditioned gym on the second floor.

There are good-sized decks on the second-floor south side, and one unit on the fifth floor has a wrap-around deck facing south-southwest, which promises bright, happy light even in the winter.

Mantra is attracting couples with busy lives, says Chong.

“We try to make it very easy to move in and be at home. Suites have a built-in entertainment centre with a niche and a panel where people can hang a flat-screen television … . The centre matches the kitchen cabinetry material so there’s continuity between rooms.”

Mantra offers easy access to

public transit, located in the blocks between the Granville and

Burrard bridges and their convenient bus routes into and out of town, as well as to the University of B.C.

Occupation is spring 2009.

THE FACTS

Mantra

What: 68 Condominium units in two five-storey buildings.

Where: West 4th Avenue and Pine Street, Vancouver.

Developer: Cressey Development Group.

Sizes: One bed, one bed and den, and two bed and den, from 648 sq. ft. to 985 sq ft. indoors and 48 sq. ft. to 1,100 sq. ft outdoors.

Prices: From $454,900 to $939,900

Open: Presentation centre/display suite, noon to 5 pm daily (except Friday) at 2060 Pine St.

Online: yourmantra.com

© The Vancouver Province 2008

 

Tony Gioventu
Province

Dear Condo Smarts:

I recently purchased a 12-year-old townhouse in Richmond. My plan was that my parents would live in the complex for their retirement and we would some day move into the home for our retirement.

I hired an agent and found a strata-document-review service online that we thought was credible. The transaction was fairly smooth but before we signed the papers the sales agent recommended that we obtain an independent engineer’s report. She had some concerns over the condition of the balconies.

We contacted the review service and they said current work was completed on the balconies and, according to the strata records, everything was fine, so we completed the sale.

We have unexpectedly received a notice of a special general meeting from the strata corporation advising of a serious problem with the decks and wall assemblies. The notice refers to an engineering report that was just received. The estimated repairs are going to be about $47,000 per unit.

We contacted the review service and they advise they were not provided all of the strata documents so had no way of knowing. So we’re stuck with the bills. Do we have any chances of recourse ?

— JG, Richmond

Dear JG:

Everyone should exercise caution when dealing with services that are available online. There are many online services on line that claim to have the answers, but is there anything behind your screen for your protection?

Online strata document-review services in B.C. must be licensed under the Real Estate Services Act because they fall under the definition of trading services Anyone who contemplates using document-review services needs to first identify that the agent/company are licensed and complying with the Real Estate Services Act.

The next step is to review the contract for the services you are engaging. Look at the terms and conditions of service, liability, reliability of records, responsibility of the service to ensure that all records are reviewed, and ask what happens in the event of a defect or error in the service.

If the party is not licensed, insured or a definably registered company with a real business address, you should probably look elsewhere. Don’t rely 100 per cent on documents that are available online. Unless you see the originals, how can you tell if they are complete or have been altered in any manner ?

Listen to your agent, personally review the documents and reports and, if ever in doubt, request clarification in writing from the vendor, your agent or the strata corporation.

Tony Gioventu is executive director of the Condominium Home Owners Association. Contact CHOA at 604-584-2462 or toll-free at 1-877-353-2462, or e-mail [email protected].

© The Vancouver Province 2008

 

81-unit Sofia project 85-per-cent complete

Glenda Luymes
Province

A Vancouver developer has pulled out of a Mount Pleasant condo project — leaving buyers wondering what will happen to their investments.

The Sophia on East 11th Avenue and Sophia Street went into receivership last Monday, according to CBC News. The 81-unit project was about 85-per-cent complete.

It’s not the first time the developer, the Eden Group, has pulled out of a project. In November, Eden cancelled two condo developments worth about $95 million before the buildings got off the ground. About 55 buyers had deposits refunded.

Company owner Bill Eden told media at the time that the civic workers’ strike had caused costly delays, while rising labour and material expenses were prohibitive.

Eden could not be reached for comment yesterday, causing speculation over the fate of the Sophia. Many of the units were sold about two years ago. A two-bedroom suite in the Sophia is listed on the contract assignment website www.buildingdigger.com for $599,900.

Greater Vancouver Home Builders Association CEO Peter Simpson said he was “concerned” to hear about the Sophia, but hadn’t been able to reach Eden to ask what had happened. “It’s very disconcerting for me, and I think for any developer out there. It reflects on everyone,” he said.

But Simpson said that while construction costs are causing challenges for developers, he doesn’t see a trend developing.

“Major developers would never dream of doing anything like this,” he said. “The major developers would just suck it up. Their reputation is at stake. They’d swallow their losses and finish the project. With a smaller developer, it can be more difficult.”

Simpson said there have been 78,000 housing starts in the Vancouver area in the last four years. “It’s a strong market. It’s only a very small number where things like this are happening,” he said.

Simpson recommends anyone pre-buying a home to take their contract to a real-estate lawyer to review it. By law, buyers have a seven-day right of refusal to back out of the contract. The law also requires developers who may have had problems in the past to disclose that information in the contract.

“This is a moot point for the people in this case,” he said. “This has to be a big worry to them right now.”

Simpson said the receiver could find another developer willing to finish the project and honour the existing contracts or ask buyers to pay more. “If there’s a debt it might be a difficult situation,” he said. “My hope is that, at the end of the day, the people will get their homes at the price they paid.” [email protected]

© The Vancouver Province 2008