Before he announces another ‘first,’ Gregor Robertson might want to review the permitting process

Peter Simpson
Sun

Have you ever noticed that some elected officials and the funding sources of their pet projects occasionally claim -to great fanfare -that they are the first to accomplish something, even though someone else has already accomplished the same thing?

Last week, Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson was among federal officials and project partners who presided at the unveiling of West House, a 610-square-foot demonstration laneway house located temporarily at Vancouver House, part of the LiveCity site in Yaletown. The builder was Vancouver-based Smallworks, a longtime and respected proponent of laneway housing.

“Today we open the door to the future of eco-friendly construction and design,” said a beaming Robertson at the obligatory ribbon-cutting ceremony.

The news release from Western Economic Diversification Canada -the folks who cut the largest cheque for West House -noted the laneway house features a combined living/dining/ kitchen area, bathroom, loft bedroom and a garage with electric carcharging outlet. The home has solar collectors and showcases clean energy and B.C. technology.

The release boasted the exhibit is Vancouver’s first completed laneway house. Oh, really?

Exactly a year ago, at the B.C. Home and Garden Show, the Greater Vancouver Home Builders’ Association presented a completed laneway house -the Laneway Loft House. It had a combined living/dining/kitchen area, bathroom and loft bedroom. It had solar collectors and carport with carcharging outlet. The home showcased clean energy systems and B.C. technology. Sound familiar?

Perhaps the only major difference was the Laneway Loft House sported an eco-friendly green roof, similar to the roof on the new convention centre. The feature home, which was positioned in a landscaped setting that replicated a typical Vancouver backyard, was a hit with the media and showgoers of all ages. Nearly 60,000 people toured the home during the five-day show.

The builder of the innovative laneway house at the home show? Why, Smallworks, of course.

I asked Smallworks principal Jake Fry to construct the demonstration home at the home show to draw attention to the need to allow more laneway houses -otherwise known as coach houses, granny flats, etc. -in Vancouver and other municipalities throughout the Lower Mainland.

Laneway houses provide affordable, comfortable and safe accommodation for a range of age groups -from young singles or couples who want to remain in the neighbourhood in which they grew up, to seniors who wish to live independently, yet mere steps from family caregivers and grandkids.

A month before the home show opened in BC Place, I mailed a letter to Mayor Robertson and city council, inviting them to a private viewing of the laneway house. Although city hall is a short stroll from BC Place, which fits in nicely with the mayor’s green agenda, the only person from city hall to show up was Coun. Heather Deal. No other councillors, and no mayor.

Anyway, that 2009 opportunity lost, let’s revisit the aforementioned news release, in which Robertson was quoted as saying: “By supporting laneway housing in Vancouver, we’re helping to increase options for affordable housing and at the same time, establishing our city as a centre for excellence for green-building design and construction.”

Here’s the thing. Despite the mayor’s public and laudable support for laneway houses as an affordable-housing option, builders are finding the approvals process onerous -and extremely costly.

Fry tells me his permit fees are running at $18,000 per laneway house, a costly burden on the homeowners. He says sewer and water hookups alone cost $13,000 because city crews have to break up sidewalks to run new lines. He wonders why basement suites can hook up to existing sewer and water lines, but not laneway houses.

“I am concerned the families which most need these homes will be unable to afford them because of the city fees,” said Fry.

Fry also questions why BC Hydro charges him from $1,500 to $2,700 for a laneway house, when a normal hookup fee is about $400. “BC Hydro insists on 200 amps when a laneway house can be run on only 60 amps. They, of all people, need to recognize the benefits of green technology,” he said.

In September, a BC Hydro spokesperson said the cost to hook up a laneway house could be as high as $20,000, a position from which the utility has since backed away. The process remains quite expensive, nonetheless.

Fry’s concerns are shared by a prominent contractor who requested anonymity out of fear of being placed in the building-permit penalty box by the city. The contractor’s costs for a laneway house have escalated significantly. The culprits are red tape and fees.

Since June, the contractor has had more than 25 meetings with city staff, and the total fees from the city and BC Hydro have accounted for a whopping 34 per cent of the project cost, all of which is added to the homeowner’s bill.

Clearly, if policy-makers are serious about rolling out the green carpet for laneway houses, they must start by slashing the red tape.

Peter Simpson is the chief executive officer of the Greater Vancouver Home Builders’ Association. E-mail [email protected].

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

To see mountain and sea from the glass home but not be seen is the challenge of downtown Vancouver residency

Christina Symons
Sun

While there’s some debate about the origins of open-plan interior design locally and about its eventual longevity, there’s no debating the domination of the interiors of most new homes locally by the open plan.

The re-imagining of downtown Vancouver as a residential neighbourhood, of attached homes, highrise and low-rise, and the re-imagining of the attached-home interior occurred more or less simultaneously, in the previous two decades

In that simultaneity is the possibility that the open -plan interior is as much an attribute of “Vancouverism” as are the more widely discussed attributes of the ideology, the creation of space between highrises, for example, with low-rises and public amenities.

Forty years ago, the new Vancouver apartment was inevitably a mini-maze house, with a proper hallway and kitchen and dining room and bedrooms.

Today, the new Vancouver apartment is inevitably without a formal entry and corridors and the traditionally enclosed kitchen. For the most part, the walls, and doors, are gone.

So smitten are so many of us with downtown residency, for its urbanity, for its environmental sensitivity, we’ll happily squeeze more into less, or more into more, as long our home has an entry with a view, with lots of floor-to-ceiling glass and minimal spatial restriction in between.

“It’s a trend that’s evolved predominantly as a lifestyle choice,” says architect Michelle Biggar, principal at Mcfarlane Green Biggar Architecture + Design, a multidisciplinary firm that has created some of Vancouver’s most progressive and high-end interior living spaces, including Woodward’s and select suites at The Estates, Fairmont Pacific Rim.

“An open plan reflects a modern lifestyle by encouraging interaction,” Biggar says, noting that most of us are ‘time poor’ these days and therefore value time with family and friends as paramount over private spaces. The open plan is conducive to modern mingling and attuned to living less rigidly.

Hosts are often preparing food while socializing with their guests either in their open-plan kitchen or at the barbecue, where the outdoors has become an extension of the interior living areas.

As Vancouver’s market demands increase and developable space detracts in unison, our living environments are again transforming. The benefits of radical open plan are being taxed as micro-living units are emerging.

Developers, designers and realtors are now taking a second look at the openplan concept and the smart ones are exploring solutions for existing environments while considering modifications for the next generation of “it” spaces.

Vancouver-based architect, planner and developer consultant Michael Geller, with four decades experience on key Vancouver landmarks such as the Bayshore, reconsiders the past.

Remember what proper houses were like 100 years ago, Geller notes. Every room had walls and a door, including the living room. To maximize modern spaces, Geller thinks we should reinstitute some of those ideas for select one-bedroom apartments in the city.

“The reason being is that as soon as you put a wall and door on the living room you can convert your one-bedroom apartment into a two-bedroom apartment, if you choose to,” he says. This idea was proven by Geller and the designers at the innovative UniverCity development at SFU. The open-plan kitchen and eating area essentially becomes the living space, while the enclosed former living room is seconded to a bedroom.

Often, we take all the walls out on the assumption that is more flexible, but we create more restrictions, Geller contends. For people who want to share, it doesn’t work and it also doesn’t work for households with children or for households with different lifestyles.

On the other hand, Geller admits that many traditionally enclosed or separated spaces such as formal dining rooms have proven to be completely redundant by today’s lifestyle standards.

He cites a talk by designer Gene Dreyfus of Childs-Dreyfus in Chicago who once calculated what a formal dining room costs us in terms of mortgage value. In Vancouver, that translates to approximately 150 square feet of dining space times an average value of $800 per square foot, or $120,000.

Over 20 years, it costs us around $1,500 each time we use our dining room (four times a year, for formal holiday dinners let’s say).

“For that price, you could rent a private dining room at a nice hotel and be further ahead,” says Geller.

Stephanie Corcoran, past president of the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver, a realtor specializing in Vancouver living spaces on the west side, concurs. Corcoran’s been in the business since 1986, and recalls the birth of downtown open-plan living in Vancouver sometime in the ’90s -a design tenant that was, and is, about simple economics and buyer demands she says.

“Developers had to design and build highly efficient spaces, complete with all the bells and whistles,” Corcoran notes. “Visually, small spaces simply appeared lighter and brighter with an open plan.”

The first enclosed room to go was the kitchen, morphing to an open plan and liberating that space for all to mingle in.

Corcoran recalls potential buyers’ first reactions to the shift.

“Buyers were very worried that guests would see the mess!'” Corcoran notes.

At first, the market was very tentative, but eventually buyers embraced this new style of living and the rest is history, she says.

“We used to hide the kitchens,” says Geller, who witnessed the kitchen evolution in design terms over a few decades.

The first innovation was opening it up just a little bit, from a galley into what became known as a keyhole kitchen.

“At the time, during the ’70s you opened it up as much as possible in the existing space but you would never dream of really opening it up,” says Geller. Today, developers renovating those early ’70s and ’80s kitchen are busting out of the constraints, breaking down the walls to bring the living spaces up to date.

“The best party place in any home is a kitchen living hub,” says Corcoran. “Today’s small spaces are the norm and with the open plan the party happens around you.”

Of course, the Vancouver market is also fixated on “the big view”, says Biggar. Today, the all-glass towers that Vancouver is so well known for, along with an open-plan interior, allow this view to be uninterrupted throughout the suite.

“People in Vancouver want to enjoy the view from every square foot in their home including the bathroom,” laughs Geller.

But as empty nesters downsize and we make apartments smaller we can’t just shrink all of the spaces, says Geller. You have to rethink the layout and the way we utilize those spaces. You might covet all that glass and openness at first, but once you move in, but then need a bit of wall space -to hang artwork for example.

“I had dinner at a friend’s place recently and he had a very good oil painting that he wasn’t willing to part with so he has literally suspended it in front of a window,” Geller notes.

Other challenges include living with less clutter and mess as there is no place to hide it. Design and layout of furniture is critical and while family interaction is integral to open plan living, the need for everyday privacy can sometimes be a challenge.

Enter the sliding wall.

At Woodward’s, Biggar and her team utilized it creatively.

“We embraced open living not only in the kitchen, living and dining areas which were a combined space, but also in the bedrooms, many of which have large sliding walls to allow occupants to open the bedroom up to the living area to make it more spacious when not needed as a private area,” Biggar notes.

In addition, one neutral, timeless colour scheme was presented providing unity throughout the open space and allowing purchasers to add their own personality and style through furniture, art and accessories. Retractable doors were introduced to enclose compact office desks, allowing clutter to be concealed when needed.

Finally, circulation was considered to allow one bathroom to function both as an ensuite and powder room without requiring access through the private bedroom.

The use of sliding doors or retractable walls doesn’t necessarily give you acoustic privacy, but gives you visual privacy, Geller notes. Along with alcove spaces, sliders are a trend that has proven successful in places such as New York and Toronto and are now becoming popular in Vancouver too.

“Sliding glass walls create privacy in bedroom areas, bring in light to enlarge the visual space and can also be left open to actually enlarge the space,” says Corcoran, who just sold a loft east of Cambie an entry adjacent to an open bedroom.

“The division wall is a sliding glass panel, so when open you’re actually in the bedroom when you enter the suite but you can close it off and it just looks like a nice hallway when you come in,” Corcoran says.

With the rollout of micro suites on Vancouver’s horizon, the need for such flexibility in open-style planning is paramount. “I think the Vancouver market needs to be challenged in a few more areas in order to further enhance the efficiency and livability of the smaller condo trend,” says Biggar.

To be successful, micro suites will need careful lateral design thought to maximize every possible space, Biggar notes The perceived need for dens and en-suites may need to be reconsidered while clever storage ideas and multi-functional spaces and furniture also need to be featured.

Perhaps studying more enclosed boat interiors would be a good precedent Biggar and Geller contend.

From open plan to the open sea, it’s an idea that seems very Vancouver.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Martin Crutsinger, AP Economics Writer
USA Today

WASHINGTON — Housing construction posted a better-than-expected increase in January, pushing activity to the highest level in six months. The solid gain raised hopes that the construction industry is beginning to mount a sustained rebound from its worst slump in decades.

The Commerce Department said Wednesday that construction of new homes and apartments rose 2.8% last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 591,000 units. That was better than the 580,000 economists were forecasting.

Applications for building permits, considered a barometer of future activity, fell 4.9% to a rate of 621,000, but that was after two months of large increases.

In another sign of strength, Wednesday’s report revised up activity in December to show builders were starting construction at an annual pace of 575,000 units that month, much stronger than the 557,000 originally reported. Even with the upward revision, activity fell a slight 0.7% in December, a dip blamed on severe weather in many parts of the country that depressed construction activity.

Economists are hoping that housing is beginning to recover. A rebound in this area would help support the economy as it struggles to mount a sustained recovery from the deepest recession since the 1930s.

The strength last month was led by a 10% jump in activity in the Northeast and an 8.9% increase in the West. Construction was up a smaller 1% in the South and 3.2% in the Midwest.

The strength in January pushed construction activity up 21.1% from the pace in January 2009. Last month’s building rate the fastest pace since July.

Construction of single-family homes rose 1.5% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 484,000 units while construction of multi-family units increased 9.2% to an annual rate of 107,000 units.

The National Association of Home Builders said Tuesday that its housing market index rose two points to 17 in February after having fallen for two months.

That increase in sentiment was likely influenced by a number of favorable developments, including a report earlier this month that the nation’s unemployment rate fell in January to 9.7%, still high, but lower than the previous month’s 10%.

Mortgage rates are hovering around historic lows at 5%, pushed down by a Federal Reserve program to buy mortgage-backed securities. And builders say they are also seeing a boost in the demand for homes from a government stimulus program. That program provides tax credits of up to $8,000 for first-time home buyers and up to $6,500 for homeowners who decide to move.

Bob Jones, chairman of the home builders, said builders were “slightly more optimistic that the housing recovery is finally beginning to take root.”

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved

Sun

Almost everyone who has contemplated buying or selling a house has at least a nodding acquaintance with MLS, the Multiple Listing Service system of the Canadian Real Estate Association. Roughly 90 per cent of residential property transactions involve MLS to some degree, mainly because it offers the most comprehensive database of properties for sale in the country.

In order for real estate agents to post listings on the MLS system they must be members of the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) and pay annual dues. A member — there are 98,000 of them — is entitled to use the term Realtor, which is a CREA trademark. A Realtor listing a property on the MLS system must act as agent for the seller.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with a private club restricting access to its members; however, MLS is no ordinary club. CREA says 465,251 homes were traded through the MLS system in 2009, while the average residential sale price was $320,333. That works out to an annual $149 billion, which is bigger than Canada’s petroleum industry.

Too big to ignore, the MLS system was targeted by the federal Competition Bureau in 2007. In the bureau’s view, CREA’s rules regarding the MLS system “prevented or lessened competition” in the market for residential real estate brokerage services, such that brokers wishing to offer fewer services at a reduced cost were unable to do so, limiting consumer choice.

Unable to negotiate a settlement with CREA, the bureau has filed a complaint with the Competition Tribunal, which has the power to strike down rules deemed to be in violation of Canada’s Competition Act.

Among the allegations is that CREA requires those using the MLS system to offer an entire suite of brokerage services at full price, which on average is five per cent of the purchase price, although it varies among local real estate boards. But you won’t find such a restriction in CREA’s rule book. Instead, you’ll find an expectation of high standards of business practice, providing assurance for consumers that services provided will be of a certain quality, and that there is an avenue of recourse if they are not.

To be sure, MLS has the appearance of a monopoly. But appearances can be deceiving. The real estate brokerage business is highly competitive and discount brokers, such as One Percent Realty in British Columbia, have been offering an alternative for consumers for many years. If they are breaking the rules, then CREA must be looking the other way.

The fact is that new communications technologies and innovative business models are changing the business, without government intervention. CREA will be presenting rule amendments to its membership next month that provide greater flexibility for real estate agents and consumers alike.

Soon, we hope more data will be made available to the public, such as sale prices of properties in specific neighbourhoods, and street addresses in those jurisdictions where this information is not yet offered. The liberalization of information and its dissemination through conventional means as well as mobile devices will benefit the industry and consumers. These developments bear a striking resemblance to the restructuring of the financial services industry, where both full-service brokers and discount online brokers have prospered (often under the same corporate umbrella), while consumers have been given a broad range of services and prices.

If the Competition Bureau has served as a catalyst to accelerate change in the real estate business, bravo. Now it should step back and let the market finish the job.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Jay Bryan
Sun

Are home prices getting ahead of themselves in Canada? Almost certainly. Can big price gains go on much longer? Probably not.

There’s little doubt about this view. It’s shared by economic analysts, bankers and even by Canada’s real estate industry itself. In fact, the Canadian Real Estate Association has just predicted a national drop in home prices next year.

So there’s no doubt that Canada’s housing market is in a bubble, right?

Wrong. All the agonizing over a possible bubble is actually very strong evidence that we don’t have one.

We do have an overheated market, and that means prices could stall or ease down within the next year. But that’s exactly what they should do in a normal real-estate cycle, points out economist Michael Gregory of BMO Capital Markets. After all, widespread worry about a bubble is the opposite of what drives a real one: the disappearance of normal caution, replaced by a near-universal delusion that no matter how costly an asset, it’s a good buy because prices can only go higher.

This delusion can last for years, as with the stock market’s tech bubble. It was 1996 when U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan warned of “irrational exuberance” in the market. But prices kept soaring until the collapse began in 2000.

After that came the U.S. housing bubble, which peaked in 2005 and may finally have hit bottom after prices fell for more than three years, losing an average of more than 30 per cent.

This was characterized by the very same mass denial of reality. Even Greenspan denied that a housing bubble was forming, and ordinary wage-earners became real estate speculators with borrowed money, reasoning that house prices never fall.

Now, there’s simmering worry about a Canadian housing bubble, based on the remarkably fast rebound of house prices here after a brief, violent crash triggered by the 2008 U.S. financial crisis. This week, the concern got more visibility when the venerable Wall Street Journal, where big Canadian stories are rare, belatedly reported it in a front-page article. But the large volume of hot air expended on this issue doesn’t seem to be matched by an equal quantity of careful analysis.

The most prominently quoted source in the Journal article, for example, wasn’t an economist or real-estate expert. It was Garth Turner, a former politician who wrote a book two years ago predicting the collapse of housing prices in Canada. It didn’t happen and economists never took Turner’s analysis seriously, but he keeps making the same prediction.

There are many cooler heads around, but their comments make less exciting media fare, since they don’t foresee any dramatic catastrophe.

Gregory, for example, has just taken another look at the supposed bubble and agrees with many other analysts that home prices have certainly risen too high by historical standards. But he also concludes that there’s no bubble and, furthermore, that there is very little chance one will appear.

Instead, Gregory finds, prices are being driven higher by factors like credit conditions that are temporarily too loose and a shortage of listings to meet the strong demand generated by record-low lending interest rates.

But there are at least a couple of buckets of cold water about to hit this overheated market. First, interest rates are expected to start rising this summer or fall. Second, a new tax on real estate will hit two of Canada’s biggest, hottest markets, B.C. and Ontario, in July.

In any event, he believes, there is no evidence of the kind of speculative activity that always accompanies a bubble. We don’t see speculators flipping homes for a fast buck or people buying two or three homes, hoping to sell later for a profit.

When this kind of stuff is happening, the volume of mortgage loans soars, but in Canada, mortgage volume is growing sedately, at about the same pace as prices.

Finally, Gregory notes that once supply rises enough to satisfy demand more adequately, price gains should cool. And that’s just what is starting to happen.

His prediction: talk of a housing bubble, which has become a bit of a bubble itself, should deflate by summer.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Murray’s Landing buyers find life more relaxing after selling large homes

Province

THE FACTS

WHAT: Murray’s Landing, 73 homes, first phase July 2009 (sold out); phase 2 March -April (three units remaining); phase 3 June 2010 (24 homes)

WHERE: Langley township

DEVELOPER: Platinum Group

SIZES: 2,044 sq. ft. -2,158 sq. ft.

PRICES: From $404,900

OPEN: Sales centre at #1 and #2 -22225 50th Ave., Murrayville, Langley; Hours 1 p.m. -5 p.m. Sat -Thurs

Myrna Isaac had spent many years living in a large house, and was growing increasingly frustrated with the maintenance. She estimates the yard work alone consumed at least six hours of every weekend.

“You’re really tied to that work on the weekends,” she observed recently.

So Isaac decided the townhouse option was the right one, and she’d seen many of them in Langley.

When she turned her attention to the details and finishes of the townhouses at Murray’s Landing, she was sold.

“I looked at the quality of the craftsmanship … the finished basement, the tall ceilings, the crown moulding, granite, just the attention to detail in the rock fireplace, the look of the whole development,” she says.

Murray‘s Landing is being called home, not only by Isaac, but by a diverse group of neighbours, reports Luana Matteazzi, a realtor overseeing the Platinum Group development.

Many buyers are “down buyers”, but there are no patterns or shared traits among those who move into Murray’s Landing units, says Matteazzi.

“There are a lot of people selling their large homes and making it easier for themselves,” says Matteazzi.

Buyers have included couples without children, single women, grandmothers, and middle-aged parents with young children or teenagers. “I have noticed that they’re from all walks of life. It’s a very interesting mix.”

The homes are large, at more than 2,000 square feet, and all come with standard crown mouldings, natural stone fireplaces, and granite countertops in the kitchen and three bathrooms.Threespaciousbedroomsareon the upper floor.

Thefinishedbasementscanbeusedas an additional living area or bedroom or converted easily into an in-law suite.

The new development sits in the middle of one of Langley township’s most historic areas.

Pioneer Paul Murray settled in the region with his four sons in 1870, and eventually owned a quarter section of land on each of the four corners of Yale Road and what is now 216th Avenue, an area now known as “Murray’s Corner.”

Named “Murrayville” in 1925, the area between 216 Street, 216A Street, 48th Avenue and 48A Avenue is one of the oldest subdivisions in Langley.

By the end of her new-home search, Isaac was torn between two developments: a similar one nearby was competing with Murray’s Landing. And while the finishes left an impression, the deciding factor was the basement.

“Ilikedthelayoutintheothercomplex, but the basement wasn’t finished.”

The costs of building a comfortable living space on the ground floor would have been prohibitive. “It would have cost me at least another $20,000,” she says.

“I just opened the door and I was home. All I did was paint a couple of bathrooms, and add some drapery.”

Isaachasfoundhernewfreedomfrom home maintenance has changed her lifestyle.

“Now I don’t have all that evening and weekend yard work, so I’ve filled my time with my hobbies.

“I’m pursuing other avenues with my free time.”

© Copyright (c) The Province