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Housing experts weigh in ahead of Buildex keynote panel on Feb. 14.
Vancouver winter scene by TOTORORO RORO from Your BC: The Tyee's Photo Pool.
The Tyee's solutions-oriented series on affordable housing for working people.
BC has far too few affordable homes. Whistler has none. Councillor Tim Wake warns: "Plan early, or react later."
It's been a year since Brent Toderian suddenly and controversially departed his job as the City of Vancouver's planning director. He now heads up his own city planning and urban consultancy firm, Toderian Urbanworks, where he's at work, among many other things locally, nationally and internationally, on two local affordable housing projects and three job-space projects, as well as a citywide plan for Regina, Canada's second fastest growing city. His planning work today echoes what he previously did with the City of Vancouver. A key difference between now and then is he can talk about urban issues without first asking permission from his bosses to discuss them.
"You could never forget that you were speaking on behalf of the city before. And now I'm simply speaking on behalf of my opinion on cities. So in that sense, there's a lot fewer boundaries," he tells me. "But the rumours of my fetteredness were always a bit overstated while I was at City Hall because I was a pretty outspoken fellow, which is maybe why I'm not there anymore. And the rumours of my un-fetteredness are probably a bit overstated now. Life is always a little more complicated than that."
Toderian will share his perspectives on city-building and affordable living as part of a keynote panel at the Buildex Vancouver conference Feb. 14. The two-day conference and tradeshow will draw over 13,000 expected visitors to share information about building, managing and designing real estate. The panel, called "Living Affordably in Greater Vancouver," aims to explore solutions to this region's housing affordability crisis. Unsurprisingly, Vancouver was recently ranked the second-most unaffordable city in the world (Hong Kong was first), according to January 2013 survey findings published by Demographia, an American urban planning consultancy.
Idea 1. Pubic transport creates housing options.
"We need to change the discussion to one of affordable cities rather than just affordable housing," Toderian says. Affordable cities, he says, must include affordable transportation systems independent of private cars, plus job spaces that ensure the people who live here can make a living.
"There's a mythology that's been spread across North America that industry is out of date, and we should convert all these [industrial] lands to mixed-use, hip, high-density communities. Vancouver has actually been one of the models for that. There are some places where you can actually do that successfully and other places where you shouldn't," Toderian says. "And what kind of job space do we have in this city? Is it the kind of job space that only facilitates trendy restaurants and service-sector jobs, or is it about higher-paid jobs, creative jobs, manufacturing jobs that require specialized lands and buildings? That's as much a part of the affordability picture as affordable housing is."
Solutions for homelessness and vulnerable housing rely as much on inclusive employment training as it does on the provision of affordable and supportive housing, he adds. "Skills-training and inclusive job-training initiatives, where you actually take folks out of poverty cycle situations to give folks the training they need to change their economic profile, is an important issue relative to homelessness and supportive housing," he says. "It's not just about giving an affordable home, although that's critically important."
Idea 2. Make policies to support options other than ownership.
Both Toderian and fellow Buildex panelist Sean McEwen are calling for a re-consideration of how our society values and privileges home ownership over other forms of housing.
"The idea of ownership as an indication of success is a uniquely North American thing, and it's increasingly less applicable to expensive cities," Toderian says. "This is true of every global expensive city; ownership isn't the automatic assumption, but there are people that live successful and fulfilling lives all over the world and never own a home, and don't think anything less of themselves in the doing."
McEwen, who has worked as the sole practitioner for his firm, S.R. McEwen Architect, for just over 20 years, suggests cities have been planned -- and even governments have been organized -- around deep-seated cultural biases towards home ownership.
"There's kind of a core belief that home ownership is better, that it essentially helps to create a more stable society, a society where people express pride of ownership and maintain their place in society," McEwen says. "There've been studies that have shown that renters demand more policing than homeowners do. There are kind of these core social biases that tend to define what's of value in society and what isn't."
Special federal measures, like homeowner grants, are not afforded to renters, McEwen adds. Such measures work to both defend home ownership and enhance its status. A longtime social housing advocate who has worked with numerous neighbourhood groups to advance tenant rights and housing for low-income citizens, McEwen remembers housing-related discussions from the 1970s that are eerily prescient today.
"People used to warn us 40 years ago about Vancouver becoming an executive city. It was gentrifying like mad. And it's come to pass," he says. "It's the planning culture and the development culture that we've had that have allowed it to come to pass. Their efforts at social engineering have really succeeded."
Idea 3. Change the thrust of 'conditional use' permits.
McEwen chooses an independent architectural practice because he wants to maintain his freedom to express his views frankly. "If I was part of a firm and trying to market our skills and we were making these sort of what we call socially-progressive notions, you might not get hired by developers in the local context," he says. A Vancouver urban planning trend that worries him these days is prioritizing the visual impact of a new development over its contributions to civil society.
"In the culture of planning that we have, planners construct these beautiful, artistic pieces of urban design, but we've gotten farther away from looking at things that I think are important, like social mix," he says.
McEwen would like to see a return to some of the original purposes of the conditional land use permit. Conditional land use allows the property owner -- in many local cases, the City of Vancouver -- to use land in a way that lies outside the zoning law, usually with conditions based on recommendations from local area advisory groups, nearby property owners, and other advisory bodies.
"What I would say is we go back to some original ideas of using the conditional use tool to look at housing goals and wider affordability goals," McKewan says. "If there was a use important to the community, then you could use conditional use as an inducement to keep incorporating those kinds of uses into projects." So, for example, if it's found that low-income seniors housing is needed in a community, a conditional land use permit could provide the bonus density needed to achieve that in a standard market residential development.
This was done before, he says, but now it seems to be a thing of the past. "The way that it's evolved in Vancouver is that everything's entirely visual," he says. But high aesthetic impact doesn't necessarily need to sacrifice contributing to the social good.
"If you reward good design with higher densities for conditional use, it's one tool the planners have to improve the quality of urban developments. In years gone by, it looked at social issues as well. That's been forgotten."
Idea 4. Foster a European solution: Co-housing.
Even though the City of Vancouver's Urban Design Panel rejected a rezoning and development application for a co-housing development in Kensington-Cedar Cottage last month, Dane Jansen remains optimistic about the potential for this European housing type to successfully establish itself in Vancouver. The principal of Vancouver's dys architecture joins Toderian and McEwen on Thursday's Buildex panel, along with Urban Fabric Group principal Heather Tremain.
Windsong in Langley is B.C.'s first and oldest co-housing project. Buildesx panelist Dane Jansen worked on project in the mid-'90s. Photo dys projects.
"It's hitting some of the critical criteria in terms of producing affordable housing," Jansen says of co-housing, which is characterized by its non-hierarchical, member-driven decision-making structure and private homes supplemented by common facilities. While Jansen is not part of the current Cedar Cottage co-housing proposal, he and dys architecture previously worked on a co-housing development in Langley called the Windsong, which welcomed its first residents in 1996.
"[Co-housing is] one of the ways we can improve affordability that's self-initiated," he continues. "Part of being in co-housing is to reduce some of the lifestyle and budget issues. You're not always having to go looking for a babysitter because there's somebody there to deal with your kids if you're running late coming home one night. People are coming together to be mutually supportive, which should suggest you can reduce some of your other costs in your life and draw that down."
He also praises co-housing for its development cost savings. "If you're doing the development yourself, you're removing one of the soft costs, which is developer profit, and hopefully turning that back into development or making more affordable units."
Idea 5. Go small intelligently.
Jansen's other work in designing social housing units has, like co-housing, drawn on European inspiration. He has designed 220- to 325-square foot apartments several supportive housing facilities in Vancouver, and was one of the first architects to pioneer small suites for such purposes in the late 1990s.
"There was quite an outcry. 'How dare people live in something that's the size of a parking space?' " he remembers. "For me, I knew that other people living in the rest of the world had been living that way."
But current economic circumstances are seeing governments less involved with housing than they have been in the past, Jansen says. "I think we had that paradigm where we've just trusted there would be the involvement of government to carry forward with that agenda. And they had a strong agenda, right up until 2007, 2008, as evidenced with the Provincial Homelessness Initiative," he says.
"Now, the provincial government is in a bit of a tough situation. So while they're still continuing to do work and we're fortunate to do work with it, there are not as many programs today as there were a few years ago. It tells us that we can't always trust that there will be that level of funding from the provincial government. And it means you've got to look at things more creatively."
Hear many more ideas about how to make housing in the Vancouver region more affordable at the Buildex Vancouver keynote panel, "Living Affordably in Greater Vancouver," Thursday, Feb. 14th, 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Participants include Brent Toderian, Sean McEwen, Dane Jansen, and Heather Tremain; Tyee editor David Beers. moderates the discussion. Registration and information: BuildexVancouver.com. ![[Tyee]](http://thetyee.cachefly.net/ui/img/ico_fishie.png){kind=small}
Read more: Housing, Municipal Politics, Urban Planning + Architecture
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Hakuin
14 weeks ago
How can you make a city " liveable"
When it recognizes no good but money? It's really that simple.
stevie wonders
14 weeks ago
"World" housing markets?
Ms. Wong, you wrote "Unsurprisingly, Vancouver was recently ranked the second-most unaffordable city in the world (Hong Kong was first), according to January 2013 survey findings published by Demographia, an American urban planning consultancy."
However, Demographia states clearly, in big letters on their cover page, that the study focuses on select markets in these jurisdictions only: Australia, Canada, China (Hong Kong), Ireland New Zealand, United Kingdom, and the United States.
Either you failed to read even the cover page of the Demographia report, or you rather arrogantly believe that the non-English-speaking world is not worthy of consideration.
Let's move forward on this topic using facts, especially easily obtainable ones.
Story
14 weeks ago
Vancouver, second-most unaffordable city: Huh!
"Vancouver, the second-most unaffordable city in the world (Hong Kong was first)". London, Mexico City, Buenos Aires and many others, not far behind!
"We need to change the discussion to one of affordable cities rather than just affordable housing," Toderian says. "Affordable cities," he says, "must include affordable transportation systems independent of private cars, plus job spaces that ensure the people who live here can make a living.
Brent is certainly on to something but as always, the eternal cause of low wage employment and societal price rise, fractional reserve banking, is studiously avoided. For obvious reasons it is a huge problem that cannot be tackled at the local level: hence a continued and ineffectual gabfest will continue to attract soi disant experts.
Despite housing, transportation systems, whatever, nothing short of a complete re-boot . . .
http://www.theyorkshirelad.ca/1yorkshirelad/vancouver.re-boot/Vancouver.re-boot.html
. . . will do it for Vancouver. We are a city and Metro by and for sprawl: we cannot erase the 1950's but we can ameliorate the damage.
Sean is quoted, "People" (specifically TEAM's Hilda Simons I suppose) "used to warn us 40 years ago about Vancouver becoming an executive city. It was gentrifying like mad. And it's come to pass," he says. "It's the planning culture and the development culture that we've had that have allowed it to come to pass. Their efforts at social engineering have really succeeded." I would be more inclined to say it is the developer first culture: Vancouver planning, with its incessant public gatherings, has been demonstrably ineffectual!
We all applauded when the bee-hive burners and Sweeney Cooperage were evicted from False Creek. Who would argue that False Creek south, replacing the defunct WWll shipyards, has been one of Vancouver's great housing successes? Who would argue that Olympic Village is too: (I expect to be hammered for saying that).
However, little did we know the consequences awaiting us!
I really do not enjoy being negative but have we not just watched the Mayor's Task Force on Affordability trudge through this topic arriving at the most impractical notion of building (metaphorically speaking) in the middle of the street?
Co-housing? "Dane Jansen remains optimistic about the potential for this European housing type to successfully establish itself in Vancouver. Co-housing is not a general solution. " I certainly agree, it is not a general solution. One has to be a certain type to endure such habitation!
Until we come to terms with housing, everywhere, everything the western world over, our very way of life, is being dragged down by the bankers' ponzi debt based issuance of currency. Until we come to terms with that all the talkfests in the world will be for naught!
Fiat lux
14 weeks ago
No hope as long as foreign
No hope as long as foreign money is permitted to pour in to inflate prices and buy up everything to dislocate and disempower locals.
Welcomed by politicians as "foreign investment" ????? Where are their brains ? Not that politicians ever had very much, but today's are the worst.
Some of the most dangerous people on Earth today are the priesthood of economists and architects, filling our lives with hopelessness and ugliness.
Ed Deak.
Story
14 weeks ago
Never ending debt . . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6uuAupT4AQ&feature=player_embedded#!
. . . makes all this chitter chatter about planning for affordability irrelevant.
Tbarnston
14 weeks ago
Cooperatives Too
Member owned cooperatives are inherently affordable for many reasons, the most important is that they are removed from the banking system and not perpetually leveraged at ever increasing prices.
Example: My 100 unit housing coop was constructed in the mid 80s, with a 8.5 million mortgage including 60 year pre paid lease. The mortgage will be paid off in 7 years.
The coop allows people to join with a $2000 share purchase, refundable on vacating. Then a monthly housing charge (rent) covers the operating costs, mortgage, and depreciation of the development.
That's it! Coops are simple, non profit, non speculative, and housing charges reflect the actually costs and depreciation of the development. The "market" has nothing to do with housing charges.
Compare this to multi family strata, or co-housing, single family and you will see that the bias towards "building equity" largely benefits the banks. They get to generate perpetual cash flow from real estate because citizens must constantly engage in leveraged real estate transactions to secure housing.
It makes sense to increase the mix of housing coops when densifying a region to ensure that a portion of the housing stock is removed from the perpetual debt cycle.
Matts
14 weeks ago
Five Ideas to Detrimentally Impact Citizens
1. The first point goes without saying our public transportation system and our road systems are both decades behind what they should be, due largely to Provincial and Federal ideologies that simply are not working.
2. Reduction of ownership will not make housing cheaper but it will make our city less democratic. As ownership diminishes, and more and more people are forced to rent their rights will be decreases. Did we learn nothing about what went on prior to the middle of the last century when property ownership was recognized as a fundamental indicator of a free society.
3. The destruction of the zoning system in Vancouver has been almost without precedent in the last three decades and it has not lead to a better city nor a more visually pleasing city; contrary to what the author may think. The notion that citizens through their system of governance (and zoning) should relinquish even more control to the private sector makes no sense. What we need is tighter controls and the extraction of more concessions to improve the city.
5. "Go small intelligently," really! "Well they do it elsewhere in the world." Unbelievable propaganda! Who is really taken in by this nonsense. I have heard this coming out of the mouths of people from all walks of life, but the only one who really benefits from these smaller spaces are the developers or land owners. Living in such inappropriately small spaces is psychologically problematic and socially sterile, forcing people who are already strapped for cash into private venues to do the recreation and socializing; thus increasing the financial burden on these individuals. We should be building a better city not one based on highly dense cities with incredible large problems with crime and pollution.
I for one am tired of people like Jackie who have no real ideas on how to improve a city, only ideas on how to create social and economic destruction, while eroding the rights of individuals and their democratic processes. She is really just a tool pushed, knowingly or unknowably, out into the limelight to help those who have to get more.
grapeman
14 weeks ago
And families?
It would be nice if one of the central ideas focused on the needs of working class and middle class families. Not singletons or couples, but a family with two or more kids. If not, this will be just like every other affordable living initiative we've seen in the last few decades, and therefore an initiative that will do little to make a real difference.
Other than retired couples who are cashing out and moving east (a market that seems to be drying up),the vast majority of people I know coming out to the burbs are families. They simply can't fit into 2 bedroom condos. So, if Vancouver wants to alter the rather attenuated demographic that it's becoming known for, then it would be nice to see building density that's both affordable and appropriate for families.
Bob Watts
14 weeks ago
And in the Beginning................
Canada and the USA, both started with direct WELFARE Payments, in the form of free land and free startup money.
The poor and homeless where invited to come here, from all over the World and they built a life and a country.
Hey it worked!
So Why Not Do It Again.
Reading the posts, all I see is the fear of even thinking about relocating the poor!
How about just start with the willing.
Idea #6
Have the homeless trained to cut the lumber needed, to build the homes.
What is wrong with having the homeless building log homes, those trees are everywhere, Billions of trees.
We need to open over collective minds!!!
zalm
14 weeks ago
Nice to have Toderian confirm
...that his political masters are the ones that are out of step with normal life. Of course, when The Rize passed reading at City Hall, there was no doubt at all even in the minds of the most ardent Visionista that Vision was the new Developer's Party of Vancouver.
Baseless comments about the Ponzi scheme notwithstanding, I think everyone recognizes that our own greed has played us all for fools, and the industry that has grown up since the 1960s to fulfill our need for greed is seriously out of control. The Satan of Development took us up to the top of the mountain and told us that we could have the whole world if we would only deny common sense and allow ourselves to be captured by the Zeno's Second Paradox of ever increasing wealth - selling our property to developers would allow us to reap more wealth, which we could use to purchase more things, which create more wealth...yada-yada-yada...
Which is why it's so surprising to read comments that ownership is an absolute necessity for an orderly-functioning society, and that broadening zoning leads to a destruction of the city's housing stock.
Ownership is neither an absolute right, nor a public good. Ownership confers responsibility, not untrammeled freedom. In the absence of governmental responsibility (read: judicious taxation and flexible zoning) one finds that the market ends up taxing ownership by raising prices and changing zoning irresponsibly.
Here's how the banks and developers truly make their money - our desire to own our home in a desirable area costs us dearly when many of us compete for that privilege, and the person who got there before us has the untrammeled right to sell to us for as high a price as he can gain. The lenders (I include credit unions, which belong to us) mediate the contest (charging horrendous fees called "interest") and developers create "desire" - both of which should be heavily taxed as non-productive inputs to the actual task of housing people appropriately. Speculation (ALWAYS unproductive in any market, though the Fraser Institution would never agree) can be deterred and the bulk of its profit recaptured by taxing zoning changes immediately as they occur based on a 40-year depreciable lifetime of a building, and not in following years as is the case now. This allows future generations to profit from our foresight, not we ourselves, who have already had the benefit.
It's a balancing act, and one that's nearly impossible for government or business to manage alone. But it's one we have to manage carefully ourselves - for most of us, our housing has become our retirement scheme, far outweighing the financial impetus our pensions should rightly have.
Thanks to Toderian and Wong for letting us know that people are actually thinking about ways to do housing better, even if they're still captured by the prevailing paradigm and pandering to our greed.
Hakuin
14 weeks ago
How about a third crossing
And punching road and rail in behind the north shore mountains? Lots of cities have been built in less likelier places. And even if a stupid idea it will put everyone to work. Better than paving the last of our farmland.
Bob Watts
14 weeks ago
You Can Not Build
You can not build in the mountains north of Vancouver, the whole area is a water shed for the lower mainland.
The cost of a new road is also over $10 million per km.
We have old mining towns all over BC.
People keep saying the cities are where the money is, from what I have always heard is 70% of the wealth of BC comes from remote areas.
Harper is also about to change the EI rules!
Harper is going to force people to go where the jobs are! Sounds like a great Idea, BUT!
So what will happen is small towns all over canada will become ghost towns as young people are forced to move, this will then cause schools to shut down then hospitals, stores etc.
Harper will turn canada into a group of mega cities. Great for wildlife I guess is the only plus.