Opinion: Would you like an apartment with that beer? Vancouver Courier October 12, 2016

Last November, Molson Coors announced it was selling its False Creek property and relocating elsewhere in the province. At the time, there was speculation as to whether the brewery would be replaced by a forest of tall condo towers. However, as the city’s assistant director of planning Kent Munro pointed out, the site was zoned as industrial and listed in Metro Vancouver’s regional context statement as a job-generating location. He went on to say the city did not support condos on the property, but would support intensification of industrial or employment uses.

 

I was reminded of the Molson property Saturday afternoon when my two daughters took me out for a birthday “pub crawl.” We did not go to the Granville Entertainment District. Instead we headed for Brewery Creek in Mount Pleasant. I was pleasantly surprised.

Tucked in amongst various light industrial operations I discovered a number of new craft breweries comprising what one commentator has called Vancouver’s “beer geek mecca.” They include 33 Acres Brewing Co., Big Rock, Brassneck, Main Street Brewing Co., Red Truck, R&B and Faculty.

At R&B I tasted beers with such quintessential Vancouver names as Stolen Bike, So Fresh So Green, and Van Special.

At Faculty, I picked up a $2 copy of The Growler, A B.C. craft beer handbook, which I subsequently discovered is published by Glacier Community Media, which also publishes this newspaper.

However, this is not a column about beer. It’s a column about housing affordability, and how we might better accommodate the millennials I met on my brewery tour, most of whom were less than half my age.

These craft breweries, with their tasting rooms, are being developed on land zoned for industry. But as I noted in an SFU talk earlier this year, and a subsequent Vancouver Courier column entitled, “Is Vancouver really running out of land?” today’s industries are very different than the industries operating when the original Brewery Creek breweries were built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Why not build affordable rental housing above light industrial high-tech office buildings such as this one in Mount Pleasant, or new buildings combining similar light industry and housing?

In those days, it was necessary to separate housing from industrial activity for health reasons. Today, however, I question why we need to separate housing and a craft brewery or Hootsuite’s offices.

I say this despite knowing that in the last four decades we have redeveloped so much industrial land that many of the jobs that were to be close to where people lived in the city, have been forced to relocate to suburban locations such as Surrey, Langley and beyond.

I also know that many fear if we allow housing on industrial land, we are going to force up its value to the point where it will no longer be economically viable to locate industry on it.

But that’s simply not true.

In a recent radio interview, Gil Kelley, Vancouver’s new chief planner expressed a need to understand why so many Vancouver developers build condos rather than rental housing. The answer is simple.

Condominium buildings are generally more profitable than rental buildings, especially when many want to purchase apartments as investments, and rental rates are relatively low given land and construction costs.

Moreover, while we zone land for different categories of use, with the exception of laneway housing, we generally do not zone land for tenure. That is to say, land is not zoned just for condominium or rental apartments. But what if it was?

 

What if in light industrial neighbourhoods, such as Brewery Creek, we allowed upper floor apartments, provided they were rental tenure, and built along with the maximum amount of industrial space permitted by the zoning?

This need not happen in all industrial zones. We might not permit housing where residents are likely to be disturbed by industrial activity at night, (although I have slept at numerous airport hotels, and I did not hear a thing, because we can keep out noise with soundproof windows.)

Now some might ask who would want to live above industry? Well, to start, everyone who recently purchased condominiums in an attractive new Wall Financial development in the 900 block of East Hastings with industrial uses on the lower floors.

We should not allow housing to replace industry, but there is no reason why in many instances the two could be combined to create much needed rental housing.

michaelarthurgeller@sfu.ca

@michaelgeller

© 2016 Vancouver Courier

Last November, Molson Coors announced it was selling its False Creek property and relocating elsewhere in the province.

Related

• Is Vancouver really running out of land?

At the time, there was speculation as to whether the brewery would be replaced by a forest of tall condo towers. However, as the city’s assistant director of planning Kent Munro pointed out, the site was zoned as industrial and listed in Metro Vancouver’s regional context statement as a job-generating location. He went on to say the city did not support condos on the property, but would support intensification of industrial or employment uses.
I was reminded of the Molson property Saturday afternoon when my two daughters took me out for a birthday “pub crawl.” We did not go to the Granville Entertainment District. Instead we headed for Brewery Creek in Mount Pleasant. I was pleasantly surprised.
Tucked in amongst various light industrial operations I discovered a number of new craft breweries comprising what one commentator has called Vancouver’s “beer geek mecca.” They include 33 Acres Brewing Co., Big Rock, Brassneck, Main Street Brewing Co., Red Truck, R&B and Faculty.
At R&B I tasted beers with such quintessential Vancouver names as Stolen Bike, So Fresh So Green, and Van Special.
At Faculty, I picked up a $2 copy of The Growler, A B.C. craft beer handbook, which I subsequently discovered is published by Glacier Community Media, which also publishes this newspaper.
However, this is not a column about beer. It’s a column about housing affordability, and how we might better accommodate the millennials I met on my brewery tour, most of whom were less than half my age.
These craft breweries, with their tasting rooms, are being developed on land zoned for industry. But as I noted in an SFU talk earlier this year, and a subsequent Vancouver Courier column entitled, “Is Vancouver really running out of land?” today’s industries are very different than the industries operating when the original Brewery Creek breweries were built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
In those days, it was necessary to separate housing from industrial activity for health reasons. Today, however, I question why we need to separate housing and a craft brewery or Hootsuite’s offices.
I say this despite knowing that in the last four decades we have redeveloped so much industrial land that many of the jobs that were to be close to where people lived in the city, have been forced to relocate to suburban locations such as Surrey, Langley and beyond.
I also know that many fear if we allow housing on industrial land, we are going to force up its value to the point where it will no longer be economically viable to locate industry on it.
But that’s simply not true.
In a recent radio interview, Gil Kelley, Vancouver’s new chief planner expressed a need to understand why so many Vancouver developers build condos rather than rental housing. The answer is simple.
Condominium buildings are generally more profitable than rental buildings, especially when many want to purchase apartments as investments, and rental rates are relatively low given land and construction costs.
Moreover, while we zone land for different categories of use, with the exception of laneway housing, we generally do not zone land for tenure. That is to say, land is not zoned just for condominium or rental apartments.
But what if it was?
What if in light industrial neighbourhoods, such as Brewery Creek, we allowed upper floor apartments, provided they were rental tenure, and built along with the maximum amount of industrial space permitted by the zoning?
This need not happen in all industrial zones. We might not permit housing where residents are likely to be disturbed by industrial activity at night, (although I have slept at numerous airport hotels, and I did not hear a thing, because we can keep out noise with soundproof windows.)
Now some might ask who would want to live above industry?
Well, to start, everyone who recently purchased condominiums in an attractive new Wall Financial development in the 900 block of East Hastings with industrial uses on the lower floors.
We should not allow housing to replace industry, but there is no reason why in many instances the two could be combined to create much needed rental housing.
michaelarthurgeller@sfu.ca
@michaelgeller

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Opinion: Which is the better city — Toronto or Vancouver? Vancouver Courier September 30th

I’ve been thinking about this after recently spending five days in Toronto to attend a conference organized by Lambda Alpha International, an urban land economics society. The conference featured tours and speakers including Jennifer Keesmaat, the city’s rock star director of planning, along with housing experts, economists, local architects and planners.

For me, this was also a trip down memory lane, since I lived in Toronto for 23 years from the age of five through university and my early years as an architect and official with CMHC.

As I listened to the presentations and toured various city neighbourhoods, I realized there were many lessons Vancouver could teach Toronto. But there was also much we could learn in return.

Toronto is now a very big city. An estimated 100,000 immigrants move there annually, and now more than 50 per cent of the population was not born in Canada. While Vancouver is a cosmopolitan city, I could not get over how many people on the street and excellent public transit spoke a language other than English.

While Vancouverites are proud when we rank highly as a livable city, planner Joe Berridge noted that Toronto has become one of the world’s top ranked cities when it comes to most categories.
Pearson airport ranks along with New York, London, Hong Kong, and Mexico City when it comes to connections to other cities. Vancouver has a similar ranking to Montreal, Boston, Lisbon, and Geneva.

Toronto ranks very highly when it comes to innovation, as measured by the number of patents registered each year. It also comes fourth in Price Waterhouse Coopers’ Cities of Opportunity ranking. Only London, New York and Singapore rank higher. Sadly, Vancouver was not even on this list of 22 international cities.

Vancouver was also missing from the Economist magazine’s ranking of top cities in which to live and work. According to a Globe and Mail story reporting on the study, Toronto ranked first.
Berridge attributed Toronto’s success to its influx of immigrants, excellent universities and library system, a high standard of peace and order, and with the exception of Rob Ford’s reign, good government. The consensus seemed to be that amalgamation had worked.

However, Berridge also noted Toronto has relatively poor convention facilities, few great tourist attractions, and no new universities. Toronto’s climate is worse than Vancouver’s and our city has a more magnificent natural setting. However, this does not necessarily mean Vancouver wins the beauty contest.
 
As I toured the city, I was impressed by an improved standard of cleanliness and beautiful new street planting. We were told the maintenance and planting programs are often undertaken by 82 local Business Improvement Associations (BIAs) around the city.
 
Toronto also has an expanded program encouraging the creation of POPS — Privately Owned Public Spaces. As I listened to an impressive presentation by the city architect overseeing the program, all I could think of was how Vancouver is losing many of its POPS, including plazas at Georgia/Howe and Seymour/Hastings.
 
While Vancouver is planning to create new parks by removing the viaducts, Toronto is contemplating a project that would build a major new park above a portion of its downtown railway lines, comparable in size to New York’s Central Park. Other major parks have been created along the waterfront.
 
When it comes to housing, it was reported that Vancouver has 161 major condominium projects underway. In comparison, Toronto has 431. However, in the absence of new purpose-built rental buildings, 70 per cent of these new units are purchased by investors. When compared with Vancouver, I found Toronto’s buildings often too large, and much too close together.

Given a shortage of family-sized two-, three- and four-bedroom units, a major concern in both cities is where millennials who occupy downtown units are going to live when they start to have families. Toronto has therefore initiated a “growing up vertical” program to encourage larger units and child-friendly amenities in new developments.
An interesting comparison is how the two cities have tackled the challenge of regenerating older public housing projects. One only has to look at the highly successful redevelopment of Regent Park, once the worst public housing project in Canada, and compare it with slow redevelopment of Vancouver’s Little Mountain Public Housing, to see who wins in this category.

Opinion: The return of a National Housing Strategy Vancouver Courier September 15, 2016

I would like to see changes to zoning and building codes to allow small apartment buildings like this to be built again around Vancouver and the region.

I was fortunate to spend 10 years during the 'golden era' of CMHC. It was golden since we had a lot of gold to distribute for a variety of housing projects including public housing, non-profit rental and coops, residential rehabilitation, affordable home ownership, and more. Sadly, in 1993, the federal government's involvement in affordable housing diminished considerably.

However, Justin Trudeau seems to be following in the footsteps of his father and wanting to get back in the game. Yesterday both the federal and provincial government ministers spoke about a return of a National Housing Strategy and here's my column from today's Vancouver Courier.

Let’s talk housing.

Housing was certainly top of mind this past week as The Honourable Jean-Yves Duclos, Federal Minister responsible for Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, was keynote speaker at a special Metro Vancouver Board of Trade luncheon.

The board invited the minister since deteriorating housing affordability is regarded by many as the greatest challenge impacting Metro Vancouver. In the 2016 Greater Vancouver Economic Scorecard, Vancouver earned a “D” grade in housing affordability, coming 15th out of the 17 jurisdictions measured.

In his remarks, the minister described the federal government's vision to keep housing in Canada’s urban centres affordable and accessible for everyone, and steps the federal government is taking to achieve this vision, including the development of a National Housing Strategy.

While the federal minister was speaking to the Board of Trade, Rich Coleman, the provincial minister responsible for housing, was addressing stakeholders from across the province who had been invited to a one-and-a-half-day workshop to help inform the B.C. government’s formal submission to the federal government on its National Housing Strategy.

Minister Coleman spoke about the province’s six “Housing Matters” priorities, namely, access to stable housing with integrated services for the homeless, priority for B.C.’s most vulnerable, addressing aboriginal housing need, improved access to affordable rental housing for low-income households, homeownership as an avenue to self-sufficiency; and a safe, stable and efficient housing regulatory system.

Earlier in the workshop, I participated on a panel with SFU’s Gordon Price, urban affairs commentator Frances Bula, and urban futures demographer Andrew Ramlo. I reviewed the federal government’s historic role in housing and shared many of the ideas I have written about in the Vancouver Courier over the past two years.

For seven decades, the federal government has played a major role in financing and building Vancouver’s affordable housing.

Much of the city’s rental housing was financed through a myriad of programs including the Limited Dividend Program, which provided 100 per cent loans to developers who agreed to limit their profits, ARP (Assisted Rental Program) and CRSP (Canada Rental Supply Program), which offered preferential financing, and the CCA (capital cost allowance) program, which allowed Canadians to write off a portion of their investments in rental housing against other income.

While these programs usually made rental housing projects feasible, my dear friend Morris Wosk, who built many apartments around the city, often reminded me that in the early years, it was the coins from the washers and dryers that made the difference between positive and negative cash flow.

In addition to rental housing programs, the federal government offered first time homeowners’ grants and programs such as AHOP, the Assisted Home Ownership Program, which provided preferential financing for Vancouver homes selling for $47,000 or less.

From 1947 to 1985, the federal and provincial governments developed public housing developments, including Little Mountain, Maclean Park, and the West End’s Sunset Towers. Today, most of these projects are ripe for regeneration.

While redevelopment of the Little Mountain project has been a complete fiasco, hopefully more successful strategies will be followed in coming years. Lessons can certainly be learned from Toronto’s Regent Park, once the most notorious public housing in the country, which has been phased into a most successful mixed-income community.

In the 1970’s the federal government introduced new programs to allow non-profit organizations to build rental and cooperative housing projects catering to lower income households. During this period, the redevelopment of the south shore of False Creek got underway. This project was highly controversial at first, with one senior city planner resigning, arguing it would be a terrible place for families to live. Over the past 40 years, the community has been highly acclaimed, but today it, too, is ready for renewal, offering numerous opportunities for additional affordable housing.

 

A National Housing Strategy will hopefully offer additional federal money. However, there will never be enough. Other innovative approaches will continue to be required, including changes in municipal regulations to allow smaller houses on small lots, basement suites in duplexes and rowhouses, stacked rowhouses and other compact housing forms.

It is also time to revise building codes to allow smaller rental apartment buildings like those built 50 years ago. With laundry rooms and coin operated washers and dryers.

michaelarthurgeller@gmail.com

@michaelgeller