Category: Housing

Respect the OCP Process!

There’s a petition going around New Westminster asking people to “oppose the proposed multi-story development for Sixth Street as it does not conform to either the existing zoning Single Family Detached (RS2) or the recent OCP’s designation of RT Residential in-fill townhouse ‘small scale, side-by-side townhouses and rowhouses which are compatible within areas of single detached housing and other lower density ground-oriented housing’.”

That’s a mouthful.

First, the backstory.

The Aboriginal Land Trust non-profit society wants to purchase six (or seven) single family homes and build 96 homes for Indigenous and Swahili families. These homes would be located along Sixth Street in New Westminster, a couple of blocks away from shops and services in both New West and Burnaby. It’s close to schools, parks, and with the proposed new building, it’ll be connected to a safe cycling route that leads across New Westminster.

It will provide affordable housing for 96 families, which means that rents will be below market rates.

When people are presented with these facts, they’re generally overwhelmingly in support of the project. Simply put, it’s the right project at the right location at the right time, and it will present homes for people who not only need it, but will help enrich our neighbourhoods and our city.

The properties that they want to build this on is zoned for single family homes, which is why they’re applying for a rezoning. The land use designation does not allow six-storey buildings, which is why they’re applying for an OCP amendment.

Those two points are the only reasons why people have been asked to sign the petition in opposition. “We oppose this amendment application because the amendment is needed.” That’s it, that’s the argument.

There are signs up around town that read “Mayor and Council, honour the process! Stick to the Official Community Plan.“

These signs are borne out of ignorance on the part of the people putting the signs on their front lawns, and they’re borne out of the wilful misdirection and disinformation campaign run by a very small group of people.

Next, the ignorance…

New Westminster’s Official Community Plan can be amended. It has been amended 10 times since it was adopted in 2017, three times alone to address heritage conservation in the Queens Park neighbourhood. Twice for increasing the number of allowed childcare spaces, and once to allow for temporary modular housing to shelter women and children in need. If Council were to “stick to the OCP” then that means fewer childcare spaces, less heritage conservation, and more women and children in desperate need of housing.

Further, the OCP is not just a land use map. It is an aspirational document that guides how development will occur in New Westminster for the next twenty years. It has at least eighteen policy goals and actions that directly relate to this proposal, including the following:

Policy 8.2: Facilitate access to affordable and non-market housing for low- to moderate-income households.

New Westminster Official Community Plan, p.98

Action 8.2c: The City should continue to partner with senior governments, charitable foundations, faith groups and non-profit organizations in the development of affordable and non-market housing.

New Westminster Official Community Plan, p.98

Policy 8.3: Foster a rental housing stock in which tenants have adequate opportunities to live in healthy, safe and secure housing.

New Westminster Official Community Plan, p.99

Policy 8.5: Design housing to be livable and to foster social cohesion and connectivity.

New Westminster Official Community Plan, p.103

There are additional values to highlight:

Target Groups for Affordable Housing – While housing affordability is important for all New Westminster residents, six population groups have been identified as priority groups who are particularly affected by housing issues in the city: hidden homeless (people staying with family or friends); lower-income renters; seniors and persons with disabilities; aboriginal households; immigrants and refugees; and moderate-income households.

New Westminster Official Community Plan, p.98, Policy 8.2

Three-bedroom units are attractive to families with children but multiple unit housing with three or more bedrooms is in short supply.

New Westminster Official Community Plan, p.102, Policy 8.4

The City should continue to… [e]xplore opportunities through development projects along designated Great Streets to implement walking, cycling, transit and place-making elements in accordance with the Great Street policies contained in the Master Transportation Plan.

New Westminster Official Community Plan, p.125, Policy 11.2

This proposal clearly does “stick to the Official Community Plan”, as it targets a large number of the visions and policies contained in the OCP, and the land use designation can be amended to allow proposals that target visions and policies contained in the OCP.

…and then the disinformation campaign.

The “background information” that went along with the petition I quoted above makes absolutely no mention that this project will provide affordable housing. Or that it’s for Indigenous and Swahili families. Or that it’s being proposed by a non-profit Indigenous society.

Instead they try to scare people with this quote:

…the City is opening up for developers to propose similar projects in other residential areas of New Westminster.

This makes it sound like a for-profit developer is putting in a strata luxury condo building, and your neighbourhood could be next! It’s fear-mongering, plain and simple. By leaving out crucial information, they make people afraid that Bosa’s going to buy up their neighbour’s house and build a 50-storey tower.

Simply put: that’s not going to happen.

The only reason why this proposal didn’t get rejected outright by City staff is that it meets so many of the OCP’s visions and policy goals, which the petitioners conveniently left out. They don’t want people to know what the proposal actually is, because whenever people find out that this is a non-profit run development to provide affordable housing to Indigenous and Swahili people, they’re overwhelmingly in support of the project.

That’s why this is a disinformation campaign, and a dangerous one that has tricked over a thousand people in New Westminster into opposing affordable housing that strongly aligns with the Official Community Plan that hundreds of New Westminster residents came together to craft.

It’s really a shame that a small group of comfortably housed people feel threatened by affordable homes coming to their neighbourhood, and that they would devote so much time and money towards stopping people from moving next door to them. Perhaps they forgot this crucial part of the Official Community Plan:

New Westminster citizens, community groups, and the City are socially minded. We support our neighbours and work together to create a caring and inclusive community.

As a socially minded community, we recognize the importance of a healthy and comfortable home. We work across sectors and professions to increase housing choices in our community. We strive to ensure there is housing available along the entire continuum, from emergency and transition housing to affordable and market rental. More choices allow families to meet their changing needs, enable empty nesters and seniors to downsize and stay in their neighbourhood, provide accessible and integrated homes for new immigrants and refugees, and retain and attract youth and young professionals that are just entering the housing market.

New Westminster Official Community Plan, p.29

On 616 & 640 Sixth Street, New Westminster

616 & 640 Sixth Street in New Westminster are two buildings next to each other that are looking to get rezoned. The developer wants to replace the two two-storey commercial buildings with a building that will have over 12,000 square feet of street level commercial, 142 market strata residential units, and 95 secured market rental residential units. It will also have a 1700 square foot public plaza at the corner of Sixth Street and Seventh Avenue.

The building will be located along the Crosstown Greenway, which runs along Seventh Avenue. It’s also situated directly on the Frequent Transit Network (106 between New West and Edmonds), is two blocks from a second bus route on the FTN (123 between New West and Brentwood), and is a block from four other bus routes, all of which connect to seven SkyTrain stations. It’s located in New Westminster’s Uptown neighbourhood, which is an incredibly walkable location that includes grocery stores, doctors, dollar stores, restaurants, dentists, local and small businesses, and a wide range of other shops and services.

In short, it’s a perfect location for more homes for more neighbours.

But unfortunately one of the business owners who would be displaced (but would receive reduced rent, financial assistance for relocation costs, and relocation assistance through the developer’s network of commercial brokers) has started an anti-housing pro-“build nothing” group that likes to say NO to everything on Facebook, and he’s trying to rally his troops to go to the public hearing on June 24 to say NO to more homes for more neighbours. One of the things they’ve latched onto is the separate entrances for the rental and strata units in the proposed building, and they’re going to use this (and probably the typical arguments about traffic or views or noise) to try to convince Council to put a halt to this development.

My views? Here’s the letter I’m sending to Council outlining my views.

Dear Mayor and Council,

My name is Brad Cavanagh, and I am a resident of New Westminster. I am writing to you in support of Zoning Bylaw Amendment No. 7997, 2019 regarding 616 and 640 Sixth Street.

New Westminster, like the rest of Metro Vancouver, is in a housing crisis. The recent minor dip in housing prices has in no way alleviated this. Housing prices are still unaffordable for everybody but the rich. Rental vacancy rates are at historic lows. Rental housing is largely unstable and a source of concern and stress for a huge number of our neighbours. We need to build more secure rental housing, and the proposed development at 616 and 640 Sixth Street will help deliver this.

With 95 secured market rental units, 41 of which are 2-bedrooms and larger, this development will provide stable housing for more families and, more importantly, help reduce some of the competition for similar, older units in our city. 142 market strata units will invite 142 more families to our neighbourhoods and city, where they can enrich our urban landscape. How many of the 237 families will open new shops in our city? How many will open new restaurants? How many will bring new cultures and new experiences? How many will volunteer in our festivals, or start new non-profits? Our city is enriched with each new person and family who moves here, and this development will continue that enrichment.

The proposed development is in the Uptown neighbourhood, one of New Westminster’s most vibrant and walkable. It boasts restaurants, small and local businesses, doctors, grocery stores, dentists, and a wide range of other shops and services. The location is directly on the Frequent Transit Network linking residents to two SkyTrain stations, and with five other bus routes within two blocks, residents can get to any one of seven different SkyTrain stations. It is also located on the Crosstown Greenway, which allows for easy bicycle access to four elementary schools and one middle school. There will also be four car share parking spots for families in the neighbourhood who decide to go car-free or car-light. Transportation is not a problem with this proposal.

The only sticking point with this proposed development is the separate entrances for strata and rental units. It must be noted that in the proposed development there are essentially two buildings within the same envelope. If the proposal had two separate buildings, there would be nearly no controversy over the separate entrances, and this was exactly the case for the development at 813 Carnarvon Street, where two buildings were built for different residential tenures with separate entrances, yet there was little discussion about this, if any.

Now is not the time to stop sorely needed housing to address this issue. City Staff has already begun researching the topic of separation of common areas between different residential tenures, and I would ask that City Council make this formal and ask City Staff to continue to research the topic with the intention of writing clear policy in this area for future developments. Staff should continue to look to Vancouver and neighbouring cities, along with others across British Columbia and Canada, and learn from their experiences to develop a policy that treats all residents respectfully and fairly, regardless of how they live.

I ask that you approve Zoning Amendment Bylaw No. 7997 and also direct City Staff to continue to develop policy surrounding separate entrances, amenities, and common areas for different residential tenures in future developments.

Sincerely,
Brad Cavanagh.

If you would like to write a letter about this proposed rezoning, you can do so by emailing clerks@newwestcity.ca. Make sure to mention Zoning Bylaw Amendment No. 7997! And please do read the material as well, there’s a lot of interesting information in there that I didn’t even touch upon, like how the commercial spaces are going to be flexible and resizable, or how electric vehicle charging infrastructure will be built for every residential parking spot, or how there will be a total of 316 bicycle parking spots!

On Queensborough

This is going to be a bit of a lengthy post on various thoughts I have on Queensborough and the recently passed Temporary Modular Housing project.

On Yes In New West’s role

Yes In New West is a loose group of New Westminster residents who came together a couple of years ago to push for more choice in housing options, particularly those in the missing middle — townhouses and rowhouses. We’ve done a few small campaigns since then, an all-candidates meeting here, a letter-writing campaign there, but nothing that large.

During the process for rezoning the land on which the Temporary Modular Housing (or TMH) would be built, a group of Queensborough residents formed to try to stop it. They attended the Advisory Planning Commission meeting about the project and were unsuccessful at stopping it there.

Right around that time I made some modifications to Abundant Housing Vancouver‘s letter-generator program, and then launched a campaign to send letters of support to New Westminster city council. I was expecting maybe a couple dozen letters of support. I had asked AHVancouver how many letters they’d sent for various campaigns. They had put together a similar campaign supporting TMH in Vancouver’s Marpole neighbourhood, and another one for TMH in Richmond. These campaigns sent 119 letters in support of Marpole and 137 in support of Richmond. I thought we’d be lucky to get to fifty.

Then the New West Record put out an article about us. In our first day we had 30 letters of support. In three days we broke a hundred. After ten days we hit 138 and broke AHVancouver’s record for letters of support for a TMH project. A week later, and just an hour before the start of the public hearing, we sent our 196th letter.

The letters came from every single neighbourhood of New Westminster. They came from Sapperton, which has similar housing supplied by the Elizabeth Fry Society, in a building that faced similar opposition six years ago and is today hosts people that are a valued part of the community. They came from Brow Of The Hill, which has Westminster House and Last Door Recovery Society housing, whose residents volunteer at community events across Metro Vancouver. They came from Downtown New West, which has Genesis Society and Salvation Army housing near Qayqayt Elementary School, which have no problems coexisting.

And 25% of the letters that had addresses came from Queensborough. Queensborough has only about 10% of New Westminster’s population, so the Queensborough TMH had greater support there than from anywhere else in the city.

I was overwhelmed at all of the support Yes In New West was able to shine a light on. YiNW can’t take the credit, the 196 letter writers are more than deserving of all of the applause. We merely unlocked their support to let the city see how compassionate and welcoming they are.

On Queensborough

I like Queensborough. I think that it’s been dumped on in the past, but it’s getting better. The streets aren’t that great, there aren’t as many amenities as there should be (but it does have more park space per capita than the city average), the transit sucks, the sidewalks are crappy or non-existent, but it’s a nice community. I’ve been to the last two Queensborough Children’s Festivals, and they’re always full of energy, full of life, and full of community spirit. The last one I was at it was filled with people wearing shirts that said “Queensborough, Community With Heart”, and I still feel that that’s the truth.

Queensborough is filled with kind and welcoming people. Despite the efforts of the Facebook group Queensborough Residents for Responsible Community Planning (QRRCP), I cannot think of Queensborough residents as being unwelcoming. I believe that they’re just lacking the experience that others have when it comes to living in a community with housing for people who may have been living on the street, or are fleeing abuse, or are aging out of foster care with nowhere to go.

Acceptance often comes after exposure. We here in Brow of the Hill have been living with recovery houses for so long that they’re a fabric of our neighbourhood. We’re accepting of a wider range of people from a wider range of socioeconomic situations because we have that exposure. Queensborough residents don’t, so they can’t build up that acceptance and are more likely to believe in strawman arguments (“our kids will be playing in parks strewn with needles” or “mentally ill women will break into our schools with axes” or even “our property values will go down”) that have no bearing in reality. It’s only after exposure that the acceptance will come, and I’m very confident that Queensborough will accept these women as fellow neighbours and not as outsiders or others.

On Queensborough TMH

The Queensborough Temporary Modular Housing will provide shelter for 44 women who are either without a home or are at risk of losing their home. This isn’t a drug recovery centre, this isn’t a mental illness facility, it’s for women who do not have a place to live. That’s an important distinction, because being without a home does not mean you’re a drug user or have mental illness challenges. They could be teenagers turning 19 and aging out of foster care. They could be seniors on fixed incomes facing increasing rent and medical costs. They could be women fleeing domestic violence. All of these women — and those with other issues that were either caused by or the cause of losing their housing — have a right to a safe place to live.

So to hear fear-mongering from the Port Royal Mom’s Group or online petitions about vague “dangers to our children” is disheartening. Those same vague “concerns” in the QRRCP petition (which I will not link to) show up:

Queensborough Residents For Responsible Community Planning (QRRCP) is a group of local residents who are concerned with the precise location of this project, given its close proximity to large groups of children accessing school and community services.

…the current site is in direct proximity to over 680 students and hundreds of additional children who are potentially at risk to harm from exposure to active drug use, a potential increase in local drug trade/associated criminal activity, and, individuals exhibiting high risk mental health behaviours.

Of course, these concerns are largely unfounded. Qayqayt Elementary School has three recovery houses closer than this project is to Queen Elizabeth Elementary or Queensborough Middle School, and they coexist just fine. And tarring an entire group of vulnerable people with “active drug use” or “criminal activity” or “high risk mental health behaviours” is just plain scare-mongering. What about the 18-year old who’s transitioning out of foster care? What about the 75-year old woman who’s on a fixed income and cannot continue to pay her ever-increasing rent? What about the woman fleeing domestic violence? Why are you tarring these women with such fearful words? It’s almost as if they’re cherry-picking horror stories to drive up people’s fears to get them to oppose the project.

Nowhere in the petition does it mention the loss of parkland, which you’ll seen see was a theme of the majority of the speakers at the public hearing. I don’t know why they made this shift of narrative.

On The Public Hearing

It was disgraceful, and the overwhelming majority of that disgrace falls on the group of people who came out in opposition to the project. They were rude, they were disrespectful, and they created a hostile environment for everybody involved. The only raised voices I heard from anybody who was supporting the project was asking the loud opposition crowd to be quiet.

Women who had been given assistance through similar projects came out to speak in favour of housing, and a number of them bravely shared incredibly personal and heartbreaking stories. A lot of people from Elizabeth Fry and other similar organizations spoke about the massive benefits of projects like this, not only for the people involved but also for the community. I spoke, yes, but the brave women who shared their stories are the ones we should be focusing on.

And then there were the group of people in opposition. With threatening words towards council like “we’ll be watching” or “November, guys” (pro-tip: if you’re going to threaten politicians about an upcoming election, get the month right) and the clapping and shouting after anybody in opposition spoke, this group made City Hall feel like a riot was going to break out. Two women who were going to speak in favour were intimidated by this behaviour into leaving before they could speak. The safe and welcoming place that City Hall is meant to be was completely transformed by the intimidation of the opposition group.

Queensborough-Richmond MLA Jas Johal was in the lobby, but unfortunately did not speak about the project. After I spoke in favour, I passed him in the audience and he gave me some kind of a smug smirk. I learned afterwards that he was seen chatting and laughing with a group of people in opposition who were being loud and intimidating. This is poor behaviour from someone who is supposed to be a leader in the community.

None of the bullying came from people in support of the project. None of the intimidation came from people in support of the project. If someone in opposition to the project felt bullied or guilty because they stated their reasons for opposing the location, maybe that’s their conscience making an appearance. If you feel guilty because you’re opposing a project because it’ll take away park space when women who lived on the streets and could have died without projects like this speak up, then maybe it’s your conscience making you feel guilty that you place park space above housing a vulnerable neighbour.

I urge everybody to watch New Westminster City Council’s statements made after the Public Hearing as they voted in favour of the project. If you only have 15 minutes, skip to 30 minutes into the video and listen to Jaimie McEvoy’s heart-wrenching story.

On being heard

This group kept saying things like “we want you to hear us” or “yes to the project, but no to the location”. This sounds reasonable on the face of it. People want to be heard. But if you want to actually have a conversation, you have to do some listening as well. The people in opposition to the project stated that they wanted the project moved to another site such as a location on nearby Fenton Street. The city heard this request and did a detailed look at the site before determining that it would not work for this project. The money from the provincial government to build the building has a time limit on it, and the Fenton Street site required more work than could be done before that time limit, so it could not be moved to Fenton Street.

The city reported this, yet the people in opposition didn’t hear it. They continued to say “no to the location” even when they were told that the other locations would not work.

And the “yes to the project, but no to the location” argument is a typical (and here’s where some of you are going to get on me for using the word) NIMBY argument. It’s used to show some kind of sympathy, to show that you are actually in favour of housing vulnerable people, but for whatever reason the location just won’t work. “We’re in favour of townhouses, just stick them on busy arterials instead of our nice street.” “We’re in favour of towers, just not where they block our view.” “We’re in favour of temporary modular housing, just not so close to a school because we’re concerned about the safety of children.”

Well, guess what. If you’re opposed to the location you’re opposed to the project. The location is part of the project. You can’t separate them. Every location has its flaws; I can almost guarantee that if the Fenton Street site was the first choice of the city, these people would still come out and come up with excuses why the location is no good for the project. It’s next to single family homes, maybe, or it’s too far from transit, or some other excuse.

The only grace I’m willing to grant them is the loss of park space. Yes, the lot is currently covered in gravel, but it would not take much to throw down some grass and have it be a bit of a grassy field in a few months. The city should have come out right from the start saying “we realize that there will be a loss of green space, but the T in TMH means ‘temporary’ and the building will be gone in 10 to 12 years, after which we will restore the site to a much better quality than it is now.” Guarantee that the park space will be restored to the community and show that you’re listening to them on this point as well.

On The Future

The future is in Queensborough’s hands. It could go two ways:

One, the people in opposition rally in opposition to the project and protest on site when construction starts. The notice of public hearing sign was lying in the dirt when I went to the Queensborough Community Centre on Tuesday, and I’m hoping this wasn’t because someone was pissed off and knocked it over, I’m hoping that for whatever reason the city took it down and just left it there instead of hauling it away. I’m hoping that this wasn’t the start of larger protests. This reaction would obviously be a negative one, and definitely wouldn’t shine a great light on Queensborough.

The other way this could go is people welcome their new neighbours to their community. There are a number of people who have expressed interest in helping EFry with things like Compass Cards, or welcome packages. I’m hoping that kids from the two schools create gift bags for the new residents, similar to kids in Marpole. I’m hoping to see an overwhelming amount of support and compassion and empathy for our new neighbours and new members of our community.

After all, what did that wise man once say?

My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.

Renovictions and Airbnb in New Westminster

A couple of days ago the Queens Park Residents’ Association put out this plea for assistance on Facebook:

At the AGM yesterday a couple of residents from Maple Manor Apartments (304 3rd Ave.) were invited to share their story. The apartment has new owners who have received a renovation permit and those still there will be renovicted at the end of the month. There are very few rental options in Queen’s Park and a lack of affordable rental housing in NewWest. They are stable long-term renters (5 years, 21 years and 27 years). They have incomes, but that have not increased at the same rate as the escalating market rental fees. They love living in New West and have jobs and friends near-by, but are really looking for ANY option that is affordable in the $800 – $1,000 range.

This is a too-common situation in New Westminster, and the City is working on steps to address renovictions.

But, and there’s a really big but here, rental stock in New Westminster isn’t as high as it could be, and increasing the rental stock does not involve building new buildings. It involves cracking down on people putting suites, houses, and apartments on Airbnb and other short-term rental platforms in New Westminster.

A fraction of the Queens Park Airbnb listings.

Airbnb and other short-term rental platforms are legal in New Westminster. Let’s make that abundantly clear. They are classified as a Home Based Business and an owner can apply for a business license. There are restrictions on what you can rent out for example, (it has to be an accessory use to the residential use, which means you can’t rent out an entire house on a Home Based Business License, you’d need to have proper zoning and permits to run what’s classified as a hotel). But if you look in the Open Data Catalogue you’ll find that there are currently four bed & breakfast permits issued for 2017, and none of the addresses listed are in the Queens Park neighbourhood.

So, that means that the overwhelming majority of listings on Airbnb in New Westminster are operating illegally. A number of them are for single rooms or people renting out their houses when they’re on vacation. Fine, let’s not look at those for now, because those aren’t units that would be suitable for long-term rentals.

But there are some listings that are for a separate suite in a house, or for the entire house, or for multiple units in the house, and these listings have months of available times for booking. These are listings that could very easily be long-term rentals for these people being renovicted.

227 Third Street has four Airbnb listings.

Let’s look at one example. This listing, this listing, this listing, and this listing are all rooms and suites within the same house at 227 Third Street. Right there are six rooms that could be rented out long-term, providing housing for a couple of families, that are instead being rented out to tourists.

Or this listing for a one-bedroom basement suite. Or this listing for a recently-renovated one-bedroom suite on First Street.

Of course, there are other basement suites up on Airbnb in other neighbourhoods, like this two-bedroom suite in Massey Victory Heights that would be perfect for a family.

Please note that the owners of these properties may well have all of the permits necessary and I may have missed their business licenses in the dataset. But even if they are legal, they are still potentially taking away from rental stock.

Is rental stock being eaten up by short-term rentals in New Westminster? It’s hard to look at these examples and say no. These Airbnb listings are the perfect type of suites that could be rented out to long-term renters, yet are being turned into bed and breakfast rooms for short-term visitors. I haven’t even touched apartments or condos in this cursory search. A number of stratas do not allow short-term rentals, but others don’t, and strata fines may be seen as a cost of doing business for someone putting up their unit on Airbnb.

And with the recent passing of the OCP to allow more laneway houses, will we see those go up on Airbnb or will they be long-term rentals? Financially it probably makes more sense to put them on Airbnb, but at what cost to our communities?

To answer the Queens Park Residents’ Association’s plea, I’d say go knock on the doors of your neighbours with listings on Airbnb and ask them why they’re not willing to rent out to a fellow Queens Park resident in need of housing.

Further reading: Short-term consequences: Investigating the extent, nature and rental housing implications of Airbnb listings in Vancouver, Karen Sawatzky.

On Preserving Single-Family Homes in New Westminster

There are five houses near the corner of Ash Street and Gloucester Street in New Westminster. Four of them were built in 1900 or earlier, making this one of the oldest cluster of houses in the city. The fifth was built in 1971. From building details it appears that the five (and possibly one other) properties were subdivided from one larger property sometime around 1889 and built over the next ten years. The 1971 house previously had a house built in 1890 on it.

One of the older houses is currently up for sale. Here’s part of its listing:

A true heritage home gem. Built approximately 1898 this home has been cared for but not at the expense of its character. You will be surprised at how large the home feels, the owner loves to entertain and regularly has social functions with over 25 guests. Double french doors lead to a fully fenced, landscaped backyard that adds to the livable space and creates an outdoor oasis. The ancient grapevine trunk has been carefully pruned and gives off shade from the supporting trellis as well as a bountiful harvest from its shoots.

It sounds really nice, and given the current asking price of $848,000, it’s amazing that it’s been on the market for weeks now. It was previously listed for $899,000, and I guess being on the market for so long has got the sellers to drop their asking price.

Houses at Ash & Gloucester

It probably isn’t selling because it’s on a very small lot: 33 feet by 66 feet. Compared to the standard New Westminster lot size of 50 feet by 130 feet, this lot is about a third the size of a standard lot. And the house is almost as big as you’re allowed to build (you could add another 170 square feet) so it’s probably not worth knocking the house down to build a new one.

In fact, this cluster of houses is an excellent example of fairly gentle densification with single family houses. The total area of these five houses is just about the same as two standard lots (1,202 m2 compared to 1,215 m2), meaning it’s 2.5 times denser than your standard New Westminster single-family house neighbourhood.

Gentle densification! Yay! Single-family homes! Yay! (for some non-extreme value of yay)

But let’s mention the last part of the listing for the house that’s for sale. This part wasn’t in the listing until the recent price drop, as my wife pointed out to me at the time:

INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY: This home along with the surrounding houses is not on the heritage registry. It is likely that at some point they will be assembled as a multi family development.

No!

First off, the houses on either side of this house sold at separate times within the past year. Sure, “at some point” there might be some land assembly but I’m willing to bet that that won’t happen for years to come. There’s already a lot of low-hanging fruit in Brow Of The Hill where land assembly will mean two lots being merged instead of five. Dealing with two owners is a lot easier than dealing with five.

Second, this corner is exactly the type of gentle densification that’s great! It’s got heritage, it’s got curb appeal, it’s even got a mid-70s house with a carport. What more can you ask for?

I mean yes, I’m all for densification, but not here. Let’s densify two standard single-family lots and put six townhouses on them. But let’s not tear down five single-family houses to put eight townhouses on them. This corner is already perfect, let’s not ruin that with some mad rush to assemble lots and put multi-family buildings everywhere we can.