General Vancouver Updates

[giallo]

^Yeah. It seems like everything is around 6 floors with maybe 40 units per building. It should be way higher. Thanks for the pics, vanman.

I really like that little office proposal for Cambie and 7th. Great infill.

[Changing City]

The new CMHC year-end numbers are out today for Housing Starts. There are some quite remarkable numbers, over 27,000 total housing starts in 2016, over a third of them in the City of Vancouver. There were 9,759 in the city, which as far as I can tell is the most in over 50 years, and by a wide margin; 2,000 more than any previous year.

Burnaby (not surprisingly) saw a big jump to 4,172. I don't have records as far back as for Vancouver, but it's the most in 20 years. Richmond was down for the second year in a row to only 2,215 starts, and Surrey was at only 3,471, which is down from last year and over 2,000 less than 2008.

The full details are on the CMHC website . I'll repost this on the Suburban updates page as well.

[csbvan]

Wow. That has to be around 20,000+ new residents worth of housing for the City of Vancouver. It's growth is among the lowest in the region. I wonder if it is a case of overbuildng or catching up.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by csbvan

Wow. That has to be around 20,000+ new residents worth of housing for the City of Vancouver. It's growth is among the lowest in the region. I wonder if it is a case of overbuildng or catching up.

Supply-siders in this forum will still tell you the city is stifling the need to add more housing...

[Genauso]

Originally Posted by csbvan

Wow. That has to be around 20,000+ new residents worth of housing for the City of Vancouver. It's growth is among the lowest in the region. I wonder if it is a case of overbuildng or catching up.

Evan Siddall, President and Chief Executive Officer, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation
Housing in Canada and the Imaginary City: Addressing Vulnerabilities, Data Gaps and Affordability

November 30, 2016

Overbuilding in Vancouver is rated weak, for July and October 2016. Pricing is rated high.

Overbuilding won't be a problem so long as there are giant vacant lots, like those on the North side of False creek, or 'community gardens' in downtown Vancouver. Granted the presentation referred to Metro Vancouver as whole, I think the examples of vacant land with nothing happening really drives the point home.

It seems the City of Vancouver is full of bureaucrats who want to make a difference, in one direction and the other. They spend a lot of time and money considering crazy proposals for quintupling FSR in some areas on their own dime, and then they delay the redevelopment to already approved zoning elsewhere.

There shouldn't be uncertainty, for 95% of activity by the zoning/planning the outcomes be automatic and expected. I bet the city could rapidly redevelop if neighbours could make deals with each other: "you can build to 10 stories, me to 5 stories, the other side to townhouse densities, and everyone else gets an updated community center plus the prospect of another round of upzoning in 20 years"

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by Genauso

Evan Siddall, President and Chief Executive Officer, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation
Housing in Canada and the Imaginary City: Addressing Vulnerabilities, Data Gaps and Affordability

November 30, 2016

Overbuilding in Vancouver is rated weak, for July and October 2016. Pricing is rated high.

Overbuilding won't be a problem so long as there are giant vacant lots, like those on the North side of False creek, or 'community gardens' in downtown Vancouver. Granted the presentation referred to Metro Vancouver as whole, I think the examples of vacant land with nothing happening really drives the point home.

What does overbuilding have to do with vacant lots?

If you build more units than people are willing to buy (or live in with the new tax), you're overbuilding.

[SFUVancouver]

Originally Posted by csbvan

Wow. That has to be around 20,000+ new residents worth of housing for the City of Vancouver. It's growth is among the lowest in the region. I wonder if it is a case of overbuildng or catching up.

I think that it's catching up with demand.

Originally Posted by Changing City

The new CMHC year-end numbers are out today for Housing Starts. There are some quite remarkable numbers, over 27,000 total housing starts in 2016, over a third of them in the City of Vancouver. There were 9,765 in the city, which as far as I can tell is the most in over 50 years, and by a wide margin; 2,000 more than any previous year.

Burnaby (not surprisingly) saw a big jump to 4,172. I don't have records as far back as for Vancouver, but it's the most in 20 years. Richmond was down for the second year in a row to only 2,215 starts, and Surrey was at only 3,471, which is down from last year and over 2,000 less than 2008.

The full details are on the CMHC website . I'll repost this on the Suburban updates page as well.

Those are incredible housing start numbers for the City of Vancouver, and I bet that they will raise some eyebrows among those who are of the belief that the City of Vancouver isn't growing very much at all while the South of the Fraser municipalities are on a blistering tear. Proportional growth versus absolute growth rears its head again. I recall that the City of Vancouver had among the lowest proportional rates of growth in the 2006-2011 census but accrued the second largest population growth (after Surrey).

I'm still skeptical that Surrey will ever surpass the City of Vancouver in population, and the "imminent" overtaking that seems to be the narrative in some circles isn't holding up.

While it looks different in terms of height and scale to the Regional Town Center building boom in Burnaby, the City of Vancouver has its own major residential growth engines humming along: the unlocking of development potential in the West End, NEFC, SEFC, Cambie Corridor, and East Fraser Lands/River District.

There are also major land parcels/precinct booms in the pipeline for development: Oakridge Transit Center, Pearson Dogwood Lands-Langara Gardens, Jericho Lands, not to mention longer-term moon-shots like the wholesale rezoning of Broadway for the SkyTrain, Grandview-Woodlands, Joyce Station upzoning, some sort of future Kingsway corridor upzoning, and rezoning the Molson Brewery Lands and the RCMP former E-Division HQ.

[csbvan]

I'm more questioning the numbers versus absolute growth, which is expected to be about 1% or 6-7 thousand people per year. I would be interested to see numbers in terms of housing starts in the city for the last 5 years.

That being said, I'm not surprised by the numbers. There is way more happening in Vancouver than the suburbs, it is just not always as tall and is much more densely clustered, unlike the high, but inward facing and spaced apart mega projects around malls.

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by csbvan

I'm more questioning the numbers versus absolute growth, which is expected to be about 1% or 6-7 thousand people per year. I would be interested to see numbers in terms of housing starts in the city for the last 5 years.

That being said, I'm not surprised by the numbers. There is way more happening in Vancouver than the suburbs, it is just not always as tall and is much more densely clustered, unlike the high, but inward facing and spaced apart mega projects around malls.

Past five years starts in the City of Vancouver:

2012 - 5,498
2013 - 6,071
2014 - 4,648
2015 - 4,616
2016 - 9,759

That's over 30,000 units, out of 105,000 in the whole of the Metro area.

This year is not just a record for the City of Vancouver, it's easily the most starts in one year in Metro Vancouver.

Bear in mind a couple of factors; these are all starts, not net growth. About 1,000 dwellings were probably demolished in Vancouver, and Surrey and Burnaby will each have seen several hundred demolished as well. Some (e.g. Cambie Street) are replaced by apartments, some are just rebuilt (usually bigger).

And also be aware of CMHC's definition of when a 'start' occurs - it's when the residential part above grade starts construction. Digging the hole and building the parkade (or commercial podium) don't count.

I wouldn't necessarily assume 9,700 starts is equivalent to 20,000 people; that seems a bit high. Given the number of laneway homes, suites and small apartments in some projects I'd expect it to be closer to 15,000.

[csbvan]

Even at the low end of the ratio, it would appear that in the last five years housing starts have exceeded population growth by a fairly substantial margin in the City of Vancouver. It could also be that Vancouver's growth has ticked up as well; we will find out in a month or so I assume.

[officedweller]

From VancouverMarket.ca:

Plan for West Broadway Denny’s Site Includes 153 Rental Units

A rezoning application has been submitted for the “Denny’s” site at 1296 West Broadway. The site was sold in February 2016 to Jameson Development Corp for $26,250,000. The rezoning for the 18,762 SF site call for a 16-storey mixed-use building with apartments above retail and a small office component. The proposal includes:
◾153 rental apartment units;
◾27 studios, 70 one-bedrooms, 41 two-bedrooms & 15 three-bedrooms
◾30,220 SF of retail space on two levels
◾4,891 SF of office space
◾A total density of 7.07 FSR;
◾A building height of 159 ft.; and
◾168 parking spaces

http://www.vancouvermarket.ca/2017/01/11...y-dennys-site-includes-153-rental-units/


http://www.vancouvermarket.ca/2017/01/11...y-dennys-site-includes-153-rental-units/


http://www.vancouvermarket.ca/2017/01/11...y-dennys-site-includes-153-rental-units/


http://www.vancouvermarket.ca/2017/01/11...y-dennys-site-includes-153-rental-units/


http://www.vancouvermarket.ca/2017/01/11...y-dennys-site-includes-153-rental-units/

[phesto]

^Not a big fan of the design concept, but at least it's a bit different.

[SFUVancouver]

^ A solid addition to that part of Broadway. If they go with a light-white brick and dark-black mullions for the windows, it could actually look pretty sharp. Good to see such a solid design for a rental building (I wonder whether it's a Rental100 proposal) and a diversity of bedroom counts. The inclusion of office space is good, but it would have been nice to see more. I think that there's some excellent precedent for including office in substantial quantity into what is still otherwise a mixed-use residential small tower with retail at grade. One of my favourites is downtown on Robson at Cambie Street: https://goo.gl/maps/vHKu3njHT982.

[officedweller]

I like the formal lines of stone - though it does remind me of some older UBC residences.
- almost has an art deco feel with the verticality and setback.

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by SFUVancouver

^ A solid addition to that part of Broadway. If they go with a light-white brick and dark-black mullions for the windows, it could actually look pretty sharp. Good to see such a solid design for a rental building (I wonder whether it's a Rental100 proposal) and a diversity of bedroom counts. The inclusion of office space is good, but it would have been nice to see more. I think that there's some excellent precedent for including office in substantial quantity into what is still otherwise a mixed-use residential small tower with retail at grade. One of my favourites is downtown on Robson at Cambie Street: https://goo.gl/maps/vHKu3njHT982.

The amount of office is actually small - under 5,000 sq. ft. The retail is 30,000 sq ft, so two floors of retail.

[LeftCoaster]

Love the design for 1296 West Broadway. The light and dark stone will look great if the use a darker glazing motif.

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by csbvan

Even at the low end of the ratio, it would appear that in the last five years housing starts have exceeded population growth by a fairly substantial margin in the City of Vancouver. It could also be that Vancouver's growth has ticked up as well; we will find out in a month or so I assume.

Population growth in the past few years would relate to net housing completions (not starts). Those would be between 2,200 and 4,800 a year, or about 16,000 in 5 years. That seems to fit the population growth pretty well.

The housing completion numbers will no doubt be greater in the next two or three years, and the estimates of population change are in part based on that, so may well reflect a higher number for a while.

Bear in mind that there's a whole lot of 'other stuff' that drives the net population change number in those estimates; with the older population (boomers) starting to die off, their average household size falls a bit as couples become singles, for example. The birth rate has tended to fall as well - family size has been trending down. (That's not necessarily fewer women of childbearing age having children, but a greater likelihood of having fewer children - so there are more one child families than there used to be, and far fewer with a lot of kids).

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by csbvan

Wow. That has to be around 20,000+ new residents worth of housing for the City of Vancouver. It's growth is among the lowest in the region. I wonder if it is a case of overbuildng or catching up.

Seriously, does anyone believe this is anything other than speculative overbuilding? I posted these stats in another forum:

Housing Starts 2015
City Metro Population Starts
Vancouver 2.5 mil 20,863
San Francisco 4.65 mil 12,766
Los Angeles 9.8 mil. 23,500
London (UK) 8.6 million 24,230

How can anyone look at those stats and think a second tier city like Vancouver really requires that much building?

[logan5]

Metro Van grows by about 35 000 people every year. The 20 000 housing starts correlates with population growth.

[csbvan]

I like that proposal for the Denny's site. Not extraordinarily exciting, but not in a location where that should be expected. The materials give it an "uptown" look and feel, and it looks like its built to last, which I feel is not always true with condo towers in Vancouver.