Comments on: Laneway housing, affordability and EcoDensity: Preliminary thoughts

By: Kevin_in_Denver

Kevin_in_Denver — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 17:15:14 +0000

Laneway housing WILL provide a certain amount of relief, but ultimately all the infill opportunities get used up, and you get back to unaffordable housing. NYC is the model, but rent control is usually a poor solution. There may not be a more important topic in public policy, if only because there’s no obvious solution yet. Good luck!

By: rAsA

rAsA — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 06:50:17 +0000

Sorry Lisa but Laneway Housing will be NON STRATA which means rental property only BUT, as shown, The City can always change its mind and change zoning nearly overnight. So if you do manage to buy a house, don’t ever think you’ll have “owner rights”.

So Laneway Housing may slightly increase the number of rental properties around Vancouver but it will not buying a house more affordable. For the past 10 and more years developers have constantly outbid ordinary people for “affordable” properties. The house gets bulldozed and the new house sells for two or three times the price of the old house. Can’t really see anyone buying one of those houses for $2-3M and then needing a “mortgage helper”? Can you?

Where I live, of the 8 houses that are around our little house, there are 5 basement suites but just one of them is occupied. It is cheaper to build a basement suite than build a laneway house so why are they empty? Just too much hassle for a homeowner to take care of.

So Laneway Housing is just another bit of the sloganeering pioneered by Sam Sullivan with his EcoDensity. The only people who benefit are developers and builders as they can build with fewer and fewer restrictions which means more money in the developer’s pockets.

Purchasing a house is still possible but people have to be willing to reduce their lifestyles and put all their cash onto the mortgage. That’s how we managed to pay off our house.

By: Raul Pacheco-Vega

Raul Pacheco-Vega — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 02:10:31 +0000

@ JoVE – I only searched for “EcoDensity”. I’ve looked at the literature on urban density and sustainability, for sure, but I wanted to see if EcoDensity itself had been studied. It has been mentioned only very marginally.

@ Lisa – I think the psychology of livelihood is very under-studied (I have a very good Mexican friend who is a researcher in environmental psychology and does study this kind of thing)

By: JoVE

JoVE — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 01:32:46 +0000

I’m surprised you didn’t find any research. DId you only search for papers specifically on Vancouver? because these principles don’t sound new. I suspect there is research on similar issues in other cities. Certainly the density/sustainability thing.

By: Lisa

Lisa — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 14:50:52 +0000

I think your second point — about the psychology — is the most intriguing.

Since I first heard about laneway housing, I’ve wondered whether it would make a second tier of homeowner in our neighbourhoods…a necessary evil for the first tier of homeowner (those with the big houses who had to sell their coach house to pay their mortgage).

This feeling comes from what I’ve experienced as a renter in several locations in the city. The homeowner living on the other side of the house, who needs your rent to pay her mortgage, but wishes you weren’t there and demonstrates that. The other homeOWNers on the block, who can’t wait for the student rental house in Kits to get condemned so they won’t have to deal with rowdy renters anymore.

Now, as I understand it, the idea behind laneway housing is to subdivide the property — so the coach house occupants would own their land. But I would still anticipate high prices, little space, and possible disdain. A serf in the land lord’s backyard.

So, I share your concern that this might not be as liveable as advertised.