“LOST… my faith in City Hall.
The Mayor has handed over our communities to private developers.
Tell City Hall that you oppose 6+ storey high-rises on Dunbar.
3-4 storey apartments on every arterial street.”
– poster seen on Dunbar streets, Nov 2012
Vancouver Real Estate Anecdote Archive 
Oh EFF these NIBMYs, I am quite frankly sick and tired of these people.
Increasing density along shopping/transit corridors will be one of the few ways to decreasing housing prices. As much as I dislike the shoddy quality of medium and high density house in Vancouver, flooding the market with stock will drop prices.
Isn’t city hall the NIMBY HQ?
Bring on the supply!
Sorry Michael , but if you overpaid and had a house in Dunbar you would probably be paranoid about developments like that as well as lane way homes on either side of you, and the scary thin street design they were throwing around.
Thin streets are kinda scary if they make it harder for public service vehicles like fire engines or ambulances or even buses to navigate neighbourhoods. Just because some space isn’t constantly used doesn’t mean its not really needed on occasion. Once we start thinning streets, do we have the common sense to stop once it becomes dangerous?
Of course not, think of all the revenue!!
Someone should tell Gregor that thin streets and smaller yards will reduce residents’ ability to grow wheat grass!
Densification shouldn’t exclude west side.
MOAAARRRRR
I sense a nascent rebellion… A VeritableInsurrection… Legions of YorkieAdoring, ChihuahuaCuddling, PugPandering GrandeDamesO’Dunbar united under the banner of a new ‘Movement’…
I give you…. T U R D !
Townspeople Unctuously Resisting Densification.
[NoteToEd: What fun would civic politics be without a genuine TurdParty?]
http://dunbarrevision.com/2012/11/08/the-picket-line/
Of all the many many things I can think of for rich people to complain about this is the most boring.
I still can’t get over that poor dog being used like that. There’s probably some kid out there who did actually lose her dog who just lost a little bit of her soul. I hope you’re happy, Dunbar. It’s YOUR fault.
Land Value Tax would solve these problems quite efficiently.
I may have little sympathy for the author of the poster but I will miss Stong’s …
I agree with the sentiment expressed in the poster. The Mayor (and City Council) has handed over this City to private developers. And anyone who thinks more density will result in affordability has bought into the greenwasher’s lie. It sure hasn’t worked over the last 10 years!
Let’s look at some of these EcoDensity projects that have brought us “affordability”. Nothing downtown is affordable, because highrises are not affordable housing – they cost too much to build and maintain. Laneway houses are renting for $1500 – $2500 for one bedroom! Basement suites in newly built McMansions are $2000 plus! Then there’s the Crescent at 16th and Granville – townhouses priced between $2 Million to $6 Million!
So how exactly has all this new density brought about affordability???
All it has done is ruin existing affordable housing while destroying the character of every neighbourhood in this City. And the developers just keep rolling along building tiny condos for speculative investors while ignoring the need for decently built and suitable housing for the people who actually live here.
I don’t live in Dunbar, but I know the proposed development is for a six-story building intended for seniors. And senior’s housing is needed in Dunbar. But here’s the catch – the units are intended to be rented at $5000 per month per unit. This is well beyond what most seniors can afford – even if they were able to sell their houses at the absurd values they are currently assessed at. Furthermore, most people on the west side who have sold their houses recently are leaving the City rather than buying condos here.
Supply and demand does drive the housing market, but it’s the availability of money (or credit), not the availability of housing units, that’s relevant. For the last 10 years, credit in Canada has been more available and cheaper than ever before and prices have skyrocketed despite one of the largest building frenzies in Vancouver’s history. But the party may be over – now the speculative money’s heading for Toronto, and the credit for local buyers has been restricted by the banks, so prices in Vancouver are starting to fall. With 22000 housing units “owned” but unoccupied, and 12000 now under construction, Vancouver has more than enough supply for the next 5-10 years – but prices on these won’t fall as long as the developers think they can still sell them for a substantial profit.
As for densifying the west side – have you ever been to Arbutus??? Arbutus between Broadway and 16th used to have commercial/industrial land which has now all been condo-ized. (2000 plus condos built; 1000 jobs lost). There are another 1500 condos and apartments between 25th and 33rd, and more condos and highrises between 37th and 41st. And now the little bit of commercial space left – at Arbutus Village and Arbutus Ridge – has been rezoned for condos (50 small businesses lost; 550 condos gained). So before calling people NIMBY’s or complaining about a lack of densification on the west side, please get your facts straight.
HEATHEN!
WE DON’T NEED JOBS!
WE NEED CONDOS!
hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to flip we go
seriously, who works in vancouver and can afford $5000/mo rent?
>seriously, who works in vancouver and can afford $5000/mo rent?
Condo flippers, realtors, a few executive positions and black market/money laundering schemes. I’d like to be joking here, but I think it’s more fact than farce.
Possibly.
But aren’t most of the hard-core condo flippers living in purchased ‘primary residences’ that will then be sold after a year and a day with no capital gains tax on profits?
Speaking of facts and farce, BordelloDweller… here’s an instructive cautionary tale about the all too frequently real dichotomy between ‘appearances’ and reality…
“At the parties she would flirt with all the senior military guys. She’s touchy-feely. Her hands would be on their arms. She was attentive. It’s not hard to see why she had some guys under her spell.” – Anon ‘Frenemy’ to NYDN
[NewYorkDailyNews] – Petraeus whistleblower Jill Kelley living large, but is flat broke and drowning in debt with her mansion in foreclosure
…”The woman at the root of the four-star scandal that led to the downfall of Petraeus and threatens the career of Gen. John Allen lives an extravagant lifestyle that conceals mountains of money owed to banks and credit card companies, court documents show.
The palatial home in Tampa, where Kelley, and her husband, Scott, hosted top military brass, including Petraeus and Allen, has been in foreclosure since 2010. Court records reveal that in March of that year, Bank of America claimed the Kelleys hadn’t paid their mortgage since September 2009.”…
http://tinyurl.com/c2mfzx8
[NoteToEd: There’s an old saying in the DarkArts… “Public faces… private lives.”]
@nem
I can haz honeypot?
@NakedOfficial#9004… “Yes you can haz HoneyPot!”
[NoteToEd: While awaiting my designated TitanRunTimeSlot I was momentarily distracted by RythmicEgyptian
HipsPoliticalDevelopments… The illustrated lady is this week’s CairoSensation – something to do with ostensibly PiousParlimentarians ‘tearing a page or two’ out of the Petraeus/Allen PlayBook.]What do you mean they can’t afford it? $5,000/month is the ballpark number for all private care homes. Dementia care is even more. If you sell a $2,000,000 house free and clear, 10 years of care at this price is $600,000. You can generate about $20,000 a year in interest (effectively tax free with the tax deductions on care home costs). You still have $1.4mil in the bank minimum. Why should the rest of us pay for these multi-millionaires? That money is going tax free to their heirs when they pass on.
In the UK you don’t get any senior care subsidy until you have less than $24,000 pounds in assets. It’s not a silly income test like Vancouver.
When you sell a dunbar house and get a cheque for $2mil, you most certainly can afford. If those seniors want to stay in the same neighbourhood, the most expensive in the city, they can bloody well pay up and don’t insult the rest of us by crying poverty after winning the real estate lottery.
I agree totally. And you don’t even need $2MM, less than one will do, as most will have CPP, possibly OAS, private pensions and accumulated assets other than the house.
There’s a distorted perception of reality for these millionaire families that they are somehow entitled to pass their wealth to their children but the rest of us are supposed to pay their way when they can’t take care of themselves.
Social programs and subsidies are meant to go towards those who don’t actually have money. The programs are not there to support the millionaire children of millionaires and ensure that they get another million when their parents pass on.
The only reason that “it hasn’t worked over the last 10 years” is that Vancouver’s development industry is controlled by a small oligarchy of developers. They want more density; but only on their land! They are quite happy that NIMBY’s hold back new competitive development. This oligarchy have already bought their land years ago, in areas with no NIMBY’s. They sit on it and develop and release it slowly. You’ll find that the developers trying to get zoning in these new areas in Vancouver near existing resi aren’t the big guys, like the DeCotiis’s or Concord, they are new smaller developers (like the guys developing the Rize in Mount Pleasant).
Prices have gone up because of simple math, there is more speculative demand than can be met by supply. This is always the case in a speculative housing mania as it takes years to zone and build housing. The importance of having more supply is that it helps bring prices down quicker when the inevitable end to the mania occurs. City’s in the States that overbuilt, like Phoenix, had bigger crashes, City’s that were more constrained, like Boston or San Francisco, had smaller ones.
“So before calling people NIMBY’s or complaining about a lack of densification on the west side, please get your facts straight.”
You can find density maps online. Here is one for your perusal:
http://twitpic.com/7fjk2q
In the interests of getting one’s “facts straight”.
“West side” is so “us and them”. We’re all in this together! Some, apparently, more than others.
Hey the mayor is just doing his part with the affordable housing task force suggestions, right?
Hey, has someone in the planning department been reading the comments on this blog or something?
I know a certain campus located next to the mentioned neighbourhood whose staff and faculty could do with some housing close to their places of work. Just saying. Possession is only 9/10s of the law.
As West Coast Woman points out, if increasing supply led to falling prices, developers would be paying us to live in their projects by now! And with 21,000 empty units in the city according to the last census, there’s no real need for amped up density anyway.
I get tired of people hurling around the NIMBY label. Who is mayor and council supposed to be working for? The people who elected them and are paying their wages right now – or theoretical “future residents”? The problem is council is dependent on developers to a) provide them with campaign funds and b) keep the city budget above water as real estate is all our economy’s got these days. Vicious circle.
“The problem is council is dependent on developers to a) provide them with campaign funds and b) keep the city budget above water as real estate is all our economy’s got these days”
There is little practical way to avoid developer fees without significantly raising taxes. When developer revenues hit the tank the City’s revenue stream does so as well — look at the layoffs in 2009-10 due to the severe building recession in 2008-2009.
Blaming council is, in my view, missing how the entire city has painted itself into a corner. Lower taxes are popular and get votes.
Re: “As West Coast Woman points out, if increasing supply led to falling prices, developers would be paying us to live in their projects by now! ”
These are vague uninformed statements that, while they make inferences, don’t actually provide any info as to whether supply is balancing demand. A quick look at local census stats, available on line at many places, Metro Van’s site for instance, can provide an informed opinion on this subject.
Between 1986-2011 Metro Van grew by 900k residents/ 450k households.
During the same period about 420k dwelling units were added.
Those figure speak for themselves. Dwelling unit production has not quite kept up with household creation. Add to that typical investor demand that would normally occur, then the situation gets worse. Add in investor, speculators, and off-shore buyers, driven by a speculative mania then it’s worser.
NIMBYS at its very finest. Some culture group don’t like ghost and get dumped on. Others don’t like mid-rise buildings and progress, support their position with half truths and yet don’t raise nearly as much uproar as first mentioned groups.
Oh well…..
With regards to the Dunbar development for seniors, if people can’t afford the rent then it will simply sit empty and developers/purchasers can either lose income or reduce rent until it’s affordable. I don’t see that as a problem why it shouldn’t be built. If developer don’t mind losing money building it then why shouldn’t they? If the purchasers don’t mind losing money letting it sitting empty due to high rent then that’s their choice. I believe that’s also allowed in a free market system. What you are seem to be proposing that only what you/some central authority consider to be viable projects at socially justified rents should go ahead, seem more like communism to me. I thought that was bad?
If there is too much credit/money to go into real estate, then why not let developers build more, create more jobs, and absorb that money?? It is not like if you stop developers from building that money will simply go elsewhere. The money can simply just bid up prices of existing homes there and they can still be left empty. In the process, no new jobs are created. So you get no benefits at all while still having all the negative effects.
With regard to loss of commerical space, have you ever considered that those jobs simply migrated to other locations? Business are closed and opened all the time. If a business closing means permanent job loss then unemployment would be through the roof.
Put them up fast as you can! Build it and they will come! Who cares about quality. Hundreds of thousands/millions of dollars doesn’t mean quality?
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/1287823–trump-tower-glass-falls-into-intersection
vancouver condos for saleWe have featured listings of condos & houses for these areas & you can buy the best one as per your specific needs & requirements….
.. go on..
Seriously, Nekkd – these people are so getting fleeced on their “how to use social media to promote your business” continuing education tuition fees… Still, each time one of these pops up here… you cannot help but wonder just how bad things are really becoming for the ingenues O’Realty.
Weird, why this thread?
Absolutely no idea.
This guy likely asked his 16 year old nephew to help him get the word out.
It’s spam, but given it’s relevance (and poignancy) we’ll leave it up, for the record.