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Data Desk, Observations, Research Papers May 18, 2013

The Independent Purveyors of Caffeine in the City of Vancouver

The above interactive map provides the locations of the independent coffee and teahouses in the City of Vancouver used in this study.

The task of documenting the independent purveyors of caffeine in the City of Vancouver has been a far more complicated task than analyzing major coffee chains. These complications come as a combination of hard technical challenges of mining and mapping raw business license data with the softer subjectivities of what qualifies as an “independent” coffee and tea house. This analysis not only includes caffeine in the form of coffee, but, to reflect the multicultural fabric of this city, include those who also sell tea beverages including, of course, Bubble Tea Cafes. In this collection, the sociology of caffeine in Vancouver also reflects the cultural buzz found in this City.

This entry represents our best try at quantitatively studying the independent coffee and tea spaces in the City of Vancouver with some observations about their possible urban economic and social implications. We hope you enjoy the brew. To keep terms short and simple, this entry will refer to Vancouver’s collection of independent houses, bars, counters, cafes, and outlets as “the Independents” and their corporate counterparts as “the Chains”.

Using business license data from the City of Vancouver’s Open Data Catalogue, BTAworks has attempted to document and map the City’s numerous independent caffeine outlets. To be considered an “Independent”, a shop had to have less than 5 outlets within the City. These parameters were inspired by the City of San Francisco’s Chain Store Ordinance which regulates the types of Chain Stores/Formula Retail in that City to “protect San Francisco’s vibrant small business sector and create a supportive environment for new small business innovations”. With arguments such as that for every $100 spent, a local store has a local impact of $68 versus $43 for chain, the economic and social rationale for such an ordinance can be read here.

Based upon our methodologies and best estimates, there were a total of 198 independent coffee and tea houses, bars, counters, cafes, bars, and outlets in the City of Vancouver and is compared to the 186 chain outlets spread over 8 major chains.

As with the Major Coffee Chains in the City of Vancouver analysis, “where” matters. About 35 percent (69) of Independents in the City of Vancouver were located inside the City’s Downtown core compared to 50 percent of major coffee chains. The mass major of Independents are located outside of Downtown Vancouver. Within this type of dispersal, one seeks how these independents help form the neighborhood identities throughout the city. The top 5 planning areas with the largest amount of independents were Central Business/Downtown area at 58 cafes and shops followed by Fairview (21), Kitsilano (18), Mount Pleasant (14), and the West End (10). Interestingly, with the 12 Bubble Tea Houses in the study, 10 are located in the outer neighborhoods of Vancouver and generally reflects the residential patterns of the City’s Chinese Canadian populations — particularly those with Cantonese as their mother tongue.

The above interactive map summarizes the number of independent and chain coffee and teahouses in the City of Vancouver by Plan Area. Please excuse difference between the map viewers as we are experimenting between ArcGIS Online and ArcGIS Explorer Online and would like to hear from readers about your preferences.

Independents have a tendency of appearing in clusters throughout the City of Vancouver. While one ought to note the effects of land use zoning which, in the City of Vancouver, tends to concentrate commercial and retail activities on to main arterials and designated high streets, Independents tend to locate near one another. The best example of this occurs on 3 blocks of Commercial Drive (1200 to 1400 blocks) in Grandview Woodlands with 4 Independents. Moreover, outside of Downtown, certain street segments on Broadway, West 4th Avenue, Fraser, Dunbar, Kingsway, and Hastings can be defined by the presence of Independents and Chains. These segments are often located in neighbourhoods with some of the strongest urban identities in the City.

This short series of studies in Independents and Chain Coffee and Teahouses in the City of Vancouver occurs in the intersection of community and commerce. As third spaces (a space that is neither work or home), cafes and coffee shops have always had role in the life of the City. Indeed, coffee and tea houses have been remarkable institutions in the urban landscape where events like the French Revolution first brewed in the coffeehouses of Paris. Forward to Vancouver today, coffee and tea houses in Vancouver have multiple roles in the City as they can serve as both conveners and indicators for a neighborhood where coffee or tea serves as a “social lubricant” or, in certain professions, a caffeinated overlord. Where some readers in the Twitterverse have observed how these spaces bring together and connect nascent communities, others have suggested that certain types of Independents and Chains are heralds of gentrification and displacement as not everyone in Vancouver can afford a 3 dollar cup of coffee. These tensions reflect the ongoing and bigger concerns about and direction of the urban, economic, social, and cultural development of City of Vancouver.

One interesting land use planning experiment would be the allowance of neighbourhood cafes, particularly for Independents, with certain operating parameters in Vancouver’s residential neighborhoods as opposed to just being located on major transportation corridors or arterials. Such a phenomenon is not without precedences given the City’s long history of neighborhood corner stores. In the rise of the corner or even laneway cafe, there lies an opportunity to further strengthen a neighborhood’s social fabric while incrementally introducing a mixed use, community based local economy to these residential neighbourhoods. Neighborhoods like Kitsilano and Strathcona already have prototypical examples of this type of land use with specific store types like Le Marche St George in Ridley Park and the Wilder Snail in Strathcona. In a city where connection and loneliness is a growing concern, this might be one community based commercial opportunity to get to know one’s neighbours.

Beyond spaces of consumption, it is worth talking about coffee and tea houses as emerging places of production. An article entitled “Laptopistan” in the New York Times explored how cafes have become extensions of the new workplace. Ideas and connections steep while people talk around a cup of coffee or contemplate on a laptop with a pot of tea which propel parts of the economy. In and of themselves both independent and chain coffee and tea houses are small parts of the City’s overall economy, but, as Tom Standage observes in his 2005 book, A History of the World in Six Glasses, coffee and tea and the social act of bringing people together can have powerful results. However, it remains an unwritten chapter whether these ideas and industries brewing coffee and tea houses of Vancouver can scale to the numbers of employment with accompanying wages that are needed to support a sustainable, livable, and just city.

Technical Notes:

On a technical level, the difficulty in capturing independent cafes and tea shops begins with the fact that they can span five difference business license types in the City’s license database: Limited Service Food Establishment, Restaurant Class 1, and Retail dealer – Food, Wholesale Dealer – Food, and Manufacturer – Food with Ancillary Retail. Between general selection parameters of “coffee”, “cafe”, and “tea” within these business license types, a earlier coffee shop study on the Yelp website, and participant-observer/field research, the study was able to obtain study universe. Further filtering occurred with cross referencing the Yelp study and Google searches to exclude full service restaurants It is important to note the number of full service Southeast Asian/Vietnamese restaurants that have the word “cafe” in their Business Trade Name of which were excluded in this study. There is a certain level of subjectivity in this study as it excludes most full service restaurants, but does include bakery cafes and general merchandise shops where a Google search suggests that retail coffee/tea/hot beverage services are a major part of everyday business.

Stemming from comments from the earlier Kerry Gold piece on the BTAworks’ major coffee chain analysis, citizens in this town hold deep passions for their local independent caffeine outlets far more than the 186 chain outlets. Indeed, one reader mentions how this hot beverage means “community in a coffee cup”. Readers quickly volunteered neighborhood shops and cafes to this list and (hopefully) this piece captures the wide diversity of Independents in the City of Vancouver. If this list has somehow missed your favorite independent coffee/tea spot, please feel free to email any omissions to the BTAworks’ hotline/email: info (at) btaworks.com Their omission was strictly accidental.

Data Desk, Observations, Research Papers April 27, 2013

The Density and Flow of Major Coffee Chains in the City of Vancouver

With this interactive Coffee map, please feel free to use the upper left hand buttons to see a map legend and turn a population density layer on and off.

Whether it is served hot to counter Vancouver’s cold wet winters or enjoyed iced in the City’s far too short summers, coffee is one liquid aspect of culture in the City of Vancouver. As a city cultural artifact, BTAworks wanted to explore the patterns of coffee bars and houses in the City of Vancouver. One little known piece of global coffee trivia is that the first Starbucks to open outside of the United States and in Canada was at the Seabus Skytrain Station on March 1, 1987. As known as the Waterfront Station and the former Pacific Terminus for the Canadian Pacific Railway , it is one of the principle intermodal transportation hubs for the Metro Vancouver region.

Using business license data from the City of Vancouver’s Open Data catalogue, BTAworks mined, analyzed, and mapped the locations of the major coffee chains in the City. We are reserving an analysis of Vancouver vibrant independent coffee scene for a future time given the difficulties of sculpting out that data; however, a quick Yelp query suggests that there are over 82 independent coffeehouses and bars around the City. We will also be including the City’s many Bubble Tea houses in this analysis.

A quick unsponsored acknowledgement to Matchstick Coffee Roasters and Room for Cream on Kingsway, Abruzzo on Commercial, 49th Parallel on 4th Avenue and Main Street, the Wired Monk on 4th Avenue, Our Town on Broadway, the Grind Cafe and Gallery on Main and the Wilder Snail in Strathcona for the forthcoming analysis and to preserve some semblance of indie cred. At Bing Thom Architects, we have a particular affinity to the Musette Caffe — located just a few blocks from our offices.

First, the major coffee chain census. At 85 retail outlets, Starbucks is, by far, the largest coffee chain in the City of Vancouver. Followed by Tim Horton’s (26), Blenz (26), JJ Bean (11), and Bean Around the World and Waves at 10 outlets. Take 5 at 8 and Cafe Artigiano at 7 round out the major coffee chains in the City of Vancouver.

Interestingly, when compared to the City of Surrey’s business license database, there are contrasts in coffee communities. Where Vancouver has 85 Starbucks, the City of Surrey has 18 outlets; however, the City of Surrey has 22 Tim Horton’s while Vancouver has 26 Tim’s.

Major coffee chains seem to follow a spatial pattern related to population and employment density and commuter and transportation flow in the City. In short, major coffee chains go where the people and the jobs are and where the people go through. In certain parts of Downtown Vancouver and Broadway corridor, there really is a Starbucks on every corner as the core is inundated with coffee chains. However, as one goes into the neighborhoods outside of Vancouver’s downtown core, chains take a much more opportunistic position often locating at primary commuting hubs like the Broadway Street Skytrain Station or transportation corridors like Hastings or Granville Street. One can observe these relationships between major coffee chains and population densities on the map by adding a population density layer to the locations of these chains.

On Commercial Drive, the street that arguably started Vancouver’s coffee culture with its collection of independent Italian coffee bars, the coffee chains have located on the commuting nexuses of Commercial and 1st and Broadway and Commercial. In outer and less dense single family neighborhoods of the City of Vancouver, there are even fewer chains and where they do appear, they are on major arterial. Of course, this is also a function of land use zoning as retail and commercial outlets are restricted to the high streets of these neighborhoods.

In this capacity, it brings a discussion of whether Starbucks and other coffee chains are trend setters or density and/or flow indicators? Does a community appear first and then a coffee chain moves in or does a coffee chain move in to become part of a package of amenities that attracts residents to a neighborhood? With these maps, they suggest that chains move to density as oppose to create them. It would be curious to see what BTAworks readers think.

UPDATE: A special thank you to the Globe and Mail’s Kerry Gold for an article on this piece. You can read her article here: To build a neighbourhood it takes – a good coffee shop?

Data Desk April 9, 2013

Non-Resident Occupancy Dwelling Units in Communities across British Columbia

While earlier BTAworks non-resident occupied dwelling studies have focused on the City of Vancouver, this entry focused on the prevalence of these types of units in other communities in British Columbia. After all, at 115 square kilometers (44 square miles), the City of Vancouver represents only 0.01 percent of the land mass of British Columbia.

Using the same 2011 Census methodology as those in the “Foreign Investment in Vancouver Real Estate”, the following are rankings by percentage and number of “non-resident occupied” units in BC communities that had more than 25,000 residents or more in 2011. Non-Resident Occupancy is defined as a regular private dwelling unit that is either “unoccupied” or “occupied solely by foreign residents and/or temporarily present residents” on the Census reference day – May 10, 2011. While the municipalities of Squamish (pop. 17,158) and Whistler (9,824) fell under this population threshold, they have been included in these tables just out of general interest.

On this province wide scale, it is also an opportunity to examine the phenomenon of “Whistlerization”. Named after the Resort Municipality of Whistler, the term is often used to describe an economic situation where a town or city becomes heavily dependent and defined by the hospitality and tourism sectors and caters predominantly to temporary visitors and tourist at the real or perceived economic, social, and/or cultural cost of local year round residents. To this extent, Whistlerization is a BC born reference to “resortification”. While other studies may use employment base in the hospitality and retail sectors as an economic indicator of “Whistlerization”, this blog entry suggests that non-resident occupancy may be another socioeconomic indicator.

In Whistler, 58 percent of all regular private dwelling units were non-resident occupied. To place this number in context, the census tract with the highest percentage of non-resident occupancy in the City of Vancouver was a census tract in the Coal Harbour neighborhood at 23.5 percent.

With a total number of 5,339 non-resident occupied units in Whistler, it is just behind the cities of Vancouver and Surrey in total number of these types of units. It is worthwhile to mention that the total housing stock of the cities of Vancouver (286,742 dwellings) and Surrey (163,986 dwellings) are 31 times and 18 times bigger than Whistler (9,239 dwellings)!

Given these statistics for Whistler, it is important to recognize the remarkable and innovative affordable and workforce housing initiatives that the municipality via the Whistler Housing Authority is undertaking to house the full time residents and workers in the municipality.

Data Desk, Media, Observations, Research Papers April 4, 2013

Media and Metrics: Accounts of the Foreign Investment in Vancouver’s Real Estate Panel

A Collection of Headlines from the SFU Woodwards event

As part of making a “teaching moment” of media coverage of the SFU Woodwards panel, here is a list of the various media stories on the Foreign Investment in Vancouver Real Estate presentation at SFU Woodwards. With 23 stories, these headlines highlight the best, the worst, and the sensational of which prompted the publication of our recent clarification entry. Over the last two weeks, the (English and Chinese) print, television, and web publications as well as a number of local blogs (and all their commentators) provide some interesting insights into the issue of investment in Vancouver real estate. For any aspiring Marshall McLuhan‘s out there, it would be interesting to hear about your take on the subject of media and real estate through these articles.

Special thanks to Heather Amos at UBC Public Affairs for collecting most of these media entries.

Print

Globe and Mail: Vancouver’s vacancies point to investors, not residents

Also appeared in BNN: Nearly one in four Vancouver condos empty

Metro Vancouver: Up to a quarter of Coal Harbour condos sitting empty or foreign-owned

The Province: 15% of downtown Vancouver condos sit empty, turning areas into ghost towns: Study

Vancouver Sun: How can we debate foreign ownership if governments don’t collect the facts?

Globe and Mail (April 12, 2013) : It’s a problem when Vancouver condos sell, but the lights stay off

Television

CTV BC: Anybody home? Posh Vancouver neighbourhood rife with vacancies

CBC – Many Vancouver condos are sitting empty

Global BC – Large number of absentee condo owners
A corollary from Global BC – Homes sitting empty as well as condos

Radio

News 1130 – Large number of Vancouver condos sit empty: Report

Web Publications

Huffington Post -Vancouver Empty Condos Underscore Investor Speculations

The Tyee – Vancouver foreign investment panel tackles ‘safety deposit’ condos for wealthy

Vancouver Observer – Foreign investment in real estate market resulting in empty condos, panel told

Yahoo Canada -Nearly a quarter of Vancouver’s condos are empty, but Gen Y still can’t afford to buy in

Chinese Media

Sing Tao Vancouver

World Journal

Commentary

Gary Mason – Globe and Mail – The ‘great unoccupied condo scandal’? Get over it with observations and responses from the Vancouver Real Estate Anecdote Blog

Geoff Meggs – Is there really an empty condo problem? And if so, anything to be done about it?

Bob Ransford – Vancouver Sun – Facts, not rhetoric, needed on housing supply, affordability

The Blogosphere:

The Thirties Grind - Vancouver real estate: do we have a foreign investment problem…or just an investment problem?

The Mainlander - Empty Condos and foreign investors: Sign of the times or synonyms for racism?

Frances Bula – The city of empty condos: New census number-crunching shows high numbers of condos are empty or occupied only by temporary visitors

Vancouver Real Estate Anecdotes - For A City To Have That Kind Of Vacancy, It’s Like Cancer – “Downtown, the vacant unit rate is so high that it’s as though there were 35 towers at 20 storeys apiece – all empty.”

Vancouver Condo Info - Have we built too many condos?

Data Desk, Media, Observations March 25, 2013

Measuring the Presence of Absence: Clarifications and Corrections in the Reportage of the BTAworks’ Foreign Investment in Vancouver Real Estate

Over the past few days, media coverage on the SFU Woodwards panel on the Foreign Investment in Vancouver Real Estate has been, well, intense. Covering a spectrum from confirming the triumphs of high density and high amenity Downtown urbanism to affirming the tropes of an increasingly unaffordable and alienating global resort city, these reports reflect the concerns and passions of those who call Vancouver home and their views about the present and future direction of the City.

Unfortunately, in certain instances, these stories highlight the need for more cross training between professions as planners ought to take courses in media relations and communications and some journalists could learn about the complexities of presenting social and urban statistics and its limitations. To this end, this blog entry will try to clarify some of the more egregious statements attributed to the panel. Where myth busting was part of the intent of the panel, this entry engages meme crushing…its 21^st Century social media equivalent. Complex urban issues often do not nicely fit into a 140 character Twitter news world.

Here are some clarifications:

1) Data Origins of the New Study

The Non-Resident Occupancy method used to create a new “Empty Condo” estimate utilized a Statistics Canada 2011 Census definition of a regular private dwelling unit that was either “unoccupied” or “occupied solely by foreign residents and/or temporary present residents” on the Census reference day – May 10, 2011. This combination was chosen as data that breaks out these two categories from Statistics Canada was not freely available and would require an custom tabulation of the 2011 data at considerable expense. Hence, the use of the term, non-resident occupancy, as opposed to just “unoccupied”. We wanted to recognize the data did blend “occupied solely by foreign residents and/or temporary present residents” into this category. Moreover, our study is based upon the 2011 Census dwelling counts and may not necessarily directly correspond with other private or public housing/real estate unit databases.

2) All Condos in the City of Vancouver are NOT 25 percent empty.

The presentation did not make a statement that condos in the entire City of Vancouver were 25 percent were “empty”. The presentation examined a universe of private regular dwelling units — the formal Census definition and did not breakdown typology. It was properly reported that “nearly a quarter of condos in Vancouver are empty or occupied by non-residents in some dense areas of downtown”. Indeed, 22.8 percent of dwelling units in the Coal Harbour census tract were non-resident occupied. However, one cannot extend this percentage to the state of housing occupancy in the City of Vancouver.

The overall pattern for Downtown Vancouver as defined by the BTAworks Powerpoint slide deck was 14.9% or 5,710 units and is compared to 7.7% for overall Citywide and 6.1% for Metro Vancouver wide patterns. Where 93% of dwelling structures are “Apartment buildings greater than 5 stories” in Downtown Vancouver, it is important to note that the dwelling stock greatly diversifies as one exits Downtown Vancouver into a number of other structural types such as single detached houses and duplexes.

3) Non-resident occupied does NOT equal to why

The reasons why these dwellings are non-resident occupied can be diverse. From investment properties to seasonal homes to being in/between tenants or owners to being under renovation, there is a vast array of reasons why a unit could be non-resident occupied. Among other reasons, as urban writer France Bula identifies in a recent article on Vancouver’s economy, is an increasingly substantial professional services workforce in Vancouver that is travelling all over the world and was perhaps away on Census Day 2011.

However, one interesting aspect of the “why” question occurs to why there are such a large concentrations of non-resident occupied units in Downtown Vancouver compared to other areas of the Metro Vancouver region. Non-resident occupancy is not necessarily the result of high density as they are very weakly correlated. For those who are interested, this relationship has an R value of .19 when population density per square kilometre and number of non-resident occupied units on a census tract level are fed into a correlation equation.

Perhaps the varying localized and regional patterns of non-resident occupied dwellings across the City of Vancouver and Metro Vancouver are subjects of a future talk?

4) Non-resident occupied does NOT equate to “foreign”

A major theme throughout presentation was that “foreign” is a very difficult concept to measure from the data sets that BTAworks has used in its condo studies. Sources such as BC Assessment, Home Owner Grants, BC Hydro, and Census data do not directly identify the citizenship status of property owners. Moreover, when a BC Assessment ticket is sent abroad to another country, it is not known that it is being received by a foreign national or a Canadian living in that country wanting to keep a piece of property in Vancouver.

It is troubling that the popular press and the blogosphere is automatically attributing “foreign” to investment ownership. While through other methods and data sources, we strongly believe that many Downtown condos are investor owned/non-owner occupied. However, there is no simple and direct method of determining whether this investment is held by a Canadian or not. The nationalities/citizenship status of these investors is not readily known through these data sets.

5) Non-resident occupied unit does NOT necessarily suggest a market availability status. An unit that was non-resident occupied will not necessary be listed for sale or available for rent.

6) There are obviously NOT 35 20 storey empty buildings in Downtown Vancouver. Instead, non-resident occupied units were spread throughout Downtown Vancouver and dozens of buildings. However, one has to keep in mind that various metrics often use this writing device to convey the magnitude of a phenomenon such as “x many times stretching to the moon” or ” x many times circulating the world” to convey the magnitude of a factory’s productive capacity.

7) A minor point occurs with my credentials, I am a senior planner with Bing Thom Architects (BTA) and a researcher with BTAworks, the firm’s research and development division. I am also an ADJUNCT professor at the University of British Columbia’s School of Community and Regional Planning (SCARP)…an honour that SCARP has bestowed up me. To this point, BTA has had the pleasure of hosting two cycles of the SCARP Planning 548V Course: the Vancouver Planning Laboratory at our Burrard Street studios. In these classes, we have explored various great and infamous ideas affecting City Building from social capital to economic restructuring to climate change as well as the in’s and out’s of the Planning profession. For both the instructors and the students, it has been a great experiment on how the profession can be better taught to future generations of urban planners and urban professionals.

If there are any more questions about the presentation, please feel free to contact Andy Yan: info (at) btaworks.com

Data Desk, Media, Observations March 21, 2013

BTAworks Foreign Investment in Vancouver Real Estate Slide Presentation at SFU Woodwards

BTAworks Foreign Investment in Vancouver Real Estate SFU Woodwards Presentation from ayan_bta

A special thanks to Am Johal, Community Engagement Coordinator at SFU Woodwards and Gordon Price, Director, SFU City Program for the invitation to this panel and to fellow panel members, Sandy Garossino and Tsur Somerville for creating an informative dialogue to talk about the issue of foreign investment in Vancouver real estate. Hopefully, this will be part of a larger discussion about housing affordability and economic and physical development in an urban global age for Vancouver.

Observations March 18, 2013

The Erosion of Vancouver’s One Million Dollar Line

Key Findings

During the period between 2012 to 2013 BC Assessment, over 2,200 Single Family properties in the City of Vancouver crossed the $1 million valuation line.
Most of these properties were in the southeast section of the City of Vancouver and specifically in the Victoria-Fraserview and Killarney plan area
In 2013, about 54 percent of the total number of Single Family properties in the City of Vancouver were valued at over $1,000,000, while, in 2009, about 34 percent were worth over $1,000,000 when controlled for inflation.
From the 2009 to 2013 Assessment years, the number of “Single Family” properties valued above $1 million grew by nearly 50 percent from 25,708 to 37,768.
The number of properties worth more than $5 million increased by nearly 250 percent over the same four years from 274 to 708 properties.
With City policies such as secondary suites and laneway homes over the last 20 years which allow for more living units on a single piece of property, “Single Family” home districts have been increasingly accommodating multiple units.
Single Family Home Districts make up about 50 percent of the land mass of the City of Vancouver
While about 50 percent of the City’s total population lives in these Single Family districts, 64 percent of the City’s children (Under the age of 19) live in these areas according to the 2011 Census.
80 percent of Vancouver’s public school facilities are located in Single Family districts.

Study Write-up

With the 2013 BTAworks edition of the $1 million dollar in the City of Vancouver’s “One-family Dwelling” or RS districts line, it marks our third examination into the changing patterns of property values in the City. For the sake of continuity and comparability, we have followed the same methodology as our 2012 edition which in turn followed similar methods as the first 2011 analysis. However, the base data has been edited to exclude water parcels, parks, and school with the assumption that areas such as Stanley Park and the Cassiar Connector have limited housing development potential. As with previous studies, all data used in these maps was obtained from the City of Vancouver’s Open Data Catalogue.

This edition of 2013 $1 million line features three visualizations of the total (land price plus improvement (building) price) for each property:

1) a blue-red version for properties over $1 million (blue) and under $1 million (red);

2) a multi-spectrum version to show the change in property values at $1 million intervals;

3) and a single color map to show the numbers and locations of properties that become valued more than $1 million from the 2012 to 2013 Assessment.

As discussed in previous editions, it is important to note that “One-Family Dwelling” zoning in the City of Vancouver has changed over time formally and informally. With the defacto two dwelling units found in many “Vancouver Specials” built in the 1960s to 1980s to the more recent adaptation of legalized secondary suites and laneway homes, the definition of “single family” zoning has increasingly loosen. Utilizing laneway homes and legalized secondary suites, property owners in SF districts can now build up to 3 units of housing on most lots in this traditionally Single Family zoning area.

The policies that have theoretically led to the tripling of housing units in “one-family dwelling” districts have been done under the auspices of increasing the amount of affordable rental homes in the City. However, one aspect to note in these changes is that the sizes of laneway houses are regulated by the City of Vancouver and is dependent on lot size and not all single family properties automatically qualify for a laneway house. See this link for exact specifications. For example, should a property qualify, the maximum unit laneway house for a standard 33 foot by 122 foot lot (the most prevalent lot size in the City of Vancouver single family home districts) is 500 square feet or 46 square meters and 750 square feet or 70 square meters for 50’ by 122’ lots. The levels of success and impacts of these policies in achieving this goal, particularly for families with children, in the world’s second most unaffordable housing market will perhaps be the subject of a future paper.

With these new analytic capacities to the 2013 map, one prime observation is the steady erosion of the $1 million line. Since release of the 2012 property assessments, about 2,200 properties have crossed the $1 million line. Where, in 2009, Main St (the closest arterial) and Ontario Street in particular, symbolized a very pronounced division for properties over and under $1 millions, this division has continuously eroded. In 2013, about 54 percent of the total number of Single Family properties in the City of Vancouver were valued at over $1,000,000, while, in 2009, about 34 percent were worth over $1,000,000 when controlled for inflation. However, this erosion also comes from the southeast section of the city. In the Victoria-Fraserview and Killarney local planning area, these areas have seen the largest amount of properties cross the $1 million line.

Beyond a bi-variable red and blue (over and under $1 million value) map, when values are mapped at $1 dollar intervals, they further highlight the progression of high value homes in the City of Vancouver, especially at the very high end. For homes worth more than $5 million, they grew by nearly 250 percent in the span of 4 years. In 2013, about 708 (.01 percent) of all Single Family properties in the City of Vancouver were valued at over $5,000,000, while, in 2009, 274 (about .004 percent) were valued at over $5,000,000.

Our continued interest in the state and future of land in Vancouver’s One-family Dwelling district stems from two concerns. The first is that One-family land use zoning (in various SF iterations) covers almost 50 percent of the City of Vancouver’s total land mass and is by far the largest land use by land area in the City. Within these areas, it houses about 50 percent (301,540) of the City’s total number of residents based upon the 2011 Census. However, when one accounts for age, about 64 percent (64,245) of the City’s population under the age of 19 live in these areas.

Within these settlement patterns, it highlights our second rationale towards focusing on these SF areas. As a legacy of planning from the 1920s, these areas have some of the most abundant levels of family supportive infrastructure in the entire city. For example, 90 (80 percent) out of the 113 Vancouver public schools are in these areas. From elementary and secondary schools to parks to playgrounds to community centers, there is a considerable amount of public investment found in these sections of Vancouver. This rich infrastructure has helped generations of Vancouverites raise children and set roots in the City. At the same time, this infrastructure was developed when the average household income in the City of Vancouver could readily afford to live in these areas. For the sake of reference, the average household income in the City of Vancouver is about $68,000 a year with a median income of $47,000 according to the 2006 census (latest numbers available) or $78,000 and $54,000 respectively in 2013 dollars. What is the future of these pieces of infrastructure (and neighbourhoods) in an era when the majority of the single family homes in the City of Vancouver are now worth over $1 million?

Technical Notes

A new feature for this year’s study is a four year perspective on total property assessments from 2009 to 2013; however, as noted in previous editions, it is important to remember that assessment values are not up to the moment prices for real estate but valuation snapshots taken in July of the previous year. Consequently, a 2013 assessment is a valuation that reflects the property value in July 2012. The values used in these maps are therefore from July 2008 to July 2012. For the exact BC Assessment methodology, please click this link. We have also correct prices for inflation to reflect 2012 values using the Bank of Canada’s Inflation Calculator.

Another element to note in this study is the change in the number of properties between the 2009 to 2013 dataset. There was a slight decline (188 properties/data points or .003 percent of the total population) of matchable data points from 70,454 data points/properties in the 2009 data set to 70,266 data points/properties in 2013.

Observations March 2, 2013

Foreign Investment in Vancouver’s Real Estate Market Public Event

BTAworks will be part of this upcoming panel on foreign investment in Vancouver’s real estate. Click this link for more information.

Foreign Investment in Vancouver’s Real Estate Market

Presented by SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement and the SFU City Program

March 20 - 7 pm – 9pm

Djavad Mowafaghian Cinema, Goldcorp Centre for the Arts – 149 West Hastings

In Vancouver, there has been a lot of speculation about the impact of foreign investment on our real estate market. Evidence has been limited.

So does such an issue exist? What are the facts? How does foreign investment impact affordability, if at all?

What are other jurisdictions doing? What public policy interventions would make sense, if any?

These will be some of the questions discussed by our panel, moderated by Tyee editor David Beers:

Andy Yan, BTAWorks
Tsur Somerville, UBC’s Sauder School of Business
Sandy Garrosino, Independent City Council Candidate
Richard Wozny, Principal, Site Economics Ltd.

Data Desk, Observations November 1, 2012

2012 BTAworks Trick or Treat Hotspots in Metro Vancouver

After 2 days of intense data gathering through various social and print media channels, here is the 2012 Trick or Treating Hotspots in Metro Vancouver map. This is a fully interactive site where visitors can click the data points and receive direct information on each hotspot. A further discussion of the map with demographic and urban density analysis is forthcoming.

If you have more data to insert into the map, please email treatcount(at)btaworks.com or tweet using the hashtag #treatcount2012 with your closest intersection, number of trick or treaters, and type of candy you gave out.

Thank you to everyone who contributed to the map as this has been an extraordinary experiment in crowdmapping! A special thank you to Chad Skelton who help prime the data pump with his story in the Vancouver Sun about this project. From all the data points (88 and counting), it is clear that the spirit of Halloween is alive in Metro Vancouver!