Land zoned for single family housing represents about half of the overall land mass of the City of Vancouver.  As Vancouver strives to become the Greenest City on Earth, this land and activities on it will invariably have a role in determining this outcome.  In turn, its value will help influence what can and cannot occur on it and, perhaps, just as importantly, who can and cannot afford to own it.

Using data from Vancouver’s Open Data Catalogue, this map illustrates the property values of single family districts in the City of Vancouver and its distribution.  For purposes of this map, single family homes are defined as all properties that are within the City’s “RS” zoning.  Interestingly, historic neighbourhoods with large amount of single family homes like Strathcona and Shaughnessy do not have a “RS” zoning, but rather a RT-3 and First Shaughnessy District which were established to preserve the architectural heritage in each respective neighborhood. Another key note is that with the approval of laneway housing and the legalization of secondary basement suites, the traditional notion of a “single family homes” in Vancouver is changing.

The property values in this map are derived by the combination of land and “improvement” assessed values for 2011 released by BC Assessment which, in turn, were the market value of each element assessed as of July, 2010.  Through the usage of the ArcGIS Geographic Information Systems platform, this map was produced.

Certain data artifacts were kept and left unedited in this map by purpose. There are some data point in Stanley Park, along Beach Avenue near Sunset Beach, the Kitsilano waterfront and Jericho Beach that fall into an RS-1 zoning.  The designation of these properties are likely spurious or erroneous zoning and property data that need to be updated or edited within the Open data Dataset rather than development potential and highlight some of the data editing that is required in the usage of some datasets in the Catalogue.

Before discussing values, this first observation of this map begins with the distribution of RS zoning as it largely corresponds with the pre-consolidation 1929 boundaries of the municipalities of Point Grey and South Vancouver.  Prior to 1929, Vancouver consisted of three separate municipalities: Point Grey, South Vancouver, and Vancouver.  With the exception of a section of Vancouver east of Victoria Drive, there is little to no RS zoning within the boundaries of pre-1929 Vancouver.  Instead, RS zoning dominates the former pre-1929 municipalities of Point Grey and South Vancouver.

Within the distribution of property values, a few patterns emerge.  In the 2011 assessment, there were no single family homes in Vancouver that were worth less than $500,000.  At the same time, the overwhelming majority of homes west of Main were worth over a million dollars. (Admittedly, this line is Ontario Street, but Main Street is the closest arterial).  With some very small pockets of sub-$1,000,000 homes in Marpole and minute isolated cases, any single family home west of Main Street was worth over a million dollars.

Conversely, homes east of Main Street were largely under $1,000,000.  While there were homes over $1,000,000 of which were concentrated in the far southeast corner of the City, there was a much more diverse collection of homes under $1,000,000 in areas east of Main Street.  In all likelihood, there will be more homes worth a million dollars in the 2012 Assessment east of Main, but one of the surprising patterns in this map is the how strong Main Street remains as delineation between million dollar and non-million dollar homes in Vancouver.

(Additional observations and details on this map are now avaliable in this later posting.)

For most of the City of Vancouver’s history in the 20^th Century, Main Street was a social, cultural, and political dividing line of wealth, social status, and political affiliations. The power of this line can still be observed in single family home values both east and west of Main, but is it a line that is increasingly permeable? In the most recent 2011 Vancouver municipal elections, home values and, of greater interest, density had a strong correlation with how voters voted than one’s location east or west of Main.  The geographic shorthand of East/West of Main being on the Left/Right could become less reliable to describe the electoral politics in the City. As prices for single family homes continue to rise and million dollar single family homes in the City of Vancouver becomes a likely norm west and east of Main, there lie even  greater changes, shifts, and complexity for its social, cultural, and political geography.