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A Look Back, Data Desk, Observations, Research Papers January 16, 2012

The $80,000 Line: Single Family Housing Values in the City of Vancouver circa 1979

As our previous postings have explored the geographic distribution of the City of Vancouver’s Single Family Housing prices in 2011 and its $1,000,000 line, here is its counterpart from 1979 by Paul Raynor, a planner extraordinaire and data guru in the City of Vancouver’s Housing Centre. Before the days of Excel and ArcGIS, Mr. Raynor mapped these Single Family Home values by hand!

For the benefit of our readers, when one uses the Bank of Canada Inflation Calculator to adjust values to 2011 dollars, the map scales would be $117,000 for a house worth $40,000 in 1979 and $876,000 for a house worth $300,000 in 1979. Incidentally, a house valued at $80,000 in 1979 would be worth $234,000 in 2011 dollars.

This post also includes Raynor’s observations and analysis which accompanied the map and was published in a City of Vancouver Quarterly Review in July 1979. Interestingly, as Raynor ends his piece with the observation that improvements on the average (largely defined as buildings on a property) accounted for 46 percent of total values in 1979, this percentage dwindles to less than 20 percent by 2011.

Data Desk, Research Papers December 12, 2011

The 0.3 Percent – Properties under $500,000 in the City of Vancouver’s Single Family Home Districts and Other Details

After some post processing which excluded properties that were either parks, right of ways, railways, side yards or boulevard medians as well as SPLOT properties (Spaces Planners Left Over Time), this posting will highlight some of the specific features from the recently published map of property values of single family home districts in the City of Vancouver.

We were able to isolate and find properties in the City’s RS Districts for less than $500,000 – all 182 of them which, out of the 71,000 study properties, which equates to about 0.3 percent of the study base. To respect the privacy of individual homeowners, we won’t publish a map on their specific locations, but highlight the characteristics of this population. The characteristics include:

All properties were east of Main
Being built between 1905 and 1996
Generally along major arterials or next to mass transit right of ways like the Expo line.
Valuations for land value far exceeded “improvement” values which is term that refers to buildings well beyond the overall patterns for the overall SFH population

Other details in this map include:

Overall Patterns

42 percent of overall properties in the study population were over $1 million; however, as earlier, identified; this pattern is highly geographically uneven with Main Street (and specifically Ontario Street) being the principal dividing line with value shifts depending where a property falls either west or east of Ontario Street. In one sample block with similar housing stock on either side, properties west of Ontario were worth between $100,000 to $300,000 more than their counterparts east of it.

East of Main Patterns

7 percent of our study parcels east of Main were equal or more than $1 million in the 2011 BC Assessment or conversely, 93 percent of our study parcels were under $1 million.

West of Main Patterns

89 percent of our study parcels west of Main were equal or more than $1 million in the 2011 BC Assessment or conversely, 11 percent of parcels were under $1 million.

This Study in the News

An interesting web dialogue has occured with the publication of this map and two subsequent analysis are of particular note: one written by Pete McMartin in the Vancouver Sun and another by Gordon Price on his blog: Price Tags. Thank you, Pete and Gordon for sharing your insights on these patterns.

Data Desk, Research Papers December 10, 2011

Main Street: The City of Vancouver’s Million Dollar Line?

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.

Data Desk, Media, Research Papers July 14, 2011

Sea Level Rise will Mark a Sea Change for Vancouver Coastline

New Toolkit Designed by BTAworks for Understanding Sea Level Rise in the City of Vancouver Now Available

Click image for slideshow (in Flash)

BTAworks, the research and development division of Bing Thom Architects, has published a new community toolkit exploring the effects and costs of sea level rise in the City of Vancouver. Inspired by similar projects in San Francisco, New York City, and the Netherlands, the Local Effects of Global Climate Change in the City of Vancouver toolkit provides a sobering local view of the City’s coastline.

“We wanted to inform a civic conversation on sea level rise which takes it from a global to a neighborhood level” says Eileen Keenan, a BTAworks researcher. “Instead of a far off example like the Maldives, we wanted to illustrate how the City of Vancouver and beloved local landmarks like Granville Island might be affected by various sea level rise scenarios.”

Using data from the City of Vancouver’s Open Data Catalogue and through a series of maps, the toolkit illustrates a number of sea level rise scenarios from a 1 metre to a 6 metres which could severely affect 3 to 13 percent of the City’s landmass. The toolkit also charts how various types of land uses such agricultural, industrial, and residential might be affected.

“Not all land uses in the City would be equally affected by sea level change.” observes Keenan, “As a legacy of our city roots as a port, and location at the mouth of the Fraser River delta, land with industrial and agricultural uses would be the most vulnerable to rising sea levels”.

The toolkit also examined some of the financial implications of sea level rise. Using a recently published provincial paper on sea dikes as a technical reference and its estimate of a 1 metre sea level rise for the coast line of British Columbia by 2100, the toolkit was able to generate estimates on some of the financial implications of sea level rise.

“If we expect key infrastructure and public investments like sewage plants and parks to last over 100 years, this provincial paper provides some major scientific and engineering insights into what and where we can build”, Keenan mentions. “This report represents the best and most current thought on how the BC coastline might change in the face of sea level rise and a framework through which we developed our toolkit estimates”.

While a 1 metre sea level rise seems conservative, its implications are dramatic when various coastal engineering criteria such as high tides and storm surges are accounted for. According to the provincial report, 5.6 metres could become the new flood construction elevation level in the Vancouver harbour for the year 2100 once these are factored in.

When combined with the 2011 land assessment values, the BTAworks toolkit estimates that over $25 billion worth of Vancouver real estate could be negatively affected by sea level rise. Additionally, the researchers caution that this does not reflect the value of existing physical and utilities infrastructure such as roads, sewers, and electrical facilities on these lands. When this is accounted for, the final costs of sea level rise are much higher.

The toolkit goes into further detail with the costs of defending Vancouver shoreline. Depending on the type of coastal defense, from earth dike to seawall, it could cost $255 to $510 million; however, Keenan notes that this estimate does not include any land acquisition for these dikes which could go into the billions.

“This is a cursory look at the potential costs and effects of sea level rise to City, but we felt that some kind of dollar estimate can illustrate what is at stake for Vancouver and, indeed, when it comes to sea level rise. Much more research and collaboration needs to be done to fine tune it.”

The toolkit concludes with the three recommendations. Firstly it concludes that the tool kit is a first step towards understanding the impact of sea level rise, but that a Metro Vancouver wide study is badly needed as a piecemeal municipality by municipality study is not enough. It points to the need for data for all municipalities to be readily available to facilitate this work. Secondly, it highlights the need for public and policy discussions around developing a Sea Level Rise Planning Area for those portions of the coastline that would be the most heavily affected by rising sea levels. This type of zoning would help us to place major land use and infrastructure changes in the context of a changing coastline. Thirdly, a need for a popular education program to educate citizens about the challenges to both the city and the region caused by sea rise and suggest what they might be able to do about it.

“This toolkit emphasizes the importance and value of long term urban planning and public education. We are very proud to help bring this critical issue forward for public discussion and study.” says Michael Heeney, a partner at Bing Thom Architects. “While these scenarios only offer a peek of the world at the end of this century, we owe it to future generations to begin preparing for this future today”.

To download the project news release and toolkit, click:

The Local Effects of Global Climate Change in the City of Vancouver: A Community Toolkit and Atlas News Release (PDF)

The Local Effects of Global Climate Change in the City of Vancouver: A Community Toolkit and Atlas (PDF)

The Local Effects of Global Climate Change in the City of Vancouver: An Atlas (PDF)

Media Contact

Eileen Keenan
BTAworks Researcher
ekeenan@btaworks.com
(604) 682-1881

Data Desk, Research Papers November 18, 2010

School Enrollment Growth and Decline in Burnaby, Coquitlam, Richmond, Surrey, and Vancouver

School enrollment can provide key insights into a city’s vitality and social sustainability. This brief builds up the findings of the September 2009 BTAworks’ study on the public elementary school enrollment patterns in the City of Vancouver and extends its scope to examine the five largest public and independent (private) primary and secondary school enrollment patterns in the Metro Vancouver region — Burnaby, Coquitlam, Richmond, Surrey, and Vancouver. With data provided by the British Columbia Ministry of Education, this data brief compiles standard enrollment data from the 1991/92 to 2009/10 school years with a focus on the most recent ten school years of 2000/01 to 2009/10. To place these numbers in a context, this brief also examines the state of enrollment in independent schools for these cities as well as school age population estimates and birth rate statistics from StatsBC

Brief highlights include:

In the span of 10 school years (2000/01-2009/10), total public school enrollment in Burnaby, Coquitlam, Richmond, Surrey, and Vancouver declined by 0.3 percent (-617). However, growth and decline in public school enrollment is very uneven as cities like Vancouver and Coquitlam declined by 3,092 (-5.5 percent) and 2,451 students (-7.4 percent) respectively whereas Surrey grew by 6,452 students (11 percent).
Surrey has the only public school enrollment to grow as Vancouver, Burnaby, Richmond, and Coquitlam shrunk by four to seven percent.
Since the 1999/2000 school year, the public elementary and secondary school system in Surrey has had the largest enrollment in the Metro Vancouver region.
Independent school enrollment has grown by 19 percent (5,300 students) on average in 10 years.
Growth in independent school enrollment in Burnaby, Richmond, Surrey, and Vancouver ranges from 0.1 to 36 percent.
Public school enrollment declines in Burnaby and Vancouver have occurred while the population of school aged children (aged 5-18) is at near 10 year highs in these cities.
Average birth rates in the region are at record lows.
From a 20 year perspective, the school age population in every school district is at an all time high.
40 percent of independent schools in Burnaby, Coquitlam, Richmond, Surrey, and Vancouver are less than 20 years old.
The decline in public school enrollment may not necessarily be attributed towards just the student outflow into the independent system and the user fragmentation of primary and secondary education, but also the effects of changing demography and housing costs and type to restrain the growth of the total number of families with children and number of children in Metro Vancouver.
Enrollment patterns illustrate a set of large urban planning consequences, challenges, and opportunities for cities in the region in term of affordable family oriented housing for low and middle income families, family oriented development and the intensification and densification of schools as an “educational land reserve”.
Between a growing school aged student population, higher relative birth rates, and affordable family oriented housing, growing public and independent school enrollment will likely remain the strongest in the City of Surrey for the near and intermediate future.

To download the brief and presentation, click:

Public and Independent School Enrollment Growth and Decline in Burnaby, Coquitlam, Richmond, Surrey, and Vancouver Data Brief (PDF)

Public and Independent School Enrollment Growth and Decline in Burnaby, Coquitlam, Richmond, Surrey, and Vancouver Summary Presentation (PDF)

For Media Contacts:
Andrew Yan
BTAworks Researcher
ayan@btaworks.com
(604) 682-1881

Data Desk, Media, Observations, Research Papers March 31, 2010

Climate Change and the City of Vancouver

The Georgia Straight recently published on cover article on BTAworks’ upcoming atlas and toolkit on the Neighborhood Effects of Global Climate Change. Click here to read the article. Watch this blog for Part One of the publication!

Data Desk, Research Papers September 28, 2009

Where Have All the Children Gone?

VANCOUVER – Research reveals that since 2004, enrollment in public elementary schools in the City of Vancouver has declined by more than 13 percent (over 2,600 students) — a continuation of a steady enrollment decline since 2000.

“While our overall City population has grown, it is surprising to discover that public elementary school enrollment has actually been on the decline by so much and for such a long time”, observed Andrew Yan, a BTAworks researcher and Urban Planner who wrote the brief. “Almost 20 percent of all Vancouver public elementary schools lost more than 20 percent of their students over the last 5 school years”.

BTAworks, the research and development division of Bing Thom Architects examined enrollment data from the Ministry of Education as part of their ongoing series focused on the health and sustainability of Vancouver neighborhoods and the overall city.

Yan notes that enrollment decline was very geographically uneven, with schools in the Northeast section of the City facing the largest losses while school enrollment on the City’s west side remained largely stable and, in certain cases, increased.

Elementary schools in the Northeast of the city, such as Lord Nelson, Walter Moberly, and Queen Alexandra lost about 25 percent of their enrollment, with William McDonald losing 50 percent of its student enrollment over the 5 most recent school years while Kerrisdale and Lord Tennyson saw 20 percent increases over the same period.

While some have suggested that an exodus of students to the independent school system accounts for this loss of students, Yan notes that growth in the private system in the same time frame only accounts for a partial number of missing elementary students.

“There is no single reason behind this decline in public elementary school enrollment, but the perfect storm created by factors such as an aging city and shrinking family sizes, combined with an open boundaries policy for all City of Vancouver schools and an outflow of independent schools who all have a role. This is compounded by a lack of affordable housing that is suitable for young families with children”, Yan suggests.

“If we cannot create a city where families want to send their children to the school down the block, what chances do we have of creating the greenest city in the world?”, said Michael Heeney, a principal at Bing Thom Architects, “This brief highlights one of the most basic sustainability challenges we have in the City of Vancouver.”

Heeney concludes, “Schools are only one example of millions of dollars of existing child supportive infrastructure in this city that runs the risk of being wasted. Like the proverbial canary in the coal mine, the decline in elementary school enrollment may also mean that families will start to disappear from Vancouver as well.”

The full data brief is available at www.btaworks.com.

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BTAworks Elementary School Enrollment Media Release (PDF)

BTAworks Elementary School Enrollment Data Brief (PDF)

BTAworks Elementary School Enrollment Map (PDF)

Media Contact
Andrew Yan
Researcher/Urban Planner
ayan@btaworks.com
(604) 682-1881

Data Desk, Research Papers August 19, 2009

Who might the next 120,000 Vancouverites be?

For most of the City of Vancouver’s history, population growth has symbolized the vitality and the desirability of the City and its region. In its first 25 years, Vancouver grew by 700 percent. Since the end of the Second World War, the City has grown steadily by 15 percent every 10 years with the exception of a downturn in the early 1980s. Projecting into 2021, Vancouver is set to grow another 15 percent by 2011 and 6 percent by 2021. If these projections are true, a major planning dilemma for the City will be where to put the next 120,000 new Vancouverites in the next 12 years.

Growth by itself does not necessarily shape cities. Questions of “how many?” need to be tempered by inquiries into “Who they are?” The answers between these two questions have deep implications in shaping the economic, social, and cultural life of any city. In this next series of entries, we’ll explore some of the characteristics, distribution, and consequences of recent population growth in the City of Vancouver – all of which perhaps provides a glimpse into the City’s future.

Research Papers May 25, 2009

Downtown ‘Empty Condo’ phenomenon largely a myth, study finds

For Release

Vancouver, British Columbia – The popular belief that there are large numbers of empty downtown condos with offshore owners is largely disproved by a new study released by BTAworks. The study, undertaken to examine condo ownership in Downtown Vancouver also confirmed that the majority of the area’s condos are not-owner occupied.

BTAworks, a new research and development consulting division of Bing Thom Architects, examined data from the City of Vancouver, BC Assessment, BC Hydro, and the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation for 2,400 condos in Downtown Vancouver – almost 10 percent of all the condos in the area.

“Working with BC Hydro data, we were able to determine that only 5.5 to 8 percent of study condos were unoccupied.” states Andrew Yan, a BTAworks researcher and Urban Planner who led the study. “While the number of empty condos in Downtown Vancouver is low, condos in our study were typically non-owner occupied, but rented out by their owners”.

In addition to an estimate on empty condos, the study found that:

Condo ownership is a relatively new form of housing for Vancouver. Over 88 percent of condo units in Downtown Vancouver have been built since 1990.
Less than 40 percent of downtown condos have more than one bedroom.
The majority of condos are not occupied by the property owner.
The majority of non-owner occupied condos are owned by BC residents, with a scattering of foreign owners, predominately from the western US states such as California, Washington, and Arizona.
Owner-occupied units are typically worth $30,000 to $40,000 more than non-owner occupied units, and the more bedrooms the unit has, the more likely it is to be owner occupied.
A family with one child in the City of Vancouver earning the median income of $75,000 a year would have great difficulty in finding and paying for a condo bigger than one bedroom, even if condo prices were to fall 25 percent below 2008 assessment levels.

The study findings outline some of the elements behind Downtown Vancouver’s remarkable housing boom and suggests that the majority of growth in Downtown condos has been dominated by investors and those looking for a second home, rather than homeowners. These trends signal emerging housing and planning challenges in providing suitable and affordable housing for working and middle-income households, especially those with children.

“If Vancouverism 1.0 is embodied by tall skinny towers and one bedroom, investor-driven condominium projects for Downtown Vancouver, then Vancouverism 2.0 needs to redress this imbalance by providing more affordable family-oriented housing units with great supporting amenities,” concludes Yan. “Without this, the sustainable communities with opportunities to live, work and prosper that the City aspires to are likely unachievable.”

“We’re proud to fund this study and inform the ongoing and important housing and planning dialogues occurring in the City” said Bing Thom, principal of Bing Thom Architects. “Vancouver is often viewed as a global example of downtown residential development and we must work to ensure that what we are modeling for the world has substance with a commitment to affordable and suitable urban housing for families with children to stay and grow with our city.”

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BTAworks Condo Study Media Release (PDF)

BTAworks Condo Study Full Report (PDF)

Media Contact
Andrew Yan
Researcher/Urban Planner
ayan@btaworks.com
(604) 682-1881