Douglas Todd: Politicians are asking tower developers for fewer aesthetic features and community amenities. Residents lose, and prices still don’t go down.
Advocates of higher density housing in Metro Vancouver often challenge opponents by demanding they look at how the West End, with its scores of residential highrises, has turned out pretty well.
And, at first glance, they seem to have a point. The West End is livable not only because it borders on the beaches of English Bay, the promenades of Burrard Harbour and the wonders of Stanley Park, one of the world’s greatest urban forests. The West End is also a pretty attractive place because most of the towers there fit into the neighbourhood. Tens of thousands of West End renters and condo owners are the beneficiaries of enlightened city policies that go back 20 to 50 years — when politicians were far more demanding of property developers.
Back then, when city councillors granted builders the profitable right to construct towers higher than permitted under existing zoning, they were legally required to include amenities such as expansive gardens, courtyards, open entryways, trees and parking spots.
In addition, Vancouver politicians of decades ago demanded that companies that built major highrise developments had to significantly finance new parks, playing fields, seaside promenades and community centres. Residents today get to enjoy them.
And it’s not just nostalgia to miss them. There are lessons to be drawn from how, compared with the past, there is precious little open ground left on tower sites, while sidewalks grow tighter.
Even though the “conditional zoning” schemes of the past haven’t been entirely abandoned in Vancouver, they have weakened so much that now many 45-storey-plus glass and steel residential towers are being crammed with smaller units and onto tiny lots.
And that’s because of an unintended consequence of politicians’ ostensibly well-meaning efforts to reduce housing prices, which are among the most expensive in the world.
Politicians have been convinced developers will be able to charge cheaper home prices and rents if they’re given the green light to build more units on less land — and provide fewer amenities.
The idea seems to make sense on the surface. But, tragically, it’s incorrect.
“It is counterintuitive. That’s part of the political and policy problem,” said Patrick Condon, a professor in the department of architecture at the University of B.C.
What many don’t realize is that when the city slashes its requirement for green space and other benefits on property that has been drastically upzoned, it simply increases the cost developers have to pay for the land. They than have to pass that on to homebuyers.
The upzoning therefore mostly makes landowners and speculators richer. It doesn’t lead to lower housing prices.
As Condon puts it slightly more technically, legislating mandatory upzoning without asking for major amenities from developers “merely increases the ‘land price residual,’ which is the amount the developer can afford to pay for the land after all other projected costs are calculated.”
When the city and province reduce expectations that highrise developers have to contribute to the public good through such things as attractive design and green spaces, Condon said, “you sadly increase the market cost of the ‘land price residual.’ That puts money that would have gone to public benefit into the pocket of the land speculator.”
In other words, the price of the land wouldn’t be as high if everyone knew beforehand that politicians were going to be requiring developers to provide green space and other amenities.
With the incredible rise in global and domestic property speculation in Metro, Condon says Vancouver councillors and the B.C. government “have forgotten the time when development more than ‘paid its way’ — and no one was hurt, not the home purchaser, nor the taxpayer.”
In the 1990s, Geller says, developers in Vancouver were often getting approvals to highrises, like in Kerrisdale, with a floor-to-space ratio (FSR) of two-to-one. That meant the buildings could have two times more floorspace than the lot area.
“But now the 20-storey towers set to be automatically approved along even the quiet residential streets of the Broadway corridor come with a ratio of up to six-to-one.” That will make them appear far more massive.
While some suggest not getting hung up on floor-to-space ratios, Geller says they matter: “Look at a person’s weight. At six feet tall, I would look quite different at 150 pounds compared to 300 pounds.”
Indeed.
No matter which way you describe it, as the requirements diminish for appealing buildings, green spaces and social benefits, so does the city.