Housing Issues

 I will give back the outlines today.  On Wednesday, there will be a Geography Career event with former Geography students talking about what they are doing with their degrees. It will be in Room 217 from 10:00 to 11:00 a.m. There will be refreshments. Please come out.  There is an interesting movement of cities called C40, devoted to fighting and adapting to climate change. See

 There are a number of key issues related to housing:  density  housing choice  impact on social interaction  ecological impacts, and  affordability.

 Acceptable density is partly influenced by culture and history. In Hong Kong and Singapore, high- rises are common. In Chinese cities, hutong-style housing was more common, but these are being demolished to make way for high-rises.

 In Arab countries, courtyard housing has been common.

 In Eastern Europe, many slab towers were built after the Communists took over, but this was a common form in postwar Western Europe as well.

 In Western Europe, while high-rises exist, 4- and 5-storey walk-up apartments are common, and single-detached homes are less common than in North America.

 In Europe, such walk-ups are mixed use. Only in North America is the single-detached home the norm (even in areas deemed ‘slums’), though that is slowly changing.

Source: Community Profile (Nanaimo), Economic Development Office of Nanaimo

 The point is to give people choice of housing styles and densities, with associated land use mixes, and not impose a monochromatic pattern.  There is such a variety available – single- detached homes, duplexes, four-plexes, townhouses, stacked townhouses, laneway homes, walk-up apartments, high-rises, and yet other variations. And these can be configured in various ways. Even single-detached homes can have more than one suite.

 Leaving aside cultural differences for the moment (some North Americans prefer to be isolated on their 5-acre parcel), these different housing styles affect social interaction.  Single-detached tends to minimize, though there are significant exceptions, and high-rises tend to isolate people as well.  In my co-op, most of the units are stacked townhouses, so people often become friends or acquaintances because of casual encounters in coming and going.

 Patrick Condon’s Chapter 6 offers an extensive discussion of the pros and cons of different housing types, particularly from the standpoint of greenhouse gas (GHG) production. His feeling is that low-rise, medium density tends to perform the best. He is not a big fan of high-rises.  Without access to shading trees, they are exposed to solar gain and wind for many hours of the day, and heat penetrates the glass. Towers require air- conditioning and energy for elevators. He writes: “towers consume 50 percent more energy per habitable space that do mid-rise structures” (p. 98).  One thing in their favour is that they are more space-efficient.

 Other ecological issues associated with housing are energy consumption (do buildings have shared walls to boost efficiency?), does development consume more ‘raw land,’ does it constitute a unit and resident density sufficient to support transit, and is it associated with mixed use that facilitates more walking and cycling and less driving? In the relatively dense downtown core of Vancouver, 50% walk, cycle or take transit to work.

 Vancouver, next to Hong Kong, is the least affordable city in the world. The benchmark price for a detached house on Vancouver’s less desirable east side is close to a million dollars! Prices on Vancouver Island and on the Gulf Islands are pretty steep as well.  In the old days, federal and provincial governments assisted in the creation of co- ops and social housing, but that for the most part ended over twenty years ago.

 In 2007, Smart Growth BC published a “Review of Best Practices in Affordable Housing” (see ).  In that report, they review a number of policies, programs and strategies, including inclusionary zoning density bonusing rent control resale price restrictions secondary suite policy rental housing banks, and housing funds, etc.  In addition, they also talk about the value of co- ops, co-housing, and community land trusts.

 Other possible measures include: a speculation tax (In the case of the U.S.) disallowing tax credits on second and third homes rent vouchers disallowing conversion of rental to condo, or conversion of multi-suite single-family to single-family  Can you think of other possible measures?  As Matt Hern writes, “The market puts us in a Faustian bargain: almost any attempt to beautify, improve, develop, or embolden a community inevitably means it will price out its most vulnerable citizens and undermine all that good work.” The irony, as he points out, is that the Sunnyside neighbourhood in Portland where City Repair has done so much good work is now longer affordable for the activists!

 One alternative is the Champlain Housing Trust in Burlington and northwestern Vermont. In Burlington alone, it has over 2500 members, with 410 owner-occupied houses, 100 co-op apartments, 1200 units of rental housing, and fifteen non-residential buildings as well as condos. And all this in a city of only 40,000 people! ideo.aspx?xtid=32375&loid=36269&psid=0&sid= 0&State=&title=Housing%20America:%20Demograp hics%20and%20Development&IsSearch=Y&parentSe riesID= ideo.aspx?xtid=32375&loid=36269&psid=0&sid= 0&State=&title=Housing%20America:%20Demograp hics%20and%20Development&IsSearch=Y&parentSe riesID  Vancouver is experimenting with housing land trusts as well.