Article of the Week, May 5-11, 2024: Could this be Oak Bay’s Future?
(Much more Information Oak Bay Watch Perspective - Please Share: oakbaywatch.com)
NOTHING WILL LAST FOREVER, INCLUDING MY NEIGHBOURHOOD
New modes of housing desperately needed, but change takes a toll, says Lora Grindlay. Vancouver Sun 19, April 2024
(Much more Information Oak Bay Watch Perspective - Please Share: oakbaywatch.com)
NOTHING WILL LAST FOREVER, INCLUDING MY NEIGHBOURHOOD
New modes of housing desperately needed, but change takes a toll, says Lora Grindlay. Vancouver Sun 19, April 2024
sHome
Twenty-one years ago, my husband and I bought a 1940s bungalow on Renfrew Street in east Vancouver. We had a three-month-old baby boy, and a home on a busy street with pink shag carpet and Smurf wallpaper. I pushed the stroller around my neighbourhood when I was too tired to drive — the boy only slept while in motion. So, we walked. We got to know our neighbours. Three years later, our daughter was born. We walked some more.
In one house, my husband met his best friend — that once-in-a-lifetime kind of pal who has become part of our family. He also had young kids, and for a few years they rented a house just down the lane. That house is gone.
Next door to them, in a tiny, old house, we met a family that became beloved. They were children of hard-working Italian immigrants who had built a home. They also had kids, and we spent hours together with them — the sisters, the brother, on the lawn, on the stoop, drinking slightly sparkly homemade wine. Trees were climbed, tears were shed (adults and kids), and we watched our kids grow up. That house is gone.
There was a large family that lived in a small home two houses north. They had cats, and when they ran out of cat food, they would come over to get some. Both the owners and the cats. That house is gone.
Way back, there was a fellow from Prince Edward Island, a carpenter, who rented a small house four houses north. We would walk down the lane toward Notre Dame Secondary every night after dinner. He always had a wave for the kids. That house is gone.
Just southwest by a few houses was what the kids and I called the Abandoned Cat House — and still do, even though it was replaced by a $3-million duplex with a laneway house and a Tesla plugged in out back. The fun the kids and I had, taking cat food and water up the lane, putting it out and looking for kittens.
Welcome to east Van, where if you blink you will miss another house coming down. Cars multiply like bunnies outside your home. Blocks of single-family homes have been sold to developers, torn down and replaced with six-storey apartments, not enough of which are affordable for anyone I know. Note: Many of Vancouver’s neighbourhoods were very much like Oak Bays. This changed after Expo86 (1986).
We need housing, we need affordable housing, we need purpose-built rental housing. There is no question. You won't hear me complaining about the dump trucks, the excavators idling outside my windows — it's temporary and means people (at least those with a thick bankroll) will have a place to live.
Problems need to be solved, solutions are messy and disruptive, and nothing lasts forever — including my neighbourhood. Another metamorphosis is underway and that's OK. I tell myself that I can't be the only one to lament, even for a moment, what has been here before.
There are four new duplexes a block away. They are all shades of grey, positioned on the same spot on the lots, with identical garages. And it feels like the suburbs are coming for us.
But in the end, it is the people who create a neighbourhood, not the homes. We got to know people, not their houses.
The characters in a neighbourhood are what will make you feel grounded there. I see the newcomers, those who are sharing walls and a yard with their neighbours in a duplex, and believe that they too will find some solid footing here.
And to those of you on the west side who don't think it will happen there — believe me, it's coming, and it's going to change your world. Those homes, those lawns, those steps you visited your friends on, they will be history.
So, here's to the longshoremen who planted grapes, figs and plum trees in east Vancouver decades ago. Here's to the widows living alone in the homes where they raised their families, simply unwilling to move because it is home.
Here's to the beautiful gardens that have been planted and tended for decades, only to be dug up in minutes by heavy machinery.
Here's to the life of the 97-yearold Italian lady down the lane who just passed away. Up until a few months ago, I would see her in her garden and walking to the bus stop. Her family gathered under a tent in the yard to say goodbye.
Here's to the unique flavour of a street where every home was a little different, constructed when the future was bright, the possibilities were endless and there were yards to play in.
Another house just came down the other day, five houses south. When the kids were young, we would walk there up the lane — they had a hot tub and there was always revelry. I would wave, lift the kids up so they could say hello over the fence.
That house, they told me, was basically a cabin, built with a fireplace but no furnace. It was tiny, and B.C. Assessment tells me it was built in 1924 — 100 years ago. When those neighbours moved out, they brought over a few plants they wanted me to save. I still have them in my garden.
When I saw an excavator in that yard while walking last week, alone now without any kids in tow, I knew what had to be done. I grabbed my shovel, dug up half a dozen plants — some foxgloves, some sedums — and brought them home.
The next day, to the sound of the house coming down, I planted them in my garden. The dump truck rolled by with the rubble, another bin of debris, another rat population spreading around the neighbourhood, another family's history a memory.
Here's to the unique flavour of a street where every home was a little different.
Oak Bay Watch Perspective
Although Ms. Grindly must be commended for pointing out how wonderful her neighbourhood used to be. However, she doesn’t appear to quite understand the situation. Destroying neighbourhoods and heritage is not a concern these days. Albeit they have been a hallmark of North American society for the past hundred years plus.
What this neighbourhood change is really about is there is serious money to be made. And for some time now the message has been we must embrace change, apparently even if it has negative consequences. Perhaps real estate and development, reported as one of the four big drivers of Canada's economy, could be a factor.
This must generate a lot of profit for the beneficiaries? However, the beneficiaries obviously do not include the many who can’t afford to own a home or are renting at today’s exceptionally high, inflated rates. The two (commodity) housing industries have generated billions of dollars in profits over the years, due to the very few or limited government speculation restrictions. This lack of control has included large amounts of money laundering and foreign speculation.
It would be a good bet that a lot of the $500,000,000 million other countries invest in Canada annually was used to build, buy and sell real estate.
Most of these profits go back to these investor countries and they reap the financial benefits. Note: Investors do not invest in risky ventures or ones that continually lose their money.
It’s also more than likely investments from other countries were part of the funding used to buy up urban land and rental properties. This speculation has also gone unchecked for decades. This has also been a major factor in the escalation and increase in the cost of housing and rents.
Senior governments have acknowledged that they are concerned that many hard-working Canadians have been priced out of the market in their own country, as well as the ever-growing homeless population.
However, other than a few controls that have not reduced housing prices and rents, the only government response has been:
“The government is intent on using all possible tools to make housing more affordable for Canadians across the country.”
“We will make the market fairer for Canadians. We will prevent foreign investors from parking their money in Canada by buying up homes. We will make sure that houses are being used as homes for Canadian families rather than as a speculative financial asset class.” Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance.
“For years, foreign money has been coming into Canada to buy residential real estate, fueling concerns about the impact on costs in cities like Vancouver and Toronto and worries about Canadians being priced out of the housing market in cities and towns across the country.” Backgrounder on the housing market published online by the federal government’s finance department.
However, words are not actions. Canadians may have a long wait for any effective initiatives that will result in addressing the serious housing and rental crisis.
The Federal and Provincial Government’s supply side housing solution was recently (April 9, 2024) shot down by Burnaby's long-term Mayor, Mike Hurley, who stated:
“When senior levels of government keep throwing out there that the more houses we build the cheaper they'll get, I think they've been listening to developers too much,” Hurley said. “I haven't seen anywhere in the world where that's actually true. And I've asked people to provide me the data to back up what they're saying. And no one has ever been able to. There's just no proof.”
The Mayor was equally critical of the impact on failing infrastructures and other associated costs so many municipalities are facing, such as more transit, sewage treatment, schools and other infrastructure. He stated: “We used to plan neighbourhoods before we allowed density. But now, with the province's one-size-fits-all approach, you can build a sixplex on a single-family lot anywhere in the city."
“Howver It costs taxpayers an average of $1 million, to upgrade the infrastructure of a typical 100-metre row of detached houses to allow for fourplexes and sixplexes.”
Saanich Councillor Colin Plant recently voiced similar concerns about the Provincial governments excessive housing quotas. He said:
“I haven’t seen any details yet about how the Province will respond to the additional needs as a result of these housing targets”.
Twenty-one years ago, my husband and I bought a 1940s bungalow on Renfrew Street in east Vancouver. We had a three-month-old baby boy, and a home on a busy street with pink shag carpet and Smurf wallpaper. I pushed the stroller around my neighbourhood when I was too tired to drive — the boy only slept while in motion. So, we walked. We got to know our neighbours. Three years later, our daughter was born. We walked some more.
In one house, my husband met his best friend — that once-in-a-lifetime kind of pal who has become part of our family. He also had young kids, and for a few years they rented a house just down the lane. That house is gone.
Next door to them, in a tiny, old house, we met a family that became beloved. They were children of hard-working Italian immigrants who had built a home. They also had kids, and we spent hours together with them — the sisters, the brother, on the lawn, on the stoop, drinking slightly sparkly homemade wine. Trees were climbed, tears were shed (adults and kids), and we watched our kids grow up. That house is gone.
There was a large family that lived in a small home two houses north. They had cats, and when they ran out of cat food, they would come over to get some. Both the owners and the cats. That house is gone.
Way back, there was a fellow from Prince Edward Island, a carpenter, who rented a small house four houses north. We would walk down the lane toward Notre Dame Secondary every night after dinner. He always had a wave for the kids. That house is gone.
Just southwest by a few houses was what the kids and I called the Abandoned Cat House — and still do, even though it was replaced by a $3-million duplex with a laneway house and a Tesla plugged in out back. The fun the kids and I had, taking cat food and water up the lane, putting it out and looking for kittens.
Welcome to east Van, where if you blink you will miss another house coming down. Cars multiply like bunnies outside your home. Blocks of single-family homes have been sold to developers, torn down and replaced with six-storey apartments, not enough of which are affordable for anyone I know. Note: Many of Vancouver’s neighbourhoods were very much like Oak Bays. This changed after Expo86 (1986).
We need housing, we need affordable housing, we need purpose-built rental housing. There is no question. You won't hear me complaining about the dump trucks, the excavators idling outside my windows — it's temporary and means people (at least those with a thick bankroll) will have a place to live.
Problems need to be solved, solutions are messy and disruptive, and nothing lasts forever — including my neighbourhood. Another metamorphosis is underway and that's OK. I tell myself that I can't be the only one to lament, even for a moment, what has been here before.
There are four new duplexes a block away. They are all shades of grey, positioned on the same spot on the lots, with identical garages. And it feels like the suburbs are coming for us.
But in the end, it is the people who create a neighbourhood, not the homes. We got to know people, not their houses.
The characters in a neighbourhood are what will make you feel grounded there. I see the newcomers, those who are sharing walls and a yard with their neighbours in a duplex, and believe that they too will find some solid footing here.
And to those of you on the west side who don't think it will happen there — believe me, it's coming, and it's going to change your world. Those homes, those lawns, those steps you visited your friends on, they will be history.
So, here's to the longshoremen who planted grapes, figs and plum trees in east Vancouver decades ago. Here's to the widows living alone in the homes where they raised their families, simply unwilling to move because it is home.
Here's to the beautiful gardens that have been planted and tended for decades, only to be dug up in minutes by heavy machinery.
Here's to the life of the 97-yearold Italian lady down the lane who just passed away. Up until a few months ago, I would see her in her garden and walking to the bus stop. Her family gathered under a tent in the yard to say goodbye.
Here's to the unique flavour of a street where every home was a little different, constructed when the future was bright, the possibilities were endless and there were yards to play in.
Another house just came down the other day, five houses south. When the kids were young, we would walk there up the lane — they had a hot tub and there was always revelry. I would wave, lift the kids up so they could say hello over the fence.
That house, they told me, was basically a cabin, built with a fireplace but no furnace. It was tiny, and B.C. Assessment tells me it was built in 1924 — 100 years ago. When those neighbours moved out, they brought over a few plants they wanted me to save. I still have them in my garden.
When I saw an excavator in that yard while walking last week, alone now without any kids in tow, I knew what had to be done. I grabbed my shovel, dug up half a dozen plants — some foxgloves, some sedums — and brought them home.
The next day, to the sound of the house coming down, I planted them in my garden. The dump truck rolled by with the rubble, another bin of debris, another rat population spreading around the neighbourhood, another family's history a memory.
Here's to the unique flavour of a street where every home was a little different.
Oak Bay Watch Perspective
Although Ms. Grindly must be commended for pointing out how wonderful her neighbourhood used to be. However, she doesn’t appear to quite understand the situation. Destroying neighbourhoods and heritage is not a concern these days. Albeit they have been a hallmark of North American society for the past hundred years plus.
What this neighbourhood change is really about is there is serious money to be made. And for some time now the message has been we must embrace change, apparently even if it has negative consequences. Perhaps real estate and development, reported as one of the four big drivers of Canada's economy, could be a factor.
This must generate a lot of profit for the beneficiaries? However, the beneficiaries obviously do not include the many who can’t afford to own a home or are renting at today’s exceptionally high, inflated rates. The two (commodity) housing industries have generated billions of dollars in profits over the years, due to the very few or limited government speculation restrictions. This lack of control has included large amounts of money laundering and foreign speculation.
It would be a good bet that a lot of the $500,000,000 million other countries invest in Canada annually was used to build, buy and sell real estate.
Most of these profits go back to these investor countries and they reap the financial benefits. Note: Investors do not invest in risky ventures or ones that continually lose their money.
It’s also more than likely investments from other countries were part of the funding used to buy up urban land and rental properties. This speculation has also gone unchecked for decades. This has also been a major factor in the escalation and increase in the cost of housing and rents.
Senior governments have acknowledged that they are concerned that many hard-working Canadians have been priced out of the market in their own country, as well as the ever-growing homeless population.
However, other than a few controls that have not reduced housing prices and rents, the only government response has been:
“The government is intent on using all possible tools to make housing more affordable for Canadians across the country.”
“We will make the market fairer for Canadians. We will prevent foreign investors from parking their money in Canada by buying up homes. We will make sure that houses are being used as homes for Canadian families rather than as a speculative financial asset class.” Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance.
“For years, foreign money has been coming into Canada to buy residential real estate, fueling concerns about the impact on costs in cities like Vancouver and Toronto and worries about Canadians being priced out of the housing market in cities and towns across the country.” Backgrounder on the housing market published online by the federal government’s finance department.
However, words are not actions. Canadians may have a long wait for any effective initiatives that will result in addressing the serious housing and rental crisis.
The Federal and Provincial Government’s supply side housing solution was recently (April 9, 2024) shot down by Burnaby's long-term Mayor, Mike Hurley, who stated:
“When senior levels of government keep throwing out there that the more houses we build the cheaper they'll get, I think they've been listening to developers too much,” Hurley said. “I haven't seen anywhere in the world where that's actually true. And I've asked people to provide me the data to back up what they're saying. And no one has ever been able to. There's just no proof.”
The Mayor was equally critical of the impact on failing infrastructures and other associated costs so many municipalities are facing, such as more transit, sewage treatment, schools and other infrastructure. He stated: “We used to plan neighbourhoods before we allowed density. But now, with the province's one-size-fits-all approach, you can build a sixplex on a single-family lot anywhere in the city."
“Howver It costs taxpayers an average of $1 million, to upgrade the infrastructure of a typical 100-metre row of detached houses to allow for fourplexes and sixplexes.”
Saanich Councillor Colin Plant recently voiced similar concerns about the Provincial governments excessive housing quotas. He said:
“I haven’t seen any details yet about how the Province will respond to the additional needs as a result of these housing targets”.