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By Observer (anonymous) | Posted April 18, 2013 at 01:03:22
Ryan you say:
1) "These days, Vancouver looms tall (ahem) as an example of urbanism done mostly right." and
2) "Vancouver followed a much different growth strategy. Urban planners, theorists and observers increasingly recognize that the Vancouver model, often called "Vancouverism" of late, hews pretty closely to urbanist recommendations."
You further make sweeping generalizations about Vancouver and even Toronto based on your understanding of urban form and urban growth. But are things really the way you think they are? Here is Vancouver's reality and it is very scary.
These are comments from someone living in Vancouver:
1) "The Vision Vancouver city council is absolutely complicit in turning Vancouver from a livable city of neighbourhoods to a sterile forest of empty investor owned condos. Citizens who are appalled at how the city's heart and soul is being demolished to make way for more empty glass condos needs to become active in removing Vision (and keeping the NPA) from power in the next election. We've had enough of city councils who do the bidding of developers while giving Vancouver citizens their middle finger. This is our city, and it's high time we took it back."
2) "Yes condos have become a huge business here, but few are being built for those retiring from their houses. With many being built over or beside shopping centers, with very small rooms, no local I know is interested in them. They are obviously being built for those who see them as an investment. When a 37 story high rise over a shopping center that won't be completed for 4+ years sells out in 4 hours, we know it's got to be speculative buying."
These comments are in an article on Vancouver's real estate bubble:
"It’s a problem when Vancouver condos sell, but the lights stay off",
by KERRY GOLD,
Special to The Globe and Mail,
Friday, Apr. 12 2013
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/home-and-garden/real-estate/its-a-problem-when-vancouver-condos-sell-but-the-lights-stay-off/article11147711/
This article is in striking contrast to your understanding of Vancouver:
"If the data released during a panel discussion at Simon Fraser University two weeks ago revealed anything, it’s that empty condos point to a city of speculators and investors. And it doesn’t matter if those investors are from Mainland China, Iran or Ladner. They’re pushing up property prices by using Vancouver real estate to store their money as if it were one giant “safety deposit box,” to quote one of the panelists."
“The issue is speculation; that was the heart of my presentation,” says Andy Yan, an urban planner and statistics junkie who works for Bing Thom Architects. Mr. Yan gave a presentation that showed a substantial number of condos in downtown Vancouver are empty, and his new report made headlines."
“The empty condo thing is a bit of urban mythology busting, but does it really matter?” asks Mr. Yan, over coffee a few days later. Mr. Yan, who’s a third-generation Vancouverite, received his masters in urban planning at the University of California. He’s spent the last several years digging deep into Vancouver’s real estate market."
“How about the fact that, oh, 50 to 60 per cent of condos are investor owned? And what the economic situation of that does for a real estate market?”
Here is another article on Vancouver:
"Nearly a quarter of Vancouver’s condos are empty, but Gen Y still can’t afford to buy in"
By Steve Mertl, Daily Brew, Thursday, 21 Mar, 2013:
"They're called Generation Y, aged 19 to 33, and the Y could stand for "why can't I afford to buy a home?" A survey conducted for the real estate firm Royal LePage shows most want to own their own home at some point but a majority worry they'll never be able to afford one as the gap between house prices and their earning power widens."
"Interestingly, 66 per cent of Baby Boomers in the poll — which had an error margin of plus or minus three per cent 19 times out of 20 — also worried about home affordability. The affordability issue is especially acute in British Columbia, where about one in five Gen Y respondents found renting preferable to home ownership, compared with less than 15 per cent nationally, and almost 40 per cent said they expected to rent their next primary residence."
"In Vancouver's bustling downtown, where a forest of condo high-rises has sprung up over the last 20 years, the number of empty units equals 35 towers, each 20 storeys high, the Globe said. Vancouverites have debated the effect of foreign — mainly Chinese — involvement in the city's real estate market for years, and Yan's analysis contradicts claims made previously that the phenomenon is not distorting the market."
"While it's impossible to know exactly why so many condo apartments are empty, Yan said the data indicates Vancouver is creating neighbourhoods that appear dense but actually aren't because they don't have an active full-time population, the Globe said."
This comment by west side observer, March 21st, 2013, at http://vancouvercondo.info/2013/03/have-we-built-too-many-condos.html sums up the enormous problems of Vancouver:
"Mr. Yan discussed downtown condos, but my sense is that the same situation prevails, & is perhaps more extreme, in some neighbourhoods in Vancouver Westside. Every year, West Pt. Grey more closely resembles a ghost town. The irony is that laneway houses are now popping up, which are also unoccupied."
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