A ‘Special’ Solution to the Housing Crisis: Uytae Lee's Stories About Here

foreign I want to talk about this house well not this specific house there are literally thousands of these houses across the city of Vancouver this one house it's called The Vancouver special and once you notice one of them you can't stop seeing them there's one there's another one there's a group of them a red one a green one a blue one so how does a city end up with so many copies of one specific house well I think the answer might offer some lessons for Canada's housing crisis [Music] Our Story begins in the 1960s the city of Vancouver was experiencing a boom in Immigration and housing in the city was running out people needed homes and vast enter Larry cudney a local draftsman and a guy who apparently hated taking photos because I can't find one of them literally anywhere he created a design for a house that would eventually become known as the Vancouver special it was simple and cheap to build its key feature a low pitched roof meant you used fewer materials compared to a steeper roof but the Vancouver special wasn't just cheap it also exploited a loophole and that was because of its first floor at the time if you wanted to construct a house there were rules that limited the size of your building by limiting how much square footage you could build but the loophole back then your basement was not included in that square footage calculation and the definition of basement was a bit ambiguous the first floor of the Vancouver special was 18 inches below the ground and for the city's lawmakers that was enough to call it a basement so the entire first floor of this house was technically off the books this was a huge Advantage you could of course build a much bigger house but also this so-called basement often ended up being used as a whole new unit of housing you could have two separate families living under one roof now at the time this was technically illegal the city's rule stipulated that a house could only have one family no more but with this basement the Vancouver special helped people circumvent these rules on paper this was a one unit house even though it was often a two unit house in practice I want you to house on the streets and a two unit house in the sheets this made the Vancouver special perfect for many aspiring homeowners for immigrants with relatives they could house their extended family on the first floor for working class residents they could rent out that flora and used that income to pay their mortgage for these groups the Vancouver special became very popular and that leads to the final reason for why we built so many of these houses economies of scale as more and more Vancouver specials were built it became just way easier to build them the materials became standard in the construction industry and City staff began to recognize the design and improve it for construction more quickly in fact it's been reported that you could get the plans for a Vancouver special from Larry for 65 dollars and have it approved and built in about three weeks in the middle of a housing shortage the Vancouver special provided affordable housing for the people who really needed it it provided the most house for your buck with an extra unit of Housing and it was really really easy to build and boy did we build them around 10 000 Vancouver specials were constructed between 1965 to 1985. and while the Vancouver special is an exceptional example it certainly isn't alone most places have a specific house design that can be found all over the city these repetitive designs exist for a simple reason the easiest way to build a lot of housing really fast is to build the same house over and over and over again to me this story feels relevant right now many cities today find themselves with a shortage of Housing and part of the reason why is because building new housing is very difficult like the past there are rules that limit how much you can build on a piece of property often called zoning bylaws and in many cities most neighborhoods only allow for houses to be built in them these are known as single-family neighborhoods and they usually make up the majority of land in North American cities now you can actually apply to build something larger than a house in a single family neighborhood through a process called rezoning but that's where things get a lot more complicated rezoning typically requires multiple applications reports consulting firm council meeting public hearings and expertise of planning law tons of money and oh yeah about two years but even with all that effort there's still no guarantee that you will even be successful your application could be denied rezoning is a slow complicated and risky process now these rules and processes exist for a simple reason very few people in single-family neighborhoods want a high-rise or something more disruptive built next to their home but the problem is that these rules end up stifling any changes to these areas for example the application process for this co-housing development in east Vancouver took two years not the construction the application process when building new housing is this difficult the usual result is that no new housing gets built at all [Music] so that gets me thinking what if we had a new Vancouver special a building that's cheap to build houses more people and is quickly approved for construction in all these single-family neighborhoods well there's actually something like that happening already in 2018 the City of Kelowna held a competition for designs that could fit multiple units of housing on properties within single-family neighborhoods the winning designs for a quad Plex were given a fast-tracked approval process normally this kind of building would take over a year to approve in these neighborhoods but with these designs you could start building in two to three weeks in the past two years over 200 of these quad plexes have been built creating over 800 new units of housing I think kelowna's story is pretty incredible and one that will likely result in a Kelowna special of sorts but there is another side to this story that complicates things at the height of its popularity the Vancouver special was perhaps the most hated piece of architecture in the city many complained that they were Bland ugly devoid of architecture and way too big but more than anything many felt that there were simply too many of them and at the end of the day the critics got their way in the 1980s the city officially made it illegal to build any more Vancouver specials right now the Kelowna special is meeting the same fate as of 2021 these quadplex designs are no longer being approved for construction a decision that came after concerns that too many of them were being built this sort of strikes at attention that I think exists at the heart of the housing crisis on one hand most of us do want more housing but on the other hand we tend to want it done in a way that doesn't change our communities too drastically we want new housing to be affordable but not look too tacky or repetitive so it's really no surprise to me that the Vancouver special and other designs like it have been controversial but there is an interesting twist to this story in the Years following the cancellation of Vancouver specials a wave of public sympathy grew around these houses they were recognized for their role in allowing immigrants and working-class people to build their own housing despite the criticisms of architecture snoms and social Elites today this house is viewed as a valuable part of the city's history in fact it has a bit of a cult following you can find it on t-shirts posters cross-stitch art craft beers or even consumered in gingerbread form I think there's an important lesson here maybe we don't need to be so concerned about the look of new housing because frankly looks are just a small part of why we value things the Vancouver special didn't care about being the most beautiful house it just cared about being the most useful and affordable house for the people building them and instead of the world ending we grew to love these houses for reasons I'm not sure we'll fully understand but what I do know for sure is that right now many cities do need more housing and they need it fast so I can't help but Wonder maybe it's time for a new special [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] foreign

Channel: CBC Vancouver

Views: 262,504

Keywords: live news, cbc, cbcnews, vancouver news, news, BC news, vancouver, british columbia

Id: Zr18Su01YHE

Length: 9min 1sec (541 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 16 2023