Finding an affordable place to live

Vancouver is growing steadily, yet the number of children, especially in east Vancouver, is plunging -- one school has lost half its enrolment -- because families can't afford to live here.

While the city continues to offer plenty of choice for singles or couples to rent or to own, families find themselves ever-harder pressed to find a place to live, especially at an affordable price.

This is the nub of the findings in the first of what's evolving into a fascinating series of Vancouver-focused research reports from BTAworks, a new research arm of Bing Thom Architects.

The first of these was a detailed look at the city's condominiums and who lives in them. It found condos to be underrated as a source of rental housing: The majority are neither left empty by speculators and absentee owners, as the urban myth often has it, nor occupied by their owners. Rather, they are let out to tenants.

But condo rentals are heavily tilted towards studio and one-bedroom units, which aren't suitable for families.

A second report, not yet published, shows sharp declines in east Van elementary school enrolments. The city-wide loss is more than 3,500 over five years. For the 20 per cent of worst-off schools it averages 20 per cent, and it's almost 50 per cent for one, the small Sir William Macdonald Community School.

Private schools have siphoned off some of these students, said Andy Yan, the planner who heads the BTAworks research projects.

And some are no doubt being sent by their parents to what are perceived to be better schools, which are still showing modest increases in enrolment, on the west side of the city.

But, as the condo study shows, "Families with lower incomes are simply being squeezed out."

Yan noted that census figures from 2001 and 2006 show that two-thirds of the population increase in Vancouver was accounted for by people over 55.

And that jibes with building statistics that show a major increase in housing that's suitable for seniors and young singles and couples, but not families.

Eighty per cent of downtown's 27,000 condos have been built since 1990, Yan said, and fewer than 40 per cent of them have more than one bedroom. Most are owned by people who don't live in them, and most of these owners live elsewhere in B.C.

Typically, owner-occupied units are worth $30,000-$40,000 more -- in other words, they're larger -- than rented units.

And, "A family with one child earning the median income of $75,000 a year would have difficulty in finding and paying for a condo bigger than one bedroom, even if condo prices were to fall 25 per cent below 2008 assessment levels."

The upshot is that many families flee to more affordable suburban cities like Surrey. And, said Yan's boss Michael Heeney, a partner in the Bing Thom firm, some -- mostly skilled urban professionals who can work wherever they want -- leave the region and Canada for places like Chicago or San Francisco.

The reason for the imbalance in the impact of Vancouver's lopsided growth pattern on east-side and west-side schools isn't fully explained by the figures. But Yan speculates it may be because the west side is a magnet for high-income people who, whether they have children or not, are less likely to be daunted by high housing costs.

"If Vancouverism 1.0 is embodied by tall, skinny towers and one-bedroom, investor-driven condominium projects for downtown Vancouver, then Vancouverism 2.0 needs to redress this imbalance," he said.

What's needed are creative ways to provide more affordable, family-oriented housing.

To that end, Heeney is floating the idea of a major policy change at city hall to foster the development of larger laneway housing units that would be suitable -- and affordable -- for families.

As it stands, the city will approve a maximum unit size of 750 square feet for laneway homes on 50-foot lots, and 500 square feet on the much more common 33-foot lots. In other words, more homes for singles, couples and seniors.

"We do not actually need more of this kind of housing," Heeney said.

"What we do need are rental units with two or more bedrooms that can be occupied by young families.

("Families are being priced out of Vancouver, study shows" prepared by Don Cayo, Vancouver Sun)