Can High Density Housing Construction From Vancouver Canada Be Replicated Here?

I have written extensively over the years about how the State of California has been changing land use laws to impose State Control over local government by limiting local control and allowing increased density and certain projects with some affordable housing approved with out the need for a California Environmental Quality Act review. These actions have been promoted to increase the amount of housing, especially affordable housing, to meet our current housing deficit and future needs. There have also been increased efforts, also in some local jurisdictions, to use increased density to curtail urban sprawl. One of the goals has been to increase density, curtail urban sprawl and build vertically not horizontally.

However, a recent visit to Vancouver, Canada opened my eyes to what might become our future in Los Angeles and other urban parts of California. Let me first set the stage. I arrived by train and was then transported to our downtown hotel. From both the train and the ride to the hotel there were high-rises everywhere. In addition, the construction is never ending with over construction cranes everywhere I looked. I saw at least 30 in my short trip, and I am sure there were more. This made me think how is this possible. I had heard that the cost of housing is very expensive in Vancouver and a little bit of research confirmed that. It also made me think where the single-family residential communities are in that City.

Well on our trip to Vancouver Airport we drove past a great number of mixed use and tall condo projects until we finally started to see a residential community. However, what struck me was that all of the single family homes facing the street were in poor condition and some fenced off and boarded up It was a mature residential area but the fascinating thing was that along the frontage of this corridor almost all of the homes had been purchased and there were rezoning signs next to high rise condos which had already been built. This was the case block after block. I looked down the side streets and you could see single family homes in back of these existing, and soon to be, high rise residential projects. I later learned this is the Cambrie Corridor which also has a light rail system in the area. The most recent proposed project was discussed in the August 1, 2023 edition of Renx.ca a realty site which disclosed that 5 homes were recently purchased for $40 million and that the request for rezoning would allow 2 18 story condos with 344 market rate units and 69 below market rate.

In addition to this practice of allowing the conversion of single family residential zones to high density in the Cambrie Corridor, the City of Vancouver just introduced a proposed zoning reform which would allow up to six individually tiled stata homes on a single lot in low density residential neighborhoods. This is similar to the recent California law allowing up to 4 units on a residential lot in certain single family neighborhoods.

In addition, the City of Vancouver is proposing to reduce the maximum buildable square footage from 2400 square feet down by 400 square feet from what is currently allowed. In addition a fourplex could be built with 4000 square feet.