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Vancouver's planning de-
partment is not currently open
at all to the idea of any change.
Senior planner Paula Huber
emphasizes that the province
is currently suggesting that 72
percent of all new housing in Vancouver
should be rental, which tells them that it's
a bad idea to start giving away any already
existing rental.
"In an environment where we have
that kind of target for rental, a program to
allow homeowners to convert would not
be high on our priority list," Huber says.
She also notes that the city's current
policy on allowing purpose-built apart-
ments to be converted to rental is that it
can't happen when the vacancy rate is
below 3 percent. Vancouver hasn't had a
vacancy rate that high in decades.
But the province, currently undertak-
ing one of the most energetic housing
revolutions on the continent, is more
interested.
Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon says
that, when he looks at other regions, it's
clear there's huge potential for laneway
houses, especially in California.
"It's a big topic and this is only going
to grow," he tells me. In Los Ange-
les, where the city began permitting
laneways (or what they call accessory
dwelling units, or
ADUs, down there) in
2017, new laneways now account for 20
percent of all construction. In Califor-
nia overall, there were almost 50,000
completed in 2022.
California, where
ADUs are increas-
ingly seen as a viable and important part
of the solution to providing cheaper
housing, passed new legislation in
October 2023 allowing them to be sold
like condos. That means some require-
ments from the homeowners selling
them (notify utility companies, form a
homeowners' association to figure out
costs that need to be shared), but noth-
ing like hugely expensive upgrades to
main houses in Vancouver.
Tackling laneway reform isn't at
the top of Kahlon's list at the moment,
given the dozens of other initiatives
on his plate, but it's definitely on his
mind. Encouraging municipalities to
allow smaller units to be built and sold
is already part of the overall strategy
in the new law allowing fourplexes
everywhere.
"We want to see those smaller units
owned by families," he says. When the
province has those other initiatives well
underway, they'll apply that same lens
to laneways, taking a look at what is fact
and fiction in terms of safety upgrades
needed. "That is still a home ownership
opportunity."
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In neighbourhoods
where building up isn't
allowed, building back
could be the move
