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R E N N I E G R O U P S p e c i a l F e a t u r e Changing Skylines, Changing Lot Lines Canadian cities continue to grow and accommodate more residents, but not in the way they used to The skylines and lot lines of many of Canada's metro regions have shifted signicantly since the early 1990s. A growing share of the new housing that has been added over that time is in formats other than that of the traditional single- family, detached house. As of August this year, more than 86,400 new multi-family units were started in Canada, more than double the number of traditional detached homes. The lion's share of these multi- family units was in high-density formats, with apartments accounting for 72 per cent of the new multi-family starts and the remainder being semi-detached and rowhomes. While the 1990s saw almost 332,000 new apartments built Canada-wide, this number grew by 74 per cent to 576,000 during the 2000s, and since 2010, 627,000 new apartment units were started in Canada. Despite the perception of a construction boom—given the number of construction cranes that currently dot the skylines of our major metro regions—the current rate of apartment growth is not the fastest on record. In fact, the greatest boom in apartment additions was actually way back in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In 1969 alone more than 104,000 apartments were started in Canada, a level that has not been achieved since (the closest in recent history was the 93,000 units started in 2012). The increase in apartment construction during the late 1960s and early 1970s was in part driven by the rst baby boomers coming of age and leaving home, in part by growing levels of immigration to Canada—especially following changes to immigration policy in 1967 and adoption of the oŠcial multiculturalism policy of 1971. Interestingly, it was also a time when federal tax policies were favourable to rental housing, which saw a number of these apartment additions hit the rental market. If this period represented the high point of apartment development in Canada, the early 1990s represented the low point: in the last decade of the 20th century, only 33,000 apartments were started on average each year (this during a period of relatively robust total starts of 124,000 per year). This was also a period of only moderate immigration to Canada and a time when many of Canada's boomers had transitioned from apartment living to family rearing. These Canada-wide trends are certainly reŽected in English Canada's two largest metro regions. In 2016 a total of 18,900 apartments were started in the Vancouver metro region, the largest single-year number on record (the closest were the 13,000 units started in 2007 and 2008, and then the 12,000 in 1969). A similar situation is seen in Toronto with a record 29,617 apartment starts in 2012, followed closely by the 25,825 started in 2015 (by way of comparison in 1968 Toronto saw almost 29,000 apartment starts). Just as with the late-1960s boom, the current resurgence in apartment construction is in part being driven by the pull of demographics. On the one hand, we have a large and growing younger population: indeed, there are now more baby busters (those born 1966 to 1985, 9.7 million) and millennials (1986 to 2005, 9.5 million) than there are boomers (1946 to 1965, 9.3 million). Given this, you could say that the busters are the new boomers (insofar as aggregate size is concerned). That said, it is also being driven by a growing cohort of retirees and empty- nesters looking to downsize, a segment of our populations that will see the greatest relative growth in the coming years. Unlike the late-1960s and early-1970s boom, however, the apartment trend is also being pushed by increasingly constrained urban landscapes in our metro regions. Supporting evidence of this comes by way of the most recent census, which showed that of the 25 major municipalities in the Lower Mainland that stretch from Hope to Squamish, 21 of them (fully 84 per cent) saw a decline in their stock of single-family housing between 2011 and 2016. The traditional lot lines of many single- family neighbourhoods are being redrawn to accommodate our growing, aging, and changing populations. From the pull of demographics to the push of urban land economics, these trends will continue to see the multi-family segments of our housing markets grow in importance as the image of the traditional, large-lot, single-family home with a white picket fence fades from our rear-view mirrors. A changing skyline: Most areas of the Lower Mainland are changing dramatically as new developments continue. Pictured here, one of the clusters of high-rises in downtown Vancouver ISTOCK

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