Shodan
Apr 8, 2007, 9:03 PM
Living large
How did we go from bungalows to McMansions?
Brian Hutchinson
National Post
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Canadians are living in houses bigger than ever, even though our families are shrinking. In this, the first of a three-part series, the National Post examines the driving desire for more Space And The Backlash Against Living Large.
Danny Evans was raised in postwar Vancouver, in a tiny, cottage style house, with his mother and father and a cluster of siblings. "We barely had room to move," he recalls. "But we didn't consider it a hardship. It was just normal."
A familiar refrain from someone of his generation. But times have changed. Mr. Evans now sells real estate, and lots of it. Based in Langley, a fast-growing Vancouver suburb, he knows what his clients want. It is what most of us want.
More space. More room for the family. More places to store all the stuff we've accumulated. A wider garage for the cars.
And if it is a castle you require, Mr. Evans has one available. A 47,000-square-foot behemoth, it sits on 20 acres of rolling terrain, just north of Abbotsford, in B.C.'s lower mainland. Mr. Evans calls it "the biggest house in Canada." Asking price: $9.9-million.
The place is not yet finished but it already has at least 12 bathrooms (Mr. Evans once counted 16 toilets; I lost track on my visit), plus a music conservatory, a stadium style movie theatre, a dining room that can seat dozens, an elevator, and an 8,000-square-foot guest house that connects to the main house via sun-dappled breezeway.
It also has a five-car garage, a long, underground tunnel to the his-and-hers cabana and spa, and yes, a hotel-sized swimming pool.
"Canada's largest house" does not resemble anything in your neighbourhood. Reduced in scale by a factor of 10, it still might not. But it represents, on a grand scale, the impetus that is driving much of the housing development in Canada. It symbolizes our desire for space. In a country with as much room and with as many resources as our own, it is still understood that indoor living space -- and lots of it -- is the ultimate measure of wealth, privilege, and power.
Canadians are living larger than ever. Since the end of the Second World War, almost all of us have built or bought bigger, in an attempt to satisfy our desire for more space. The "dream house" is rarely small. It is big, and comes with amenities, some modest, and some not: A spare room, a big yard, a swimming pool, a tennis court. A big garage.
The average house size in this country has grown, from just 800 square feet in 1945, to about 2,000 square feet. Meanwhile, the average family size has shrunk, from four people to less than three. By this measure, we should require less space, not more; however, that is practically a foreign concept.
The owner of "the biggest house in Canada" is a retired telecommunications entrepreneur who wanted a large-sized home in which to entertain. Don Beaupre and his wife, Penny, sold their 4,500-square-foot house in Montreal and moved to Vancouver. They purchased the 20 acres in Abbotsford, and after consulting with three architects, construction began. That was in 1989.
Unfortunately, Mr. Beaupre's health failed. He and his wife moved into the house, once it was habitable, but, like Gaudi's La Sagrada Familia temple in Barcelona, the place remains incomplete, a marvel of grand
Building the house "was a typically male thing to do," claims Penny. "Don wanted to be lord of a big manor. He wanted a large place, totally earthquake proof, secure, and absolutely safe for his family and friends to enjoy. But things got away on him. The house wasn't meant to be so big."
Even amid the desire for living large, the house is an anomaly. Standing inside the giant foyer, under a concrete ceiling that reaches 30 feet in height, Mr. Evans admits he has had few serious offers on the place. "It's absolutely massive in scale," he shrugs. "I've had people getting lost in here."
It's a far cry from the post-war building boom, when Canadian suburbs expanded, claiming empty tracts of land. People seemed content with small interior space; it was the era of bungalows. Even 30 years ago, houses in Canada were half the size they are today. Then we began building bigger, culminating with the maligned -- yet ubiquitous --monster house.
We have reached a tipping point. Canadians appear to have maxed out. The big life may be losing its appeal.
Neighbourhoods are rebelling against the monster house. Across Canada, in urban centres and especially in suburbs, people and politicians are complaining that the houses next to them are getting too large. Some of the backlash is fuelled by aesthetics; monster homes usually lack interesting design elements. Indeed, some are architectural travesties: Pink stuccoed boxes. "Plywood palazzos," as The New York Times huffed. But they also bring with them environmental concerns. Bigness, we now know, is not "sustainable."
In Montreal this month, city councillor Robert Bergeron made headlines when he railed against a proposed 35-house development in the borough of Pierrefonds-Roxboro, on what is now agricultural land.
"We have to ask ourselves, 'How much is too much?' " says Mr. Bergeron, from his office in Montreal. "I think, and I am trying very hard to be objective, that these homes are just too large. They will consume enormous amounts of natural resources, to heat and to power. The developer is talking about 4,000 to 10,000 square feet, with three to eight parking spots each, spread out over four hectares of land. They are talking about making them in the style of French chateaux, complete with turrets. These are not homes of architectural value. No. This is Las Vegas."
Mr. Bergeron voted against the proposed Pierrefonds-Roxboro development; he was the lone dissenter on Montreal city council. But he claims to have won support from like-minded local residents, and vows to pressure the province of Quebec to forgo a zoning amendment that would allow the big houses to be built.
At least one municipal government in Canada has created a new bylaw to restrict the size of new homes. In December, city councillors in Surrey, B.C. approved a zoning change that will keep new homes in one neighbourhood to a maximum of 3,250 square feet. That's a reduction from a previous limit of 6,000 square feet, three times the average house size in Canada.
The change was made after dozens of irate residents lobbied to stop monster home construction. Members of the South Westminster Ratepayers Association claimed that super-sized houses do not conform to their neighbourhood's heritage character; Surrey's city council agreed.
Next door to Surrey, in the City of New Westminster, local politicians have heard complaints about towering "monster garages" that have suddenly appeared, blocking mountain views and casting permanent shadows on neighbouring homes and gardens.
Residents say the garages are being used to store furniture and other goods, and, in some cases, are being converted into illegal suites. Some of the new garages are as large as houses.
According to a city report, "an unusually high number of large and/or tall garages either have been built, are being built or are being requested." Some appear not to conform to the city's building codes.
There is some evidence that housing development is beginning to comply with this push away from living large. For the first time in generations, house sizes have stabilized. Evidence is still anecdotal; there is no Canadian organization that measures house sizes. But real estate analysts think the situation here almost mirrors the experience south of the border, where Mc- Mansions were invented.
According to census reports in the United States, house sizes stopped growing almost five years ago. "The average new house size is now 2,459 square feet," says Gopal Ahluwalia, a statistician with the Washington, D.C.-based National Association of Home Builders. "What's happened is that people have seen building and maintenance costs rise to unprecedented levels. The new home of the future, we think, will fall somewhere between 2,300 to 2,500 square feet."
Mr. Ahluwalia adds that Mc- Mansions cost a great deal to heat, power, and furnish. "Property taxes are increasing, everywhere," he says.
"Things probably have levelled off in Canada," notes Jason Mercer, a Toronto-based senior market analyst with the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation. "Housing size is not something we track, but there is clearly a movement in construction from single, detached homes to condominiums. Prices are a factor. So are consumer preferences, and social acceptance."
Lance and Barb Murdoch purchased their three-yearold 1,650-square-foot house in New Westminster because they liked its modest footprint, and how it fit with the rest of the neighbourhood.
"This is not a community of McMansions, and that attracted us," Mr. Murdoch says. "We want to live responsibly and without consuming too much land or resources. We assumed that other people who moved here felt the same way."
Then their neighbour built a monster garage. "It's huge. It's two storeys. Our whole house is now in a shadow."
The city has decided to reduce the height of detached buildings; this doesn't help homeowners like the Murdochs, who have seen their property's appeal-- and potential resale value -- diminish. And a height reduction is sure to bother those who already find themselves without enough storage space in their homes.
The quest for more space is "sort of function of North American life," says the city's director of development services, Tim Whitehead. "We keep finding all kinds of things and we need places to store them," he told the New Westminster Record last month.
Storage room is the last thing Don and Penny Beaupre require. Their 47,000-square-foot manor in Abbotsford has an enormous basement area with myriad empty rooms. What they want is a buyer. Their real estate agent, Mr. Evans, is working on that.
It will have to be someone with plenty of money, of course. Someone who can finish the job that Mr. Beaupre started. It must also be someone who appreciates his concept for living: Large.
Having tried it, Mrs. Beaupre isn't sure she likes it. "This house is too big," she says. "It doesn't fit our lifestyle. It's a bit ridiculous, really. We did get carried away, absolutely. I think we'd be happier if we'd have just moved our old Montreal house here."
She pauses. "Well, maybe if we could have added an extra three feet all around to it. Then it would have been perfect."
NATIONALPOST.COM
Not everybody has big dreams of a sprawling suburban mansion -- read more on living small at ambition, and, perhaps, folly. Mr. Evans estimates that $3-million will be required just to finish the mansion's interior.
MONDAY
Moving out of the monster home. How some Canadians are finding happiness in smaller houses, and how our cities are planning to accommodate more people.
© National Post 2007
Copyright © 2007 CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest MediaWorks Publications, Inc.. All rights reserved.
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Something grand about going small
Brian Hutchinson
National Post
Monday, April 02, 2007
Canadians are living in houses bigger than ever, even though our families are shrinking. In this, the second of a three-part series, the National Post examines the backlash against living large.
- - -
Do not feel bad for Gordon Price. A former Vancouver councillor, he lives in what he calls "the smallest home" he has ever owned. It is in a 1950sera tower that borders Stanley Park, the city's crown jewel.
The West End apartment he shares with his partner measures approximately 1,100 square feet, which makes it about half the size of the average Canadian home. One small bathroom, no garden, limited storage and parking.
Like many people living in his densely populated neighbourhood, Mr. Price has no children. This helps free up space in his small home.
His apartment is bright and airy, with large windows that overlook the tranquil Lost Lagoon. The simple, open design fools the eye and makes the place seem much larger than it really is.
"It's not the size that counts," says Mr. Price with a wink. "It's what you make of it."
Vancouverites are used to making do with less. Most have no choice; the city is sandwiched between water and mountains, and real estate here is astronomically priced, the highest in Canada. Traditional single-family homes -- even small bungalows -- cannot be had for less than $500,000, making them unattainable for even moderately high-income earners.
Figures released last week indicate that detached bungalows in Vancouver sell for an average of $758,000; in Toronto, they sell for an average of $387,744.
Other Canadians may wonder how people in Vancouver could possibly cope inside such small homes; Mr. Price's apartment is actually a generous size, by West End standards. And his neighbourhood has one of the highest population densities in North America, with about 20,000 people per square kilometre. That is more than four times the density of Montreal, one of Canada's oldest and most congested cities.
The push to increase density by living small is catching on, not just in other Vancouver neighbourhoods but also in cities across Canada. It is gaining allure in expensive centres such as Calgary and Toronto, where empty land for traditional, detached subdivisions is running out, or is found so far from urban centres as to make it remote and, for many, unappealing.
But can Vancouver's success be duplicated in other Canadian cities, where the setting might not be quite as agreeable? In Vancouver, after all, "view corridors" between towers are identified and protected, giving most condo dwellers an opportunity to gaze past their neighbours, and out to the sea or mountains. Perhaps more than anything, it is Vancouver's location, its physical beauty and climate, that has made small living grand.
Brent Toderian has seen firsthand how densification can work in other cities. He took the top planning job in Vancouver last year after stints in Kitchener and Calgary, places that are associated more with ugly urban sprawl and McMansions than density and small living.
"I was an urbanist in suburban environments," he says. "When I moved to Calgary a few years ago, there was not a lot of call for densification. But that quickly changed. Now, you can't swing a stick without hitting a densification proposal."
The city's Beltline district south of downtown, he says, will see its population rise from 17,000 people to 40,000.
The government of Ontario has already committed to the concept. Last year, it announced its Growth Plan for the Greater Horseshoe Area, which describes a phased approach for "increasing intensification" in cities and communities in the already populous region from Niagara Falls to Toronto.
According to the plan, "by the year 2015 (and every year after), all regions, counties and single-tier municipalities will accommodate a minimum of 40% of each year's new residential units within their already built-up urban areas."
Mr. Price insists that Vancouver's success can be replicated. "High-rise districts are obviously not exclusive to Vancouver. But I think we have demonstrated how they can best be done. Build them in blue zones [next to water] and green zones [next to parks]."
He points to efforts at New Urbanism, where old planning principles are applied to new subdivisions, to create pleasant, high-density environments. Markham, near Toronto, has incorporated New Urbanist design elements in some new developments with positive results, Mr. Price says.
It is time for everyone to think about the possibility -- and the advantages -- of living closer together, he says. During a 16-year run as city councillor, he helped implement a "Living First" strategy, a set of urban densification policies that resulted in what some hail as the Vancouver miracle: a massive addition to residential capacity in an already tightly packed downtown core.
A more apt name might be Living Smaller. Since 1986, when the Living First policy was applied, forests of gleaming new condominium towers have appeared in central areas near the West End, which was already fully developed by the late 1960s.
This is author Douglas Coupland's "City of Glass" -- former industrial areas along False Creek and Burrard Inlet and in the shadow of the central business district. They have been transformed from shabby, unproductive areas to highly valued residential tracts.
Homebuyers demonstrated an eagerness to sacrifice living space -- and private yards found in suburban communities -- for spectacular waterfront views and proximity to beaches, to Stanley Park and to downtown offices, where 120,000 workers arrive each day.
In 20 years, downtown Vancouver's residential population has doubled, to 80,000. The city's new planning director, Mr. Toderian, says there is room for another 40,000; the population will peak by 2030. There are 47 condominium towers under construction downtown.
Living First was so successful, Mr. Toderian says, that the city now needs to shift densification efforts away from the core and into surrounding neighbourhoods. "It's no longer Living First," he says. "It's balance."
That required a new scheme. Hence "EcoDensity," announced with great fanfare by Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan last autumn, calls for more housing and greater population density in areas that have traditionally been the domain of single families, living in larger, detached homes.
Still in planning stages, Eco- Density will encourage developers to build high-density housing above shops, beside parks, even in laneways. The initiative comes by its name honestly, Mr. Toderian says, because it will result in less automobile traffic, more environmentally friendly building design and a better, healthier quality of life for residents.
It won't be limited to specific areas of the city; rather, Mr. Toderian says, 100% of Vancouver's land mass will be in play.
Not everyone is thrilled with the concept. A proposed 16-unit townhouse development in the city's leafy, affluent west side (not to be confused with the apartment-oriented West End) has raised hackles with some local residents, even though it fits within the EcoDensity framework. Opponents don't like the fact the townhouses are to be built along a quiet residential avenue, which features detached, single-family homes; some would rather the development front a busy commercial street instead.
"We're not just a bunch of NIMBYs," local opponent Brian Roche told The Vancouver Sun last week. "People are generally OK with row housing [on the nearest high street]. It's the creep down the street that's the problem."
People often confuse higher population densities with overcrowding, counters Mr. Price. It may be counterintuitive, but more density opens space. "The dozens of new apartment towers that you see in the downtown area has actually led to an uncrowding," he argues.
That is only if they are planned correctly, of course. Vancouver's Living First strategy forced condominium developers to provide amenities such as parks and retail spaces beside their new, tall towers; these attracted buyers from both ends of the wealth scale. The city also stopped permitting the construction of wide, horizontal slab towers that dominate certain areas of the West End; they block their neighbours' views.
How planners in Southern Ontario will manage the small movement remains to be seen. But there are already glimpses in Toronto, where areas between the lakefront and the downtown business centre have recently been filled in with new condominium developments.
While Mr. Toderian appreciates the effort, he's not ecstatic with the results. It's ironic, because the 44-acre, 5,000-condominium CityPlace development was built by the same company that helped transform Vancouver's downtown.
"Are there enough amenities outside? I am not sure people are left with a positive walking experience. Some of the new towers are very high density, but they seem too tall and thick. I find the massings to be extreme."
In other words: It's too big. And yet CityPlace is not complete; another five towers are planned. What the project demonstrates, Mr. Toderian says, is that while adding density to cities is simple -- and living with less space inevitable --making it all work is not.
- Tomorrow: In the quick-build, slap-dash construction of neighbourhoods built in an effort to keep up with Calgary's growth surge, one university professor champions the slow housing movement.
© National Post 2007
Copyright © 2007 CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest MediaWorks Publications, Inc.. All rights reserved.
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Death to the suburb
Kevin Libin
National Post
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Canadians are living in houses bigger than ever, even though our families are shrinking. In this, the final instalment in a three-part series, the National Post explores an alternative to living large.
- - -
CALGARY - Hurtling past the big box power centres of Calgary's deep south in his Jeep Cherokee, John Brown, a lifelong Calgarian, is lost. "Can I get to Deerfoot Trail from here?" Suddenly spotting the freeway, he lurches the SUV across two lanes to the onramp. Without realizing it, he briefly heads in the wrong direction, away from the bleak, rolling waves of vinyl-clad, mass-produced neighbourhoods and the Wal-Marts and Home Depots that nourish them. These newly minted communities, 30 kilometres outside the city centre, are an alien world to Mr. Brown, an architect turned activist: "I only come out here to complain," he shrugs.
Lately, this foe of sprawl has much to complain about. A few years ago, the thousands of homes flanking this highway did not exist. Subdivisions are springing up on all Calgary's sides to accommodate a booming population, an automatic growth reflex he finds regrettable.
"If I want to get from there, to my friend's house over there," he says, his finger trailing from the grey shingles of the rooftops on the west side to the identical grey rooftops on the east side, "I have to get in my car and drive over the highway."
Turning on to an off-ramp, we pass a few prairie acres imprisoned between highway bridge abutments and Mr. Brown remarks, "You could fit an Italian hill-town into the average North American freeway interchange."
His complaints are no surprise. Urban aesthetes have grumbled about the ghastliness of cookie-cutter suburbs since Arthur Levitt invented the model in post-war Long Island.
Mr. Brown has made it his mission to persuade society that the suburban model, the world's most popular development concept, is not the only option. In fact, he says, it is the worst. He advocates for what he calls the Slow Home movement, which like the Slow Food crusade that began in Europe in the '80s as a reaction to the increasing commoditization of dining, is aimed at alerting people to the problems of sprawl, while inviting homeowners to be more considerate about the space in which they live.
"Just like fast food separated us from knowing where our food comes from, or the process of how it's made, we're becoming estranged from the process of making our houses," he says. "And all the things that make a Big Mac unsatisfying and unhealthy you also find in these fast houses."
The fallout from such an approach is both predictable and not. Insatiable developers gobbling up farmland is bad for the environment. Today's slapdash houses border on toxic. "That new home smell? That's off-gas and chemicals from synthetic products," Mr. Brown says. Health groups link rising obesity and attendant diseases to the dominance of the car-centred communities where sidewalks are so pointless -- no shops or businesses within walking distance -- that they are frequently left out altogether.
Then there are the economics of stretching utilities, sewers and schools ever further out. "It can cost up to four times more to develop, maintain and service a low-density, segregated-use, car-dependent community than it does to develop a medium-density community that is serviced by transit and gives you walkable options," says Brian Pincott, head of the anti-sprawl campaign for the Sierra Club's Prairie chapter.
Developers have deeply invested in the lucrative sprawl model -- they bought up cheap land around the city years ago and waited for the population to come. But it is consumers who are sold on the appeal of suburban McMansions: "When you are looking for the biggest bang for your buck as a homebuyer, you say 'I can get all of this and a brand new house at the edge of the city' versus 'I can get a smaller house that needs a lot of work,' says Karen Wilkie, a senior policy analyst at the Canada West Foundation.
For that reason, any change must be cultural, figures Mr. Brown. Much as we have weaned off biggie fries and gallon-sized Pepsis, he says, consumers must understand that there is more to a home than the empty calories of cavernous foyers and "bonus" rooms and that homes fitting their needs are not among the floor-plan options in their builder's pattern book. Just as McDonald's has responded to changing consumer tastes with healthier menus, he says, "If the consumer says, 'I don't want this anymore,' you can bet everyone of these developers is going to do something different. ? The more that's demanded of them, the more they will come up with new things. That's why we've taken this public activism approach."
Mr. Brown crusades by speaking to audiences worldwide and through the Internet about the scourge of cheap, homogeneous exurbs that has spread globally -- these Calgary neighbourhoods have identical cousins in Arizona, Paris, even China. His Web site, theslowhome.com, streams interviews with architects and planners who have joined the struggle, and features blogs celebrating the careful residential planning and design that has become so rare. One section, entitled Outrage!, offers a photographic catalogue of the worst examples of suburban crimes-against-design from around the world.
But while the suburbs offend, those who live there are innocent, lured by the seduction of wide open spaces, says Gary Burns, a Calgary director whose film Radiant City, a quasi-documentary about sprawl starring actual suburbanites, opened in theatres last week. "If you buy into the suburban dreams, what are your options?" he says, "Unless you've got a million bucks, good luck buying a place downtown."
But while sprawl's defenders argue that new developments are necessary for first-time homebuyers, Mr. Brown says affordability is one of several suburban myths. Another is that newer homes offer large yards; in reality they are frequently smaller than in urban, working-class homes. Touring one of Calgary's freshly sprouted appendages, Mr. Brown notes that the cheapest house in the area lists at $490,000, no cheaper than many downtown homes (Calgary's median price is $365,000). The most expensive: $2.2-million. "If these were just being built as starter houses, then you might say, 'fair enough.' But there's no excuse for building an $800,000 house out here."
In Calgary, where 25,000 new arrivals flock yearly, promoting a go-slow agenda is a mighty task. Though the mood feels right -- 74% of Calgarians told a recent Canada West Foundation poll that "sprawl is a problem" -- city dwellers often dismiss the offered solutions.
A recent municipal proposal to allow homeowners to add secondary rental suites was kiboshed by citizens fretting about the traffic it would bring to their cul de sacs. Plans to increase the density of housing around Light Rail Transit stations are opposed by those in affected neighbourhoods.
Madeleine King, a Calgary alderman and an outspoken critic of suburban sprawl, says that in her downtown riding, "there is a fair amount of discontent" about rising density from nearby condo projects.
Meanwhile, city planners accustomed to rubber-stamping outskirt developments are paralyzed by unconventional plans, notes Mr. Pincott. Calgary's Garrison Woods, a wildly popular inner-city project built in the '90s on decommissioned army land, took three times longer than usual to get approval.
"The reason it was still built is because Canada Lands owned it. They have patient capital," says Mr. Pincott. Private developers, with anxious shareholders, could not tolerate such a wait, even though the demand for urban housing is palpable. "This is not about slowing down developers. This is not about forcing developers to do something different. This is about getting government out of the way."
There are enough available spots within the city's grid, Mr. Brown believes, to fill with urban projects to accommodate t he city's rapid growth and then some. "We could triple our population and not increase our land area anymore than we've got," if only the incentives--for consumers and developers--were there. In the meantime, he has adjusted his own architectural practice to target homebuyers considering the sprawling burbs, persuading them instead to buy a bungalow or split-level within the city.
For the same budget as new, he says, he can tailor a smaller home to suit a family's needs better than any mass-manufactured house, with superior materials. Alone, his firm can only manage 80 houses a year, he laments. But every bit helps. "I tell my clients that every project we do means one less suburban mess."
NATIONALPOST.COM
Copyright © 2007 CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest MediaWorks Publications, Inc.. All rights reserved.
How did we go from bungalows to McMansions?
Brian Hutchinson
National Post
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Canadians are living in houses bigger than ever, even though our families are shrinking. In this, the first of a three-part series, the National Post examines the driving desire for more Space And The Backlash Against Living Large.
Danny Evans was raised in postwar Vancouver, in a tiny, cottage style house, with his mother and father and a cluster of siblings. "We barely had room to move," he recalls. "But we didn't consider it a hardship. It was just normal."
A familiar refrain from someone of his generation. But times have changed. Mr. Evans now sells real estate, and lots of it. Based in Langley, a fast-growing Vancouver suburb, he knows what his clients want. It is what most of us want.
More space. More room for the family. More places to store all the stuff we've accumulated. A wider garage for the cars.
And if it is a castle you require, Mr. Evans has one available. A 47,000-square-foot behemoth, it sits on 20 acres of rolling terrain, just north of Abbotsford, in B.C.'s lower mainland. Mr. Evans calls it "the biggest house in Canada." Asking price: $9.9-million.
The place is not yet finished but it already has at least 12 bathrooms (Mr. Evans once counted 16 toilets; I lost track on my visit), plus a music conservatory, a stadium style movie theatre, a dining room that can seat dozens, an elevator, and an 8,000-square-foot guest house that connects to the main house via sun-dappled breezeway.
It also has a five-car garage, a long, underground tunnel to the his-and-hers cabana and spa, and yes, a hotel-sized swimming pool.
"Canada's largest house" does not resemble anything in your neighbourhood. Reduced in scale by a factor of 10, it still might not. But it represents, on a grand scale, the impetus that is driving much of the housing development in Canada. It symbolizes our desire for space. In a country with as much room and with as many resources as our own, it is still understood that indoor living space -- and lots of it -- is the ultimate measure of wealth, privilege, and power.
Canadians are living larger than ever. Since the end of the Second World War, almost all of us have built or bought bigger, in an attempt to satisfy our desire for more space. The "dream house" is rarely small. It is big, and comes with amenities, some modest, and some not: A spare room, a big yard, a swimming pool, a tennis court. A big garage.
The average house size in this country has grown, from just 800 square feet in 1945, to about 2,000 square feet. Meanwhile, the average family size has shrunk, from four people to less than three. By this measure, we should require less space, not more; however, that is practically a foreign concept.
The owner of "the biggest house in Canada" is a retired telecommunications entrepreneur who wanted a large-sized home in which to entertain. Don Beaupre and his wife, Penny, sold their 4,500-square-foot house in Montreal and moved to Vancouver. They purchased the 20 acres in Abbotsford, and after consulting with three architects, construction began. That was in 1989.
Unfortunately, Mr. Beaupre's health failed. He and his wife moved into the house, once it was habitable, but, like Gaudi's La Sagrada Familia temple in Barcelona, the place remains incomplete, a marvel of grand
Building the house "was a typically male thing to do," claims Penny. "Don wanted to be lord of a big manor. He wanted a large place, totally earthquake proof, secure, and absolutely safe for his family and friends to enjoy. But things got away on him. The house wasn't meant to be so big."
Even amid the desire for living large, the house is an anomaly. Standing inside the giant foyer, under a concrete ceiling that reaches 30 feet in height, Mr. Evans admits he has had few serious offers on the place. "It's absolutely massive in scale," he shrugs. "I've had people getting lost in here."
It's a far cry from the post-war building boom, when Canadian suburbs expanded, claiming empty tracts of land. People seemed content with small interior space; it was the era of bungalows. Even 30 years ago, houses in Canada were half the size they are today. Then we began building bigger, culminating with the maligned -- yet ubiquitous --monster house.
We have reached a tipping point. Canadians appear to have maxed out. The big life may be losing its appeal.
Neighbourhoods are rebelling against the monster house. Across Canada, in urban centres and especially in suburbs, people and politicians are complaining that the houses next to them are getting too large. Some of the backlash is fuelled by aesthetics; monster homes usually lack interesting design elements. Indeed, some are architectural travesties: Pink stuccoed boxes. "Plywood palazzos," as The New York Times huffed. But they also bring with them environmental concerns. Bigness, we now know, is not "sustainable."
In Montreal this month, city councillor Robert Bergeron made headlines when he railed against a proposed 35-house development in the borough of Pierrefonds-Roxboro, on what is now agricultural land.
"We have to ask ourselves, 'How much is too much?' " says Mr. Bergeron, from his office in Montreal. "I think, and I am trying very hard to be objective, that these homes are just too large. They will consume enormous amounts of natural resources, to heat and to power. The developer is talking about 4,000 to 10,000 square feet, with three to eight parking spots each, spread out over four hectares of land. They are talking about making them in the style of French chateaux, complete with turrets. These are not homes of architectural value. No. This is Las Vegas."
Mr. Bergeron voted against the proposed Pierrefonds-Roxboro development; he was the lone dissenter on Montreal city council. But he claims to have won support from like-minded local residents, and vows to pressure the province of Quebec to forgo a zoning amendment that would allow the big houses to be built.
At least one municipal government in Canada has created a new bylaw to restrict the size of new homes. In December, city councillors in Surrey, B.C. approved a zoning change that will keep new homes in one neighbourhood to a maximum of 3,250 square feet. That's a reduction from a previous limit of 6,000 square feet, three times the average house size in Canada.
The change was made after dozens of irate residents lobbied to stop monster home construction. Members of the South Westminster Ratepayers Association claimed that super-sized houses do not conform to their neighbourhood's heritage character; Surrey's city council agreed.
Next door to Surrey, in the City of New Westminster, local politicians have heard complaints about towering "monster garages" that have suddenly appeared, blocking mountain views and casting permanent shadows on neighbouring homes and gardens.
Residents say the garages are being used to store furniture and other goods, and, in some cases, are being converted into illegal suites. Some of the new garages are as large as houses.
According to a city report, "an unusually high number of large and/or tall garages either have been built, are being built or are being requested." Some appear not to conform to the city's building codes.
There is some evidence that housing development is beginning to comply with this push away from living large. For the first time in generations, house sizes have stabilized. Evidence is still anecdotal; there is no Canadian organization that measures house sizes. But real estate analysts think the situation here almost mirrors the experience south of the border, where Mc- Mansions were invented.
According to census reports in the United States, house sizes stopped growing almost five years ago. "The average new house size is now 2,459 square feet," says Gopal Ahluwalia, a statistician with the Washington, D.C.-based National Association of Home Builders. "What's happened is that people have seen building and maintenance costs rise to unprecedented levels. The new home of the future, we think, will fall somewhere between 2,300 to 2,500 square feet."
Mr. Ahluwalia adds that Mc- Mansions cost a great deal to heat, power, and furnish. "Property taxes are increasing, everywhere," he says.
"Things probably have levelled off in Canada," notes Jason Mercer, a Toronto-based senior market analyst with the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation. "Housing size is not something we track, but there is clearly a movement in construction from single, detached homes to condominiums. Prices are a factor. So are consumer preferences, and social acceptance."
Lance and Barb Murdoch purchased their three-yearold 1,650-square-foot house in New Westminster because they liked its modest footprint, and how it fit with the rest of the neighbourhood.
"This is not a community of McMansions, and that attracted us," Mr. Murdoch says. "We want to live responsibly and without consuming too much land or resources. We assumed that other people who moved here felt the same way."
Then their neighbour built a monster garage. "It's huge. It's two storeys. Our whole house is now in a shadow."
The city has decided to reduce the height of detached buildings; this doesn't help homeowners like the Murdochs, who have seen their property's appeal-- and potential resale value -- diminish. And a height reduction is sure to bother those who already find themselves without enough storage space in their homes.
The quest for more space is "sort of function of North American life," says the city's director of development services, Tim Whitehead. "We keep finding all kinds of things and we need places to store them," he told the New Westminster Record last month.
Storage room is the last thing Don and Penny Beaupre require. Their 47,000-square-foot manor in Abbotsford has an enormous basement area with myriad empty rooms. What they want is a buyer. Their real estate agent, Mr. Evans, is working on that.
It will have to be someone with plenty of money, of course. Someone who can finish the job that Mr. Beaupre started. It must also be someone who appreciates his concept for living: Large.
Having tried it, Mrs. Beaupre isn't sure she likes it. "This house is too big," she says. "It doesn't fit our lifestyle. It's a bit ridiculous, really. We did get carried away, absolutely. I think we'd be happier if we'd have just moved our old Montreal house here."
She pauses. "Well, maybe if we could have added an extra three feet all around to it. Then it would have been perfect."
NATIONALPOST.COM
Not everybody has big dreams of a sprawling suburban mansion -- read more on living small at ambition, and, perhaps, folly. Mr. Evans estimates that $3-million will be required just to finish the mansion's interior.
MONDAY
Moving out of the monster home. How some Canadians are finding happiness in smaller houses, and how our cities are planning to accommodate more people.
© National Post 2007
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Something grand about going small
Brian Hutchinson
National Post
Monday, April 02, 2007
Canadians are living in houses bigger than ever, even though our families are shrinking. In this, the second of a three-part series, the National Post examines the backlash against living large.
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Do not feel bad for Gordon Price. A former Vancouver councillor, he lives in what he calls "the smallest home" he has ever owned. It is in a 1950sera tower that borders Stanley Park, the city's crown jewel.
The West End apartment he shares with his partner measures approximately 1,100 square feet, which makes it about half the size of the average Canadian home. One small bathroom, no garden, limited storage and parking.
Like many people living in his densely populated neighbourhood, Mr. Price has no children. This helps free up space in his small home.
His apartment is bright and airy, with large windows that overlook the tranquil Lost Lagoon. The simple, open design fools the eye and makes the place seem much larger than it really is.
"It's not the size that counts," says Mr. Price with a wink. "It's what you make of it."
Vancouverites are used to making do with less. Most have no choice; the city is sandwiched between water and mountains, and real estate here is astronomically priced, the highest in Canada. Traditional single-family homes -- even small bungalows -- cannot be had for less than $500,000, making them unattainable for even moderately high-income earners.
Figures released last week indicate that detached bungalows in Vancouver sell for an average of $758,000; in Toronto, they sell for an average of $387,744.
Other Canadians may wonder how people in Vancouver could possibly cope inside such small homes; Mr. Price's apartment is actually a generous size, by West End standards. And his neighbourhood has one of the highest population densities in North America, with about 20,000 people per square kilometre. That is more than four times the density of Montreal, one of Canada's oldest and most congested cities.
The push to increase density by living small is catching on, not just in other Vancouver neighbourhoods but also in cities across Canada. It is gaining allure in expensive centres such as Calgary and Toronto, where empty land for traditional, detached subdivisions is running out, or is found so far from urban centres as to make it remote and, for many, unappealing.
But can Vancouver's success be duplicated in other Canadian cities, where the setting might not be quite as agreeable? In Vancouver, after all, "view corridors" between towers are identified and protected, giving most condo dwellers an opportunity to gaze past their neighbours, and out to the sea or mountains. Perhaps more than anything, it is Vancouver's location, its physical beauty and climate, that has made small living grand.
Brent Toderian has seen firsthand how densification can work in other cities. He took the top planning job in Vancouver last year after stints in Kitchener and Calgary, places that are associated more with ugly urban sprawl and McMansions than density and small living.
"I was an urbanist in suburban environments," he says. "When I moved to Calgary a few years ago, there was not a lot of call for densification. But that quickly changed. Now, you can't swing a stick without hitting a densification proposal."
The city's Beltline district south of downtown, he says, will see its population rise from 17,000 people to 40,000.
The government of Ontario has already committed to the concept. Last year, it announced its Growth Plan for the Greater Horseshoe Area, which describes a phased approach for "increasing intensification" in cities and communities in the already populous region from Niagara Falls to Toronto.
According to the plan, "by the year 2015 (and every year after), all regions, counties and single-tier municipalities will accommodate a minimum of 40% of each year's new residential units within their already built-up urban areas."
Mr. Price insists that Vancouver's success can be replicated. "High-rise districts are obviously not exclusive to Vancouver. But I think we have demonstrated how they can best be done. Build them in blue zones [next to water] and green zones [next to parks]."
He points to efforts at New Urbanism, where old planning principles are applied to new subdivisions, to create pleasant, high-density environments. Markham, near Toronto, has incorporated New Urbanist design elements in some new developments with positive results, Mr. Price says.
It is time for everyone to think about the possibility -- and the advantages -- of living closer together, he says. During a 16-year run as city councillor, he helped implement a "Living First" strategy, a set of urban densification policies that resulted in what some hail as the Vancouver miracle: a massive addition to residential capacity in an already tightly packed downtown core.
A more apt name might be Living Smaller. Since 1986, when the Living First policy was applied, forests of gleaming new condominium towers have appeared in central areas near the West End, which was already fully developed by the late 1960s.
This is author Douglas Coupland's "City of Glass" -- former industrial areas along False Creek and Burrard Inlet and in the shadow of the central business district. They have been transformed from shabby, unproductive areas to highly valued residential tracts.
Homebuyers demonstrated an eagerness to sacrifice living space -- and private yards found in suburban communities -- for spectacular waterfront views and proximity to beaches, to Stanley Park and to downtown offices, where 120,000 workers arrive each day.
In 20 years, downtown Vancouver's residential population has doubled, to 80,000. The city's new planning director, Mr. Toderian, says there is room for another 40,000; the population will peak by 2030. There are 47 condominium towers under construction downtown.
Living First was so successful, Mr. Toderian says, that the city now needs to shift densification efforts away from the core and into surrounding neighbourhoods. "It's no longer Living First," he says. "It's balance."
That required a new scheme. Hence "EcoDensity," announced with great fanfare by Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan last autumn, calls for more housing and greater population density in areas that have traditionally been the domain of single families, living in larger, detached homes.
Still in planning stages, Eco- Density will encourage developers to build high-density housing above shops, beside parks, even in laneways. The initiative comes by its name honestly, Mr. Toderian says, because it will result in less automobile traffic, more environmentally friendly building design and a better, healthier quality of life for residents.
It won't be limited to specific areas of the city; rather, Mr. Toderian says, 100% of Vancouver's land mass will be in play.
Not everyone is thrilled with the concept. A proposed 16-unit townhouse development in the city's leafy, affluent west side (not to be confused with the apartment-oriented West End) has raised hackles with some local residents, even though it fits within the EcoDensity framework. Opponents don't like the fact the townhouses are to be built along a quiet residential avenue, which features detached, single-family homes; some would rather the development front a busy commercial street instead.
"We're not just a bunch of NIMBYs," local opponent Brian Roche told The Vancouver Sun last week. "People are generally OK with row housing [on the nearest high street]. It's the creep down the street that's the problem."
People often confuse higher population densities with overcrowding, counters Mr. Price. It may be counterintuitive, but more density opens space. "The dozens of new apartment towers that you see in the downtown area has actually led to an uncrowding," he argues.
That is only if they are planned correctly, of course. Vancouver's Living First strategy forced condominium developers to provide amenities such as parks and retail spaces beside their new, tall towers; these attracted buyers from both ends of the wealth scale. The city also stopped permitting the construction of wide, horizontal slab towers that dominate certain areas of the West End; they block their neighbours' views.
How planners in Southern Ontario will manage the small movement remains to be seen. But there are already glimpses in Toronto, where areas between the lakefront and the downtown business centre have recently been filled in with new condominium developments.
While Mr. Toderian appreciates the effort, he's not ecstatic with the results. It's ironic, because the 44-acre, 5,000-condominium CityPlace development was built by the same company that helped transform Vancouver's downtown.
"Are there enough amenities outside? I am not sure people are left with a positive walking experience. Some of the new towers are very high density, but they seem too tall and thick. I find the massings to be extreme."
In other words: It's too big. And yet CityPlace is not complete; another five towers are planned. What the project demonstrates, Mr. Toderian says, is that while adding density to cities is simple -- and living with less space inevitable --making it all work is not.
- Tomorrow: In the quick-build, slap-dash construction of neighbourhoods built in an effort to keep up with Calgary's growth surge, one university professor champions the slow housing movement.
© National Post 2007
Copyright © 2007 CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest MediaWorks Publications, Inc.. All rights reserved.
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Death to the suburb
Kevin Libin
National Post
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Canadians are living in houses bigger than ever, even though our families are shrinking. In this, the final instalment in a three-part series, the National Post explores an alternative to living large.
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CALGARY - Hurtling past the big box power centres of Calgary's deep south in his Jeep Cherokee, John Brown, a lifelong Calgarian, is lost. "Can I get to Deerfoot Trail from here?" Suddenly spotting the freeway, he lurches the SUV across two lanes to the onramp. Without realizing it, he briefly heads in the wrong direction, away from the bleak, rolling waves of vinyl-clad, mass-produced neighbourhoods and the Wal-Marts and Home Depots that nourish them. These newly minted communities, 30 kilometres outside the city centre, are an alien world to Mr. Brown, an architect turned activist: "I only come out here to complain," he shrugs.
Lately, this foe of sprawl has much to complain about. A few years ago, the thousands of homes flanking this highway did not exist. Subdivisions are springing up on all Calgary's sides to accommodate a booming population, an automatic growth reflex he finds regrettable.
"If I want to get from there, to my friend's house over there," he says, his finger trailing from the grey shingles of the rooftops on the west side to the identical grey rooftops on the east side, "I have to get in my car and drive over the highway."
Turning on to an off-ramp, we pass a few prairie acres imprisoned between highway bridge abutments and Mr. Brown remarks, "You could fit an Italian hill-town into the average North American freeway interchange."
His complaints are no surprise. Urban aesthetes have grumbled about the ghastliness of cookie-cutter suburbs since Arthur Levitt invented the model in post-war Long Island.
Mr. Brown has made it his mission to persuade society that the suburban model, the world's most popular development concept, is not the only option. In fact, he says, it is the worst. He advocates for what he calls the Slow Home movement, which like the Slow Food crusade that began in Europe in the '80s as a reaction to the increasing commoditization of dining, is aimed at alerting people to the problems of sprawl, while inviting homeowners to be more considerate about the space in which they live.
"Just like fast food separated us from knowing where our food comes from, or the process of how it's made, we're becoming estranged from the process of making our houses," he says. "And all the things that make a Big Mac unsatisfying and unhealthy you also find in these fast houses."
The fallout from such an approach is both predictable and not. Insatiable developers gobbling up farmland is bad for the environment. Today's slapdash houses border on toxic. "That new home smell? That's off-gas and chemicals from synthetic products," Mr. Brown says. Health groups link rising obesity and attendant diseases to the dominance of the car-centred communities where sidewalks are so pointless -- no shops or businesses within walking distance -- that they are frequently left out altogether.
Then there are the economics of stretching utilities, sewers and schools ever further out. "It can cost up to four times more to develop, maintain and service a low-density, segregated-use, car-dependent community than it does to develop a medium-density community that is serviced by transit and gives you walkable options," says Brian Pincott, head of the anti-sprawl campaign for the Sierra Club's Prairie chapter.
Developers have deeply invested in the lucrative sprawl model -- they bought up cheap land around the city years ago and waited for the population to come. But it is consumers who are sold on the appeal of suburban McMansions: "When you are looking for the biggest bang for your buck as a homebuyer, you say 'I can get all of this and a brand new house at the edge of the city' versus 'I can get a smaller house that needs a lot of work,' says Karen Wilkie, a senior policy analyst at the Canada West Foundation.
For that reason, any change must be cultural, figures Mr. Brown. Much as we have weaned off biggie fries and gallon-sized Pepsis, he says, consumers must understand that there is more to a home than the empty calories of cavernous foyers and "bonus" rooms and that homes fitting their needs are not among the floor-plan options in their builder's pattern book. Just as McDonald's has responded to changing consumer tastes with healthier menus, he says, "If the consumer says, 'I don't want this anymore,' you can bet everyone of these developers is going to do something different. ? The more that's demanded of them, the more they will come up with new things. That's why we've taken this public activism approach."
Mr. Brown crusades by speaking to audiences worldwide and through the Internet about the scourge of cheap, homogeneous exurbs that has spread globally -- these Calgary neighbourhoods have identical cousins in Arizona, Paris, even China. His Web site, theslowhome.com, streams interviews with architects and planners who have joined the struggle, and features blogs celebrating the careful residential planning and design that has become so rare. One section, entitled Outrage!, offers a photographic catalogue of the worst examples of suburban crimes-against-design from around the world.
But while the suburbs offend, those who live there are innocent, lured by the seduction of wide open spaces, says Gary Burns, a Calgary director whose film Radiant City, a quasi-documentary about sprawl starring actual suburbanites, opened in theatres last week. "If you buy into the suburban dreams, what are your options?" he says, "Unless you've got a million bucks, good luck buying a place downtown."
But while sprawl's defenders argue that new developments are necessary for first-time homebuyers, Mr. Brown says affordability is one of several suburban myths. Another is that newer homes offer large yards; in reality they are frequently smaller than in urban, working-class homes. Touring one of Calgary's freshly sprouted appendages, Mr. Brown notes that the cheapest house in the area lists at $490,000, no cheaper than many downtown homes (Calgary's median price is $365,000). The most expensive: $2.2-million. "If these were just being built as starter houses, then you might say, 'fair enough.' But there's no excuse for building an $800,000 house out here."
In Calgary, where 25,000 new arrivals flock yearly, promoting a go-slow agenda is a mighty task. Though the mood feels right -- 74% of Calgarians told a recent Canada West Foundation poll that "sprawl is a problem" -- city dwellers often dismiss the offered solutions.
A recent municipal proposal to allow homeowners to add secondary rental suites was kiboshed by citizens fretting about the traffic it would bring to their cul de sacs. Plans to increase the density of housing around Light Rail Transit stations are opposed by those in affected neighbourhoods.
Madeleine King, a Calgary alderman and an outspoken critic of suburban sprawl, says that in her downtown riding, "there is a fair amount of discontent" about rising density from nearby condo projects.
Meanwhile, city planners accustomed to rubber-stamping outskirt developments are paralyzed by unconventional plans, notes Mr. Pincott. Calgary's Garrison Woods, a wildly popular inner-city project built in the '90s on decommissioned army land, took three times longer than usual to get approval.
"The reason it was still built is because Canada Lands owned it. They have patient capital," says Mr. Pincott. Private developers, with anxious shareholders, could not tolerate such a wait, even though the demand for urban housing is palpable. "This is not about slowing down developers. This is not about forcing developers to do something different. This is about getting government out of the way."
There are enough available spots within the city's grid, Mr. Brown believes, to fill with urban projects to accommodate t he city's rapid growth and then some. "We could triple our population and not increase our land area anymore than we've got," if only the incentives--for consumers and developers--were there. In the meantime, he has adjusted his own architectural practice to target homebuyers considering the sprawling burbs, persuading them instead to buy a bungalow or split-level within the city.
For the same budget as new, he says, he can tailor a smaller home to suit a family's needs better than any mass-manufactured house, with superior materials. Alone, his firm can only manage 80 houses a year, he laments. But every bit helps. "I tell my clients that every project we do means one less suburban mess."
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