Dear Editor:
Re: Council debates how to handle laneway housing, The Record, Jan. 17.
Your recent article on laneway housing being discussed at council was both surprising and distressing, to say the least.
Beyond all the issues around laneway housing (parking, narrow lanes crowded with cars, loss of trees and greenspace as houses fill up back yards), the most distressing for me was how the city can even consider discussing laneway housing while it has just started a formal process to stop the increasing number of demolitions in the Queen's Park neighborhood.
For starters, laneway housing in Queen's Park will hardly result in the "affordable" housing councillors say they support. Not only will property values soar with two houses on the lot, but rents will be beyond what average people can pay.
The real issue is that once laneway houses are legalized, the number of demolitions will accelerate.
I recently talked to someone who lives near Cambie Street in Vancouver and she said that houses are coming down every week in her neighborhood (let alone the rest of the city) and being replaced with two new houses that are, to the inch, the maximum allowable square footage allowed.
Homes on existing lots were not built to accommodate another house on the same lot - it's not always simply a case of replacing a garage with a house. Developers will be wanting to remove any existing roadblocks to getting two houses of maximum size on one lot - and the result will be even more demolitions than we have now - which has become such a problem the city is looking for a solution.
This is truly a case of robbing Paul to pay Peter.
The other concern is that one of the most viable solutions to convincing developers not to demolish a house and replace it with a new one are density incentives, including subdividing the lot and allowing carriage houses or additions beyond the floor space ratio that currently exists.
Laneway housing being legalized removes that incentive.
Why would someone reconsider demolition when it's legal to tear down and put two houses on the same lot?
Council must weigh these issues carefully before making any policy decisions, particularly any that are city-wide in nature.
Jim Hutson, New Westminster
