Late last week on my way out the door I found a glossy card on the floor of my porch from a group called “Reasonable Heritage.” This card had a bold headline that asks the question: “What will a 17 per cent drop in land value mean to your family?”
The other side of the card shows the effects a heritage conservation area (HCA) would have on six houses in the Queen’s Park area.
It went on to offer their opinion of what could happen in the Queen’s Park neighbourhood with regards to the proposed heritage conservation area currently before the city and the potential financial fallout of this proposal on the houses in this area.
I was intrigued by these numbers, as a 17 per cent reduction in anyone’s property would be a cause for worry. I wasn’t quite sure where I could corroborate their statement, but I saw both B.C. Assessment and the HCA homes in Shaughnessy mentioned in their pamphlet, so I thought I could start there.
I know that comparing Queen’s Park with First Shaughnessy is a little like comparing apples with oranges; they are both fruit, but that’s where it ends.
I knew that some members of the Shaughnessy Heights Property Owners Association had taken the City of Vancouver to court about the creation of an HCA in First Shaughnessy District (FSD), so I followed that source. I found a report presented by Mary Anne Cummings (one of the litigants) that presented some early data on the effect of the HCA on the prices in First Shaughnessy District.
There were 24 house sales between October 2015 and August 2016 (the HCA went into effect on Sept. 29, 2015), with 12 houses from the pre-1940 list (the cut-off for the HCA) and 12 houses from the post-1940 list, which were outside the HCA.
Of the 12 houses in the HCA, seven sold for more than their most recent B.C. Assessment and five sold for less than their B.C. Assessment.
Of the 12 houses from the post-1940 list, five sold for more than their assessments and seven sold for less.
I also checked the assessments for this year and the previous year for this list of homes and only found one of the 24 where the land portion was less this year than last. All the homes’ total assessments were higher than the previous year.
I followed that up with looking at recent home sales in the Queen’s Park neighbourhood.
They begin in May 2016 through to this week with 14 sales that I could find. Of the 14 sales, nine were over the B.C. Assessment for this year and five were lower. Of the fiver lower houses, two were within a few thousand dollars of their assessment.
B.C. Assessment came out earlier this year and stated that people may be surprised at their assessments as they reflected the heated market the Lower Mainland had been experiencing the last couple of years, and that it might not be a true reflection of their home’s value.
I can’t see where the 17 per cent drop in value comes from based on this information, and it seems there are still people willing to buy homes in Queen’s Park even with the HCA potentially looming down the road.
One last point: I know one of the people whose home was on this pamphlet showing what houses in Queen’s Park were possibly going to lose with an HCA. Not only had she not given permission to show her house in this way, she is a strong supporter of the HCA. Obviously a mistake was made in this regard, leaving one to consider what other mistakes might be on it.
Pat McLellan is a New Westminster resident.
