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Vancouver Millennials Need to Get Over The Dream of Owning a Single Family Home

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This City Life

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Photo: Emily Jackson, Metro News

The City of Vancouver has announced plans that will encourage the development of more family housing around parks, schools and community centres (i.e. three bedroom apartments, townhomes, etc). This is a very timely since I recently launched Kids in the City, a series profiling families who embrace compact urban living.

"We're going to keep looking at new ideas to meet our affordable housing challenges head-on, and make sure we're providing opportunities for young people to put down roots in Vancouver," Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson said in a statement.

While we read every day about the lack of affordable housing and rise of foreign ownership in Vancouver, family-friendly housing is what the city desperately needs to combat these problems. Property speculators may snap up single family homes and waterfront condos to park their money. But I doubt that they will find a rowhome or a three bedroom apartment off Commercial Drive as appealing.

These are types of homes that people live and raise their families in, because single family homes have become completely unaffordable to those of us who are not developers or offshore investors.

Local developer Bob Rennie is right. The dream of owning a single family home in Vancouver is dead. I urge millennials to get over it. If you want a big home, move to the suburbs.

I live in a duplex and have zero desire for more space, which just translates into more maintenance and less free time. We can still enjoy the city and home ownership if we are willing to give up on the expectation of a 2500 square ft plus home with a big garage and backyard (I have a yard…it is nice and all, but honestly, it requires so much time that I would rather spend biking the seawall).

Many of my friends and the families who I interviewed for Kids in the City love raising their children in compact urban spaces in walkable communities like Vancouver. Here are some of their thoughts:

"Compact living has huge advantages over living large. Not only does it take less of our time and money to maintain our 1000sqft condo (freeing us up to travel, go out, enjoy family time, etc), but living small uses fewer resources than running a house does." – Adrian Cook

"I find that we save a lot of time living in a condo. We don't need to spend as much time working on the house and we definitely spent a lot less time in the car getting to places." – Jonathan Cote

"Everything is close by. We save so much time in the evening by not driving or walking from here to there. We even pop down to the grocery store as a family for fun! Sometimes my family will play in the courtyard play area while I work out in the gym. Life just feels easy." – Danika McDowell

" I love that my son is learning to be engaged with neighbors, business leaders and others in his neighborhood.  This skill will allow him to view the planet and the people on it with more understanding and acceptance." – Patrick Melody

If we build more compact, livable homes for families like this, we can create a city of people that actually live here instead of a resort town for global wealth.

Speculation taxes may be a minor deterrent to global investors and help housing affordability (although this has yet to be proven. See the Australia example). The fact of the matter is, Vancouver has too much land that is taken up by single family homes.

In order to attract more people to live here (not just invest here), we need more, smaller homes, ideally with three bedrooms. Especially in the form of gentle density, so we do not impact the character of Vancouver's many great neighbourhoods (I am not pro-hire rise towers. See my take here). This will also benefit people already raising children in Vancouver, including the 8,000 families who live in one bedroom or studio apartments.

The primary risks with increasing density is real estate speculation and profit-hungry developers, but I am hopeful that the City of Vancouver will find ways within their power to avoid this as they move forward with their plans.

By ignoring the needs of families, we have already lost a valuable part of the population - people who stay and put down roots in the city. According to Statistics Canada, the percentage of families living in Vancouver dropped from 35 per cent in 2006 to 33 per cent in 2011 — the lowest percentage since 1991.

I have already watched many of my friends leave Vancouver to raise families in more affordable cities. I urge the City to move ahead with this plan before we lose more young families and replace them with more offshore investors.

At the same time, I urge young people to rethink their desire for a single family home. Many of the things we love about Vancouver such as walkability, public transit and access to amenities are made possible because people are willing to live closer together.

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