When Rory O’Flynn started building laneway houses in Vancouver soon after they were first permitted in 2009, his crews had a particularly hard time when they built near Jericho Beach or the University of B.C. – two high-end west-side neighbourhoods.
Released in November, the study attracted a lot of press and local attention, since it provided additional information about the role that’s being played in the city by increasingly numerous but still novel laneway homes. Such homes, which are built at the backs of single-family yards in sizes from 600 to 1,200 square feet depending on the dimensions of the lot, account for about 5,000 applications to the city since they were legalized in 2009.
“There seemed to be more willingness to pay to avoid the intrusion on privacy,” said Thomas Davidoff, one of the two University of B.C. professors who did the study, along with a colleague from Simon Fraser University. On a more serious note, he added that the idea embedded in the study that it’s a bad thing to reduce the value of housing in upscale neighbourhoods betrays a perspective that not everyone shares.
“I haven’t had anybody complain. We’ve had no reaction,” said Prof. Stecklow, who had the house built a year-and-a-half ago for his mother. “In a lot of cases, it’s turning an old lot into something more attractive.” He’s hoping for even more so that the laneways will become engaging mini-streets, rather than garbage-filled alleys.
Mr. Pospichil said his sales records show that houses with laneway homes sell for more than comparable ones without, “but the added value is less than the cost of building.”