How much is enough? Jake Fry, Founder of Smallworks and Co-founder of Small Housing BC, and Richard Bell of Bell Alliance LLP, and Director of Small Housing BC know how to reconfigure a single-family home to find a variety of affordable housing solutions for families of all configurations. Listen in as co-hosts Mike and Jennifer-Lee hear about creative ideas for single-family home ownership in Metro Vancouver.
Listen to “Just Enough: How much space do you need for a home?” on Spreaker.
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About the Speaker
Jake Fry, Founder/Principal, Smallworks and Co-Founder, Director, Small Housing BC
Jake started Smallworks in late 2005 and became a strong advocate for the introduction of laneway housing. He established Smallworks Studios and Laneway Housing Inc. and worked with the City of Vancouver and other municipalities to help develop zoning by-laws based on his experience and interaction with literally hundreds of potential small home clients. Jake not only wanted to build small but to build sustainable. He brings together a team of dedicated people and develops homes which blend innovative techniques and incorporate modern building science and Flat Pac with hand-built finishes and millwork.
“My desire in starting Smallworks was to build simple, elegant modern homes which, with basic maintenance, would look as good a generation after they were built as when they were new.” In 2012, Jake was one of two founding directors of SmallHousing BC, a non profit society. In 2014 Jake was named Ernst & Young’s (EY) Entrepreneur of the Year in Manufacturing.
Today, Jake focuses on finding new ways to broaden the range of housing types in Vancouver to create affordable options for single-family home ownership.
Richard Bell, Director, Small Housing BC
Richard is a real estate and estate planning lawyer with over 30 years of experience. He also runs his own paperless firm, Bell Alliance LLP.
Resources shared in this episode:
Transcript for this episode:
Jennifer-Lee:
Welcome to Measure Twice, Cut Once, the podcast from HAVAN, the Homebuilders Association Vancouver.
Mike:
From codes to kitchens,
Jennifer-Lee:
safety to sun decks.
Mike:
We’ll take you behind the walls and all things, home building design and renovation.
Jennifer-Lee:
And give you the ins and outs from the experts
Mike:
To help you build or renovate the right home for you.
Jennifer-Lee:
In plain language,
Mike:
focused on home, building design and renovation.
Jennifer-Lee:
I’m Jennifer Lee Gunson.
Mike:
And I’m Mike Friedman. Now that you’re here, why not hit subscribe? And you’ll never miss another episode.
Jennifer-Lee:
Hey Mike, it’s great to be back in the studio with you for Season Two.
Mike:
Hey Jennifer-Lee. It’s great to see you too. The line for Season Two is going to be great. It’s all about building the right home for you. Whether you want to build a new home or want to do a partial or full renovation to suit your changing lifestyle needs, Season Two is packed with timely building renovation and design advice, and of course, resources from HAVAN experts.
Jennifer-Lee:
Oh, and I’m so excited for this because in this season we have two guests in the studio and industry expert and a guest who worked on a project like the homeowner or the designer to share their experiences, tips, and helpful resources. And I’m hoping lots of fun stories as well. And as always, all episode transcripts and resources are available at HAVAN.com/MeasureTwiceCutOnce.
Mike:
You know, I learned so much in Season One, but I’m still learning a ton and I can use all the help and resources I can get speaking from personal experience with two adults working from home three school-age children and three dogs, our house is busting at the seams and my family is looking at either a full home renovation or tearing down our house and building a brand new home.
Jennifer-Lee:
I feel like you’ve got some exciting stories from that whole experience.
Mike:
I’ve gotten nothing but exciting stories.
Jennifer-Lee:
And of course our worlds have certainly changed over the last year, like you mentioned. Mine hasn’t changed too much because I don’t have roomies like you, but, uh, you know, we’re all going through the different challenges and we need to know different ways to upgrade our homes and to accommodate our current live work situations. I did get a fancy new office chair, so that helps. You know, we need to come up with different solutions for people wanting to move out of the condo and get into more space. There’s a lot of demand for building buying and renovating homes, of course, right here in Vancouver.
Mike:
And that’s right in line with today’s guests. We’re very fortunate to have Jake Fry, Founder and Principal of Smallworks Studio and Laneways, and Co-founder and Co-director of Small Housing BC; and joined by Richard Bell of Bell Alliance LLP, who’s the Director of Small Housing BC to talk about making Vancouver single family law work to create more affordable housing solutions.
Jake:
Thank you for having us. Very exciting.
Jennifer-Lee:
Ok, so let’s ask the toughest question that I always like to ask, I will start with Jake. I want to know more about my guests because everybody has their own personal journey to get where they’re going. And I find that the most fascinating thing to ask people because everyone’s journey is different. So I want to know how did you get to creating Smallworks? And of course being the Co-founder of Small Housing BC?
Jake:
Well, it was not a direct path. And I think my perfect image that I like to talk about is I had moved to Vancouver where my wife had grown up from Toronto, where we had met and I was had a small renovation company and I was around 40 and was working on, as one does get established in a town. And I was working with a crew of guys. We were doing finishing work and then my background had been carpentry and it was a small place of a mirror, 12,000 square feet.
Jennifer-Lee:
That seems massive now.
Jake:
Exactly.
Mike:
It was so small at the time.
Jennifer-Lee:
You were living in a mansion.
Jake:
I was working in a bathroom and it was a seven bedroom house. Each one had an ensuite and I was putting crown molding in the bathroom. And I was looking at this window and there was a beautiful, you know, leafy, storied kind of lane way. And this little girl walked in, and she’s about, maybe three or four into the bathroom. And she goes, ‘I think this is going to be my bathroom.’ And I was talking to her and she had a mom and a dad and the three of them were going to live in this house by themselves. And I was looking down this laneway and Vancouver would still, at that point, just beginning to get that price increase. I said, I could fill this whole laneway with beautiful little cottages and everyone would have an appropriate-sized house. And at this seems such a contrast to the situation I was in. And within a week I put down my tools and I started the company and started advocating for that type of built form in the city. It took me about four years before we actually got the bylaw passed and laneway housing became basically a built form that was not even going to be established, but it was going to be throughout the whole city.
Mike:
I think sometimes we take for granted certain styles and practices of building. As you’ve just described though, not everything is instantaneous. It takes a long time, especially to bring in new ideas and new logic. So I’m curious, Richard, how you got involved in all of this, cause you have a long history and practice of real estate and wills and estate planning. Tell us a bit about your background as a lawyer and your connection with Small Housing BC and the vision of Small Housing BC and how you got involved in this in the first place
Richard:
I’ve practiced, uh, real estate law for a long time. I always say over 25 years, probably I could say over 30 years as well. And so I’ve really sort of been part of that market that’s been constantly changing, uh, Vancouver and the surrounding areas getting more and more expensive. So I have a family and we’re very family oriented. I think I got started with Small Housing BC cause Jake phoned me one day and said, Richard, we need some money. And a small group of us. I think it was really three of us who put together a fund to do some research around laneway housing. And what was fascinating about the research was that people were opposed to laneway housing primarily because they were opposed to change. Small Housing BC has played a critical role in sort of helping people get around the idea that this works really well in our community. And what happens is you get different people moving in the community. Young kids are now growing up in our regular communities throughout the city. So as I think everyone knows, uh, I built a family compound and we’ll probably talk a little bit more about that as we go forward in this program, but it is a, it’s an exciting change in the city. Jake and the Small Housing BC have worked hard to make that change take place. Now we just need to have a little bit more sport to take it to the next level by the community and by the city.
Jennifer-Lee:
Right. And actually, Richard, we touched a little bit on the family compound. I did take a look at the video you did with CTV last night and it was gorgeous to tour or through all the little homes. Can you explain the process of that? And of course, I know there’s a story that maybe the viewers don’t know of, why you guys decided to do the family compound.
Richard:
It took some time, but the key for us was to ultimately create an environment where my kids could live in Vancouver. And I wanted them to be able to have some grass for grandkids to play in. So, uh, what we built was effectively, I refer to as effectively a duplex, although you can’t have two front doors, which is drives me crazy that that’s a rule in the city. So it’s not a strata complex. It’s three units on a piece of property, which effectively, as I say, the main building is a duplex with about 1600 square feet in each unit. And then we have a laneway, which is about 900 square feet. And what’s really exciting whenever I talk about this is I can say this is four generations living on a piece of dirt in Vancouver; everything from a five month old granddaughter to a three-year-old granddaughter, two daughters, a son-in-law and an, about to be 93 year old mother. And we all live together, uh, in our separate spaces outside, we have separate outside spaces plus a common area. So it’s great. It doesn’t necessarily work for every family because you’ve really got to understand it’s the family, you’re all a bit different and you need to work together to make it successful.
Mike:
That brings up an interesting point because if you’re living with a family and dealing with a coal ownership situation, it’s not like just tenants are renting where you can just get up and leave. Obviously there’s a deeper level of investment and your connection there. Can I ask you about co-ownership agreements? Cause this seems like how we protect ourselves in these situations. Is it possible for friends or even strangers to come together to be able to purchase a home or build a home or even to renovate an existing home and are there tools we can use? I mean, I’ve heard of apps like www.we own.ca and www.sharemortgage.com. Are these good tools to use for this to help protect people when they’re looking at a situation like this?
Richard:
We probably, at any point in time are working on a co-ownership agreement with families and they’re all just slightly different. But the basic idea behind the co-ownership agreement is to sort of allocate who’s paying for what, are their exclusive areas. And so it can be families or it could be friends that are coming together to enable them to live in the city and raise kids where there’s some grass in the backyard. What happens if someone, if there’s a divorce within one of the family groups? What happens if someone loses their job and can’t afford to be able to pay for their share? The biggest challenge right now is that when you’re doing a co-ownership structure where it’s not a strata titled property, the lenders will require every owner to sign off on the mortgage financing. So you may have someone who’s brought $250,000 into the transaction. Someone else’s bought 400,000, but if there’s a mortgage for say a million dollars on the property, everyone’s responsible for that now. One of the hopes that we have at Small Housing BC and Jake and I, and Small Housing BC have been working on this is, why don’t we have a lender say, yeah, you all sign off on the mortgage, but in fact, we’re going to limit your liability to that portion of the mortgage that relates to what you, as a participant in the co-ownership have borrowed. That’s really the critical element to make this even more successful in our city.
Mike:
I really love about is the creativity. We know this an expensive city to live in. And, you know, as I’m looking at my kids going, are they going to be even live with an hour and a half of me? I love that you found a solution to it that protects everybody as well, because that’s half of it is finding a way to make it work. And the other half is protecting all of us when we’ve entered into an agreement together. So I love the way that you’ve solved that problem and created a model where a lot of other families can leverage to also solve their problems and maintain a family unit in its entirety, which I think is fantastic. Been great talking to you both so far. Uh, we do have to do a quick break to thank our podcast sponsors. So hang in there, we’ll be back in 30 seconds. Okay.
Jennifer-Lee:
Measure Twice, Cut Once is grateful for the support from our podcast partners, BC Housing, BC Hydro, and Fortis BC. Their support helps us share expert knowledge and resources like you’re hearing today from Jake and Richard to help build design and renovate the home right for you.
Mike:
You can have resources. The BC Energy Step Code Program is a provincial standard that is moving the entire home building industry forward to build homes to better energy efficiency standards, which means better comfort, health, and safety. Be sure to check out www.betterhomes.bc.ca, where you’ll find a variety of rebates for construction materials, home, energy evaluations, plus mortgage and tax refunds.
Jennifer-Lee:
They’re also rebates for innovations so just click on the rebate search tool button on the homepage of www.betterhomes.bc.ca to find cost-saving resources for your next project, or talk with your licensed builder or professional contractor. They’ll help guide you.
Jennifer-Lee:
Okay. Let’s get back to Jake and Richard. But I just want to kind of bring back the conversation for a second before we move on, because we were talking about property agreements. What happens if something really bad happens and somebody has to sell their portion or get out, like, is that going to be a whole bunch of red tape or do they sell it to the rest of the people owning the property?
Richard:
Yes. So, the provision in most of these co-ownership agreements is that there is the, if someone does need to sell, they must first make an offer to the other owners, for them to be able to buy the property. And if the other owners can’t afford to buy the property that co-ownership interest can be listed for sale and sold to another party. There’s sometimes scenarios where within that structure, everyone has a bit of a problem, whether it’s personal interaction issues or whether it is financial. And so the property could again be sold as a package into the market. But in most instances, there is another buyer out there for that particular unit, because this is an opportunity that’s just not readily available. So there’s lots of people that are becoming more and more interested in this opportunity.
Jennifer-Lee:
Yeah, but then I guess you have to find the right person too, because say like in your case, if one of your family members sold and left, you want to make sure you’re getting somebody good coming into your family bubble, so to speak, right?
Richard:
In some instances an agreement can provide that there is an approval process so that the other owners do get to meet the people that are interested in buying the price.
Mike:
I think it really just underscores a: get it in writing and make sure that writing is very, very clear. And that’s what someone like yourself can definitely help any homeowner do to protect their liability. So, hey, we can’t control the future. We can’t control certain things that are going to happen. You have an escape clause now and you can get out of something if it doesn’t go the right way. And you’re protected, like to start talking a little about single family, lot options and where you can build these alternative houses. Jake, for municipalities zoning and or restrictions, help us understand where we can look at for these alternative home formats and what some of the prohibitions or restrictions might be in certain areas and moving forward to the project like this.
Jake:
Well, it’s, it’s a great question to reflect on this because it is, I think a fundamentally, we’re going through a switch in the province. There’s not many communities that are older than 10 decades. And most of the housing that we see that we consider to be neighborhood housing is less than a hundred years old. So what happens? And I think what we’re facing across the province, and it’s very acute when we get into the Lower Mainland is how are we going to use that land better? When we look at what we’re talking about, these single family neighborhoods they’re often have been established after a city core, and incidentally moves to this development happened after the first pandemic, just after the First World War where you had a push out from city centers that were intended to be fairly dense. There was multi-families within one building and it was pushing out to go look, I need some, this, I want my own space. There was a number of drivers that became a second wave that mirrored, that, that we became quite prolific after the second world war and the GI bill and all those CMHC houses that were, that were built . We’re kind of in that moment again. And what we’re really looking at in these communities is we have an acute austerity problem around affordability, a lot of housing in certain areas, certainly within the Vancouver Lower Mainland, there’s been a lot of investments. We have this sort of artificial rise in price because of the rarity of commodity being the land. And we have a disproportionate land value to income on people. So all of these communities are looking at how do we create affordability? All of these communities have been set up with the zoning that generally fundamentally works in an exclusive basis. We are protecting these neighborhoods because they were predicated on being able to have independence around it from other people. And that’s how these communities developed. Now that level of independence change, family dynamics have changed. Demographics have changed and we need to use a land better. So the opportunities are quite broad. We’ve seen certainly in Vancouver, it’s quite unique within North America for the whole city to go, okay, well, we’re going to add a third residence to property. I mean, that’s, that’s unique. That did not exist anywhere else. Other than California is the only place that’s brought that in subsequent to Vancouver. The opportunities to be able to have more than one living unit, other type of living arrangements, as Richard’s talked about other financial arrangements, we’re just seeing what can happen now. And what we’re really looking at is let’s move away from a developer based model where there’s land acquisition and really intensive development on this piece of land generally really has an impact and creating more, a rise in value of the land. Let’s try not affect the land. Let’s move away from a speculative development base. Let’s look at homeowners, current property owners, being able to have a bit more autonomy on what they do in their property and have the municipality and their regulators then reinforce the opportunities to deliver more affordable housing using that mechanism. And that’s really what we as a society, the Small Housing BC, that’s what we’re working with. And I would say there’s no specific opportunity beyond what we’ve seen with the addition of coach houses, laneway houses, but it is something that’s just beginning to come into its own. We start to see some more co-ownership happening in multi-family. Now we’re going to hopefully start to see that happen as Richardson with a family compound, we’ve seen people start to embrace laneway housing. Now we’re probably going to start to see that even if not formally be an ownership model, we’re informally, we’re seeing that more and more that that’s coming about. And I think that’s where our discussion starts and then where it moves forward to is other things that we’ve been developing were let’s add five units to a property. Let’s not increase the square footage a lot, but let’s make those housing units more appropriate. People need about 1200 square feet, 800 square feet. And let’s take that extra land value and start to subsidize some of the housing prices on that property. That’s why I think what we’re really excited about the work moving ahead. And I think the laneway house has worked as this beautiful vehicle to illustrate how something that might’ve started off as a fearful thing in the part of the neighborhood has now been embraced by neighborhoods as a key tool to helping families be able to afford and neighborhoods to be able to flourish with the right size of population.
Jennifer-Lee:
I love the laneway house and I’m so excited in my neighborhood in Vancouver, there’s so many new ones popping up all the time. And a lot of the backyards, I actually say have a laneway house now, and I think that’s great. I know a lot of other municipalities don’t allow them, um, which I hope they do. They do allow other types of housing. Uh, but that, that goes to my next question is the fact that if you are wanting to get a property and you’re looking for properties, but you don’t know maybe what you’re allowed to do, who should you be talking to? Should you go to city hall? She’d do grab a builder first. Like what would be your step? And you’re like, I really want to lay away house, but I don’t know if like Burnaby is going to allow me to do it or new West or whatever. Should you do your homework first? And like, what should you be doing?
Jake:
Well, homework is always good for sure. And, you know, I think it’s probably not a single source. Um, speaking to good designer, certainly speaking to city officials will probably give you an immediate answer. Looking around at neighborhoods that you really like and seeing what’s been done there we’ll often let you lead into an idea that maybe you didn’t immediately anticipate. So we’ve seen things where people, maybe they want to look at a single home because they have a need for that. They can’t do a laneway house, but all of a sudden they can do some ad hoc work to have like a lock off suite or enter to get some rental income. I mean, that’s the most kind of modest iteration of that, but I think it’s a mix of real estate agent, city officials and builders are always great because builders know what they’ve done in other areas.
Mike:
We talk about that a lot, actually working with local builders because they know their municipality better than anyone else. And we want to point something out too. We’re in Vancouver. This is where this is being recorded. And that’s currently allowed. I live in South Surrey. It’s starting to become common practice there, but it is not in every municipality yet. And that’s why you do want to work with a local builder and take advantage of some of the resources available like Small Housing BC. Cause you’ve got to remember at one point, it wasn’t allowed in Vancouver either. And it took the efforts of people like yourselves to make it so it was allowed and open up these new doors, literally to housing for people who may not have had access to housing before. So there are a lot of resources out there. Richard, I want to direct this at you. I know we’re talking Vancouver very generally, but can you maybe take us up a few, a few feet, and to have sort of a broader view of things and help us understand what is allowed under zoning for multiple ownership. And can you stratify lots or subdivide when it comes to basement suites or duplexes or multiunit properties. Sort of just give us the lay of land of, to where we’re standing right now and where the limit is.
Richard:
I just want to sort of jump back to that last discussion. I think the message that something like this, uh, this podcast can do is to reach out to people who are listening in their communities and if their community is not supporting these initiatives, speak up, talk to the local politicians because there is a wave happening and we just need to continue to build that wave so that there are more opportunities. So the big challenge is, and I think, uh, the City of Vancouver, uh, Jake, I’m looking at you, I was about two years ago where they said, basically everything can be a duplex, but they then said, but yeah, if you’ve got a duplex, you can’t have a lane way. And I think there was some concern again, around driving the value of the dirt up too quickly. So one can only hope that there’s another stage coming, which they say, yes, you can have a duplex and you could have a lane way, or you can actually get a little more density and, uh, incorporate some affordability covenants into that opportunity for additional density. So, you know, you can have, uh, you know, a basement suite in most houses and think back many years for some of us that have got gray hair like me is, Oh my God, someone had a basement suite that was against the bylaws. And there’s still municipalities that have restrictions on having a basement suite. So really when you’re doing something like the co-ownership model, currently there isn’t the opportunity for stratification of the sort of project that we’ve done. There are some opportunities around heritage homes where you could actually create a separate strata unit, which it may look like a laneway, but it can be a strata unit. There’s some challenges around that because the bylaws require a whole bunch of money to be invested into the heritage home. And so that’s a bit of a barrier, you know, put sprinklers into the heritage home. So unfortunately this is all about baby steps. So Jake and I hope that the City becomes an adult and starts taking adult steps forward. So each municipality is different, but there is a movement that’s going across Canada throughout the US where they recognize this is the way to go for the future to support affordability in their city.
Jennifer-Lee:
And I don’t think it’s just opening the mind of the city. Like you said before, opening the mind of the people and getting the people to talk to the politicians, to get these types of housing into the municipality, because that’s the thing is like I grew up in a duplex and I remember so many times people were like, oh, you’re, you’re living in a duplex. Like that’s awful. And I was like, no, it’s actually looks exactly like your home. It’s the same size as your home. It’s just attached to another home. So I think it’s getting that idea of like, hey, it’s okay to live in a laneway house. Like, no, one’s going to look down at you for living in that or living in a basement suite. We’re having to wrap everybody’s heads around these ideas and getting them to accept that it’s okay. And let’s talk to our politicians to make this happen, because then we’re going to get more people into housing. And that’s what we want, right?
Mike:
And also get this idea out of our heads that, Hey, each of us, as a family unit is going to have a square property with nice green grass and an individual house that’s done by 2050 zero, virtually zero of us are going to have this as an option. So a either going up or you’re going to make better use of the land all around us. And so it’s just variations of the same. And what I love about it is now there are people out there who have so many different options where to live, and the best part is they don’t have to leave our province. We don’t have this drain of young, talented people leaving because they simply can’t afford to live within two hours of where they work. And I applaud what you guys are doing because it is going to change the lay of the land for all of us. And I’m looking at my kids who are 12 and under going, where are they going to live? And the answer is probably in a laneway house, thanks to the efforts of what you guys are doing. So thank you for that.
Richard:
Well, one of the challenges, and I always think that, you know, people that, uh, like my family, where my wife and I owned a home in Vancouver. So we have the luxury of having a home where we can do this. The challenge is, is how do we enable those younger folks whose parents haven’t, who don’t own a home in the, in the city? How can we have those younger kids come in and have a piece of dirt, a piece of grass outside their door, where the kids can play. And so that’s the challenge. It’s one thing when you’re a family already owning here, but how do we enable other people to come here as opposed to having to move to a smaller communities? Uh, and the smaller communities are great and they’re actually benefiting from this because we do have a lot of young people that are moving to the smaller communities, bringing new vitality to the, those communities. But even those communities have a challenge. I always say that someone growing up in almost any community has troubles buying in that community because someone’s moved from a more expensive community into that one. So this is why we just have to have something happen around affordability throughout the province and the country. People have to have the flexibility to find something in Vancouver, find something in the Nanaimo, find something in Nelson that flexibility has to be there. And it’s only through the types of discussions we’re having, where that will be achieved.
Jake:
Yeah. And I would add to that too, that if we approach that with a forward-thinking design sensibility, we’re not creating environments, living environments that are at all compromised. To your point earlier, Jennifer, we have a set of expectations that are very, you know, for lack of better term, very manufactured. And when we think about what is it to be at home, what makes us emotionally kind of satiated in that environment that can be done. Like that is very achievable. And we tend to actually need less than we think we do, but we’re not compromising. We often said the definition at Small Housing BC, like what is small? And we like to talk about with small is just enough small as having an environment, which reinforces who you are. It makes you feel good to be there, but has no excess. And that’s really our definition of small. And we feel that we can really add a lot of households with that philosophy and we can have those communities somewhat unchanged.
Jennifer-Lee:
Yeah. And like you said, they can be beautiful. Small living does not have to be this thought that you’re like, Oh, I’m going to be cramped up and it’s going to be ugly. And it’s, it’s not the truth. I was watching, I remember watching this a long time ago, but Oprah went to Denmark and looked at a professional’s homes. And it was, you know, you did stairs up and it was this beautiful modern space. And it reminded me a lot of homes on your website. When I was looking on the site, it’s like these homes, you would never be able to tell that they’re small homes are gorgeous and modern, and it’s just enough space for whoever wants to live there.
Jake:
That’s the trick.
Jennifer-Lee:
So when you’re designing a small home for someone, what is the process like? Is anything different from building a bit bigger home? Or like, are you thinking more of like the functionality of storage or anything like that?
Jake:
Uh, you know, a good analogy I like using is sailboats. You know, if you’ve been in a well-appointed sailboat and you have everything has its place in some things might actually do more than one thing, you somewhat have to use that lens. For us millwork always been a big thing. And that you have some versatility with millwork, but at the same time, you still need to have, okay, this is my entrance. And that’s my hearth of my house. And, and this is where I sit down to read. Um, might also do some double duty. That’s where the kids, you know, do their homework, or that might also be the place that you set up to do some ironing, but everything has a function within the house. And the big thing is always to talk about the client, like what is interesting, we had started our process doing more standard homes. We’ve over the process of the last 12 years, probably become a bit more of a custom builder. Now with construction costs, being on the rise we’re also looking at introducing some of the standard homes back in for people who dis needs something that’s really cost effective, but even those standard homes come with that philosophy of what is, what is the best practice to happen on this piece of land. And what’s going to create the most livable, generous feeling, wonderful thing about these lane homes and any sort of infill project is you’re at grade. All of a sudden, because we live in such a tempered environment, you have this outdoor space, which could easily effectively double your living space. It’s so much different to live in an 800 square foot, two bedroom laneway house than it is to live in a 900 square foot or even a thousand square foot, living area that’s on the 12th floor of a building. It’s a very different thing. There’s something very homey and reinforcing or emotionally reinforcing about being at ground level and being able to step outside. It’s a very, that in itself creates a lot of livability.
Jennifer-Lee:
Now with COVID, do you find it a bit more challenging to design like a laneway home for someone because I’m thinking like everyone’s living in that space now, if you’re living at home and you’re, you’re working at home and everyone’s there, or do you find that it’s no different,
Jake:
It’s no different, to be honest, if anything, I would say what has happened over the last year with people having to work from home, um, has been reflected in a significant rise in sales for us and, and people really actually wanting to have that ability to have the space of their own.
Richard:
I think the creativity about these small spaces is there is no wasted space. You know, Oh, we’ve got this little space. It’s two feet by four feet. Let’s just put a little door on it and, uh, people can store things in there. So, that’s what amazes me about the project that we undertook is there is no wasted space, which is absolutely critical for families.
Mike:
Are the design principles that you guys use creating a smaller space that would be different than if we were building a traditional conventional house. I think
Jake:
I think so and I think actually this working off what Richard just mentioned around no wasted space. I remember back in the nineties, you couldn’t go into a house without someone wanting to initially say, Oh, I want to tear down this wall. And you ended up with these ground floors on homes that had a formal dining room and a kitchen, and maybe even a den, all of a sudden, instantly became one room. And if you went back and talked to those people, they would often say, shouldn’t have put that, uh, shouldn’t have taken the wall out because all they ended up doing was buying a bigger couch. And there was all of a sudden, nowhere for someone to go and have a quiet read of a book because someone’s cooking dinner, or the kids are on the, you know, one of the game stations and people lost space. And actually the smaller living is actually much more conducive and much more promoting of having those kinds of private little areas. Right? So I’d have actually say in many response, having a home where it’s thought through and not just big and open really in itself, creates a much more livable, emotionally reinforcing environment.
Mike:
Well, there’s one other advantage too, and that is this. And I spend a lot of time doing this is noise in these bigger homes, noise bouncing off of walls, and these big, giant open spaces. So you don’t get any peace and quiet and you don’t get any privacy in the nice thing about a smaller space is easier to manage the sound in there. And because you can do different finishes and stuff like that, it makes it a much more pleasant environment to be in. And even just the acoustics of a smaller space, huge, huge amount of difference. Not hearing your kids when they talk in the kitchen upstairs in the bedroom, when you’re lying in bed is a massive thing. And people don’t think about that until after the fact and then lying in their bed and listening to the kids in the kitchen.
Jennifer-Lee:
Another thing we don’t think about too, is the fact that it’s more eco-friendly to live in a smaller spaces. One is we’re thinking more and more about the environment. It’s better to do, like what you did, Richard, it’s put more people on your property instead of like building a whole bunch of huge homes, and then, you know, maybe having one family living there. So it’s things that we need to think about as a society, because, you know, COVID has kind of got rid of global warming, not too many people talk about it at the moment and something that we need to think of as, as they’re doing in a lot of the cities, you know, like we mentioned before, putting in Step Code and everything else and, uh, promoting more green building.
Richard:
I think I love Jake’s phrase ‘just enough’. And I think there is a growing mindset of people saying, you know, I don’t need this. I don’t need the big, I don’t necessarily need that fancy car. I need enough because, uh, I am impacting mother nature and this planet. And so let’s just look at it from that perspective. I think there is an increasing mindset around the concept just enough.
Jennifer-Lee:
I love that ‘just enough.’ That should be everyone’s motto. And I think COVID taught us that. I think we, a lot of us learned that it’s like, what is really important to us when things start falling down the Hill. And I think a lot of us learned family time is important to us just having that human connection and really when it comes down to, it’s not the stuff. Yeah. It’s nice to binge Netflix and quarantine, but we’re learning a lot of other things that we don’t necessarily need in our home.
Mike:
What I really enjoy about it is this, what you are talking about is fostering so many great conversations. It’s not just providing homes. Let’s think about some of the things. First of all, we talked about the environmental footprint and the ability for us to reduce our environmental footprint proactively by choosing to live in a certain type of environment. But let’s also talk about something else too. And this is something that we should talk about, and that is the re-examination of our social values in North American society we are generally primed that mum and dad live in one location. We live in another location. Our kids live in yet another location. So the idea of multi-generational living is still becoming new again. It’s an old concept, but it’s becoming new again. So what this is really doing is keeping multiple generations of family together in the same place. And that encourages closeness, encourages togetherness, and maybe some of the lost values that our generation has, can be regained by being around different generations and different people. So there are a lot of conversations happening beyond just housing and pricing and affordability, and it’s, it’s great conversations to be having. I wish we had more conversations like that.
Jake:
And I think what’s interesting about that Mike, and again, I want to go back to an earlier point that I made around. You know, when we look at regulation, you know, when we look at city regulations, there, there is a level going back to why we do certain things right now, which is really deeply rooted in a little bit of social engineering. You know, there was a sense of creating extensively, an exclusivity and areas of exclusivity. And there is a very democratic process. It’s happening right now with these movements, because we have, you know, there’s a lot of social pressures, a lot of changes in, we have a big wave moving out of the working force. We have a younger cohort coming in who has a lot of financial troubles around affordability and expectations of what can be achieved. And at the same time we have communities and it’s not just on the leafy West end of Vancouver. We have communities that are suffering from a certain level of atrophy because they can’t have people in them supporting them. We have in some cases, even in Vancouver, population per hectare that’s probably getting close to the outskirts of Winnipeg, and you don’t want that in a city as it will hurt the city long term. And you, can’t also at the same time, take this financial model where we’re going to buy land, we’re going to intensely develop, have populations that are really tightly packed together. When you have the opportunity to spread that out over a larger area, you start to have neighborhoods that can flourish. You start to have corner stores, you start to have schools that are better populated, and that’s the opportunity we have. And I think everyone’s on the same page and what we’re really missing, I think, and what’s going to happen is we just need to start to let the politicians know that this is a safe choice. And I think that’s our big inhibitor. I think we have planning departments that want to find a solution. And the decision makers ultimately tend to be our elected officials and that’s the pressure that we need to put on them in a constructive way, that this is something that people want. And that’s really where the change will be affected. And that’s exactly what happened with the laneway housing. You know, we started off initially selling little 10 by 10 sheds. People could have home offices, everyone wanted to live in them. And within the course of three years, we were able to mobilize enough people using social media, using open houses, using public forums, that it became a very safe decision for the politicians to go, not only are we going to do this, we’re going to do it city-wide. And doing it city-wide they mitigated what can happen in certain neighborhoods where you go, or you can do it there, but not there, and then that has an unintended consequences affecting land value.
Jake:
Can you run in the next municipal election?
Jake:
I was told I would be single if I did that. .
Jennifer-Lee:
Oh, okay. Maybe not, but it just touching on your point before we head out of here. But, um, it’s so great to hear you say that because there was a political campaigner a few years ago for municipal and they, they ran on the basis of ‘four floors and corner stores’. And that stuck in my mind because he said, they’re trying to bring back the community in these areas. And I think that’s wonderful and hopefully more and more people have ideas like that and they do come to fruition.
Mike:
It just goes to show that, you know, stick to your guns too, just because you can’t do it now, doesn’t mean you won’t always not be able to do it. Jake and Richard, this episode has been so informative, learning the options available to leverage the single-family home, to build affordable housing options is very eye opening. Today we’ve learned a whole lot about how to work with builders who know the area to help you navigate the bylaws, working with a builder who understands small housing options, and even understanding some of the different options that are out there.
Jennifer-Lee:
Thank you both for joining us today. What resources would you suggest the listeners to look at to build small homes?
Jake:
Well, the good thing about Small Housing BC is we have spent the last six years, seven years actually now looking at this subject primarily as a voice of advocacy. So we have quite a dearth of information on the website. And if you go to a www.smallhousingbc.org, and you look at the report section, you’re going to find really interesting material.
Jennifer-Lee:
And if everyone listening has a wealth of questions for either one of you, how can they get in contact with you guys?
Richard:
They can give the office a call. I’m assuming there’s going to be sort of a reference to our site. And we’re always happy to have this discussions. We are committed, Jake and I and Small Housing BC, and my firm is committed to really helping people go down this path. It’s very satisfying. It’s not easy, but it’s very satisfying.
Mike:
Thank you both. Hey, if you enjoy this podcast, please follow and share with your friends and families. The more followers we have, the better chance more people will find our podcast. Hey, and I’m learning so much about planning my own home project. Now, big question is, do I build new or renovate? And I’m ready to do some more homework before I start. And I’m going to do some more research and I’m going to talk to my family. But the great news is we have access to all the information right here,.
Jennifer-Lee:
And you’re going to build a laneway house that Jen can live in. There you go. Um, and speaking of homework and making your homework for you, be sure to join us next week as we talk with Todd Best of Best Builders and his client who built a home for a family member who uses a wheelchair. We’ll also be talking about planning for aging in place as well.
Mike:
That sounds amazing. Jennifer Lee, I love talking to Todd and I’m thinking if there are some things that I can preplan in my home in anticipation of aging in place, because we are getting older. If I can survive living with my kids long enough, that is, then we’re going to get some great information out of this one as well. This has been Measure Twice, Cut Once the podcast from HAVAN, the Homebuilders Association Vancouver.
Jennifer-Lee:
For notes and links to everything mentioned on today’s episode and all the episodes from season one, talking about everything you need to know before you start any project, go to www.havan.ca/MeasureTwiceCutOnce. Thanks for joining us today. We look forward to talking to you next week. This has been measure twice cut. Once the podcast from Haven, the home builders association, Vancouver, thanks for joining us today.
Mike:
Notes and links to everything mentioned on today’s episode, go to haven.ca/measure twice, cut once,
Jennifer-Lee:
Follow us and review us to help empower homeowners like yourself to make the right decision the first time until next time.
Mike:
This is Mike Freedman.
Jennifer-Lee:
I’m Jennifer Lee for Measure Twice, Cut Once.
