The campaign to live smaller has come to Vancouver.
The city’s first laneway house to be installed on a permanent site attracted a crowd of more than 1,000 to a two-day open house over the weekend.
If it’s an indication of demand for the 500- to 750-square-foot homes, then business may soon be booming for developers in the business of building these prefab constructions.
The first laneway house to be installed since zoning approval was passed last summer is McGill House, a 710-square-foot contemporary design home that sits to the rear of a house at 2703 McGill St., on the city’s east side. The house is the creation of Bryn Davidson’s Lanefab custom development company, which has been in business for about a year and a half.
Mr. Davidson is a LEED-accredited architect and mechanical engineer who started the business with partner Mat Turner, after design and construction work dried up because of the recession. Prior to Lanefab, Mr. Davidson had been working as an independent designer on sustainable residential projects in Ontario and Alaska.
“It was in the midst of the recession, we were suddenly without work, and at the same time, the City of Vancouver was talking about fast-tracking this lane house policy as part of their EcoDensity strategy,” he says. “So, just over a year ago, we started working to create Lanefab and we worked on designs that would be ready for when they did pass the bylaw.”
What Mr. Davidson didn’t expect was the outpouring of interest the minute he opened the doors for a peak inside McGill House, which is owned by Manuel and Agnes Mendoza, who live in the main house. Mr. Mendoza is a bridal gown designer who owns a long-established store in downtown Vancouver.
McGill House could easily rent for around $1,700 a month – a fact not lost on Vancouver homeowners looking for a revenue stream. They were willing to line up down the lane to view the sleek, modern laneway house that will be ready for rental by June 1.
“There are quite a few potential projects coming out of the woodwork after this weekend,” says Mr. Davidson, who has given many tours and talks this past year about his designs.
Approval for laneway houses was passed last July, after several years of public meetings attended by stakeholders such as Mr. Davidson who could benefit from the initiative. Laneway housing was made a priority when the city adopted its EcoDensity charter two years ago.
For many, the laneway house (also known as a microhouse) could become a way to offset the high price of Vancouver real estate. In order to purchase a laneway house, the customer must already own a house on a suitable property. A few people who came to view McGill House mistakenly thought they could own the laneway house outright, Mr. Davidson says. Laneway houses are intended to be small one- or two-bedroom microhouses on a lot that’s at least 33 feet wide and has plenty of room for another structure. Oftentimes, they occupy the space where a garage would have been built.
“That’s the caveat – the price doesn’t include the land,” Mr. Davidson says. “You have to already own a $600,000 property.”
In Vancouver, about 66,000 thousand houses or roughly 85 per cent of properties qualify for laneway homes. Because the houses are so small, they can easily be built as prefabricated panels, then constructed on site. Lanefab contracts out the panel work and does the design, construction, permits and hook-ups, such as hydro, for about $190,000 to $230,000 a house, depending on lot size.
The city has issued more than 60 permits for laneway houses. Another Vancouver company, Smallworks, has a factory that produces the panels. The company has taken out seven building permits for laneway houses. It offers a time-lapse video of a prefab house being built on its website (smallworks.ca).
