As the Victoria-area housing market heats up, their small-character houses are coming down due to the demand for bigger, newer houses. Developers and incoming buyers, flush with money, are targeting the historic municipality of Oak Bay, which has not protected its homes as rigorously as adjacent Victoria has protected much of its original housing stock.
Our old houses, considered rubbish to many, have become American treasure.
But an American community is turning the old houses into part of the solution to their affordability problem. A group in San Juan Island, Wash., has purchased seven Oak Bay houses and once they’ve raised enough funds, they are planning to purchase five more.
“We are very appreciative, although we have heard there are people in Oak Bay and Victoria that are sad to see these homes go,” says Nancy DeVaux, executive director of the San Juan Community Home Trust. “We’re glad we’re able to restore them.”
The San Juan Community Home Trust has hired Nickel Bros. house movers to truck and then barge the houses from Oak Bay to the town of Friday Harbor. They pay about $75,000 (U.S.) a house on average for the moving, and expenses for the foundation, remodelling, utility hook-ups and whatever else is required once the houses arrive. From the ground up, they are creating a new pocket neighbourhood on a five-acre plot of land that is devoted to affordable and sustainable housing for working locals. The houses will sell for between $158,000 and $210,000 when they are ready in June.
Ms. DeVaux says the trust has confirmed buyers for the houses and has a waiting list of others who want to buy into the community, which will have a mix of 120 homes, including duplexes and triplexes, by the time it’s built out. The area has become one of the more expensive places in Washington State to live, fuelled by wealthy buyers who’ve purchased second seasonal homes on the island. As a result, employers are having a hard time finding employees who can afford housing. Buyers of the houses will be able to build some equity, but resale prices are controlled, to maintain affordability.
“It’s a real crisis,” Ms. DeVaux says. “We are just focused on home ownership at this point to help stabilize people here in the community.”
The source of their funding is a surprise. The trust gets some funding from the state, but mostly relies on the good will of the same wealthy buyers responsible for raising prices, Ms. DeVaux says. Eight wealthy landowners have so far picked up the tab on the cost of barging the houses from Canada.
“We are able to raise money from private donations fairly successfully because there are a lot of wealthy people who live here. That’s part of the problem – they are driving home prices up and making it less affordable. But a lot of the people who have second homes here, who are invested in the community, recognize that.”
The group got the idea to buy homes from Canada after one of its board members moved a house. They sent a team to Victoria and Vancouver to see what was available, and liked what they saw.
“We became more excited,” Ms. DeVaux says.
The purchase of the Oak Bay houses isn’t entirely cost motivated. In fact, the cost of barging in the Canadian houses isn’t much cheaper than building new, Ms. DeVaux says. The value of the houses is in their craftsmanship and historic beauty, she says.
“We’re pretty excited about the structure, the design and the good bones. A lot of them were built with old-growth timber. They have a lot more character than new construction, especially in neighbourhoods with identical floor plans where everything looks similar. Each one of these is unique.”
The locals who qualify to purchase a house are also given the opportunity to obtain a government-subsidized mortgage, which can go as low as 1 per cent. To qualify for the program, a local has to have lived in the area for two years and earn an income of up to $38,000 as a single person, or $54,000 as a family (in U.S. dollars). Those incomes aren’t far off from Vancouver’s median incomes.
Heritage Vancouver Society’s Patrick Gunn says that moving houses out of Vancouver is the only way to save them. A buyer could remodel an old house and add onto it, but few buyers elect to do that. “There aren’t enough financial incentives to save them. They have to have their own initiative to save a house.”
He’s hoping to find a buyer who can move an important house at 1550 W. 29th Avenue, which is an early Townley & Matheson designed house built in 1922 as a show home of electrical use, which was still novel at the time.
Architects Townley & Matheson started their firm around 1919 and operated in Vancouver until the 1960s. Vancouver City Hall is a later Townley & Matheson design. The five-bedroom house with elaborate wood trim interior and wrap-around mature garden on an 11,710 sq. ft. lot had been clearly loved by the previous owner. The Tudor English style house and gardens are in pristine condition, and the large kitchen has been updated, but the new owner — who has left the house empty for a couple of years — has applied for a demolition permit.
They have listed the property for $7.38 million, along with plans already submitted to the city, for a bigger 6,700 sq. ft. house. Like a lot of Vancouver character houses, the house was overlooked when the heritage register was compiled years ago. At the time, there were character houses on every street. Now that entire blocks have been wiped out, houses like it have become an extinct species.
“That’s the only thing that will save this west side property, is someone who is sensitive to the value of the architecture who can take it and move it,” says Mr. Gunn, who says the house is in excellent condition and highly significant to Vancouver history.
The house’s detailed carved wood and lush, exquisitely designed garden is like travelling back in time, when Vancouver had some of the most beautiful homes and gardens in the world.
“A lot of the [Townley & Matheson] buildings are coming down because nobody either knows about the architectural importance, or cares about it. This one is really special because it was used as a model showcase house to demonstrate how electricity can be used throughout the home.”
When it opened to the public in 1922, the house had electric lights that would come on when closet doors opened, as well as the latest appliances and outlets in all the rooms. It was featured in the Vancouver Daily World newspaper on May 30, 1922 with the headline, “Electric Home Being Put Up In Shaughnessy by Local Supply Men.”
The city hasn’t yet approved the demolition permit for the house, but without protection of any kind, it’s vulnerable. As well, moving a big house can become cost prohibitive if it requires going through several intersections, which involves the lowering of utility wires.
In Oak Bay, Jan Mears, who sits on the heritage commission, says Victoria has got to wake up before it goes the way of Vancouver. She says in the past three months the demolitions have increased; she’s seeing routine teardowns of entry-level houses throughout north and south Oak Bay. She estimates that Victoria’s Uplands has lost about half its houses in favour of sprawling ones. And while the Victoria area has stronger heritage preservation policies than Vancouver, and a culture that actively promotes preservation, she’s concerned change is happening too fast.
“We have 13 municipalities, and everybody has their own rules. We don’t have enough cohesion to deal with this.”
Meanwhile, south of the border, our unwanted old houses are finding some love.