The City of Vancouver has extended a one-year moratorium on demolition of character houses in the exclusive First Shaughnessy neighbourhood for a further 120 days and called a pubic hearing on the issue for next month.
The unique moratorium, which was scheduled to end June 15, is aimed at stopping the destruction of some of the city’s oldest and largest houses.
First Shaughnessy is an exclusive and historic enclave bounded by Oak Street, West 16th Avenue, Arbutus Street and West King Edward Avenue.
Established by Canadian Pacific Railway (TSX:CP) in 1907, the neighbourhood has 595 houses, 329 of which were built before 1940. Eighty of the properties are listed on the Vancouver heritage register.
House sales spiked dramatically in Shaughnessy as the end of the moratorium loomed, suggesting some buyers are speculating on being able to rebuild on the traditionally large lots.
Shaughnessy sales in the second quarter soared to 43 houses compared with nine in the first quarter, and the benchmark house price increased 2.2% to $4.48 million, according to Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver data. Compared with 2014’s fourth quarter, the price of a Shaughnessy house has increased by nearly $1.5 million.
Realtor Matt Pozer of Century 21 Worldwide, who has sold 20 houses in Shaughnessy over the past two years, said some of the recent sales surge could be credited to investors, but he suggested it mainly reflects a general upturn in Vancouver’s high-end housing market, a refrain echoed by other real estate agents.
Across the west side, detached-housing sales doubled from the first to second quarter of this year, but no neighourhood experienced the near fivefold sales increase seen in Shaughnessy.
Realtors argue that the current blanket moratorium on older Shaughnessy properties is unfair to some owners and will add to eventual development costs.
“There are some [Shaughnessy] houses that are dangerous and need to be torn down and yet they fall under the same category as a house that has been beautifully maintained,” Pozer said.
Stuart Bonner, of Re/Max Stuart Bonner, said that, in the short term, the moratorium hurts owners planning to sell their Shaughnessy house, but the extra expense and delays in redevelopment will eventually add costs to the end-users.
“Only patient investors with the deepest pockets are active in Shaughnessy,” Bonner said.
A public hearing on establishing a First Shaughnessy heritage conservation area that could potentially restrict demolition of the oldest properties permanently is scheduled for July 21 starting at 6 p.m. at Vancouver City Hall.•
