Vancouver Housing Affordability is like the weather - everybody complains about it, but nobody does anything about it! The City of Vancouver now appears to be serious about promoting and facilitating housing affordability, especially by encouraging construction of hundreds, even thousands of units of new, for "profit," market rental housing units. The Mayor’s Task Force on Housing Affordability Final Report (Nov 19/12) and the City’s Rental 100 Secured Market Rental Policy (May 15/12)...

Environmental concerns affect every area of our lives.

This is ever more evident in Real Estate, especially with Underground (Furnace Oil) Storage Tanks - also known as USTs.

There are thousands of old buried oil tanks in the Lower Mainland, and the B.C. Fire Code requires the removal of any buried tanks that have been inactive for more than 2 years. Each municipality has its own requirements, and checking with the local fire department will confirm how the regulations are applied. More importantly...

On July 28, 2011, City Council approved laneway housing development - for RS-1 and RS-5 Zoned, single family areas only – with the following basic requirements.

• On lots with minimum 33’ frontage, with open rear lanes, on double fronted streets, or on corner lots with a lane or lane dedication.
• Laneway houses to be located on the rear 26’ of the property & at least 16’ from the main house
• Must have at least 1 on-site parking space in the rear yard.
• Units of 1 – 1 ...

Laneway Housing – aka “coach houses, granny flats” – have been considered for years as a sensible way to create more housing options in the single family areas of the City.  A great advantage of laneway housing is that the infrastructure - i.e. back lanes, and houses with large rear yards - already exists, so that these new dwellings can be added without altering the character of neighbourhoods. Another great advantage is that these dwellings would allow seniors to remain...