Small Housing Co-Founder Jake Fry joined the Homebuilders Association Vancouver (HAVAN) and their excellent “Twice Measured Cut Once” podcast alongside The Honourable Housing Minister, Ravi Kahlon, and HAVAN CEO, Ron Rapp to discuss the impact of the Housing Supply Act, and what opportunities it presents for industry and small-scale developers, and crucially, what can be done to enhance its effectiveness.
You can watch the interview via the Youtube video above, or check out the podcast/audio version here, or wherever you get your podcasts from.
Jake Fry of Smallworks talks with Homebuilders Association of Vancouver (HAVAN) and their excellent Measure Twice, Cut Once show about the concept of attainable housing for the missing middle and building modern day communities. Land valuations, environmental impacts of today’s building materials and systems, and the importance of our end goals all add up to a riveting conversation with Jake recommending we keep an open mind to solutions and focus on sophisticated conversations, versus complicated ones.
You can watch the interview on the Youtube video above, or check out the audio version here, or wherever you get your podcasts from.
In this episode of ‘Ask The Experts’ from UrbanLogiq, Tamara White, the Associate Executive Director of Small Housing BC discusses the concept of gentle density homes, often spoken about in the context of “Missing Middle” housing types.
Published in 2023, the video explores:
What do we mean when we say gentle density
How it differs from traditional density
What are the benefits it can bring to our communities
How can data and technology help progress the scalability and affordability of such homes.
In this edition (March 2023) of Small Housing’s Gentle Density Network series, we seek to learn more about our policy proposals to expand the supply of affordable and attainable housing in British Columbia.
Featuring Jake Fry, Founder and former director of Small Housing BC; Akua Schatz, Director of Small Housing BC; and Tamara White, Associate Executive Director of Small Housing BC, the panel explores the policy levels available to release the potential of single-detached neighbourhoods and encourage the creation of housing that will meet the needs of today’s families and communities.
Key insights:
Is the solution to more attainable housing located right in our backyards? By subdividing properties, strata titling has the potential to deliver creative, smaller-scale homes that can unlock doors to attainable housing and expand options for aspiring homeowners.
Strata-title for accessory dwelling units could not only unlock more housing options for first-time buyers, it has can play a key role in supporting the financing of new supply.
The panel explores how a Permanently Attainable Home Ownership (PAtH) model can support both attainable home ownership and secure affordable housing for middle-income earners. PAtH is an innovative homeownership framework that blends non-market and market units within a single houseplex configuration or infill layout. The approach utilizes existing assets (land from homeowners), planning tools (density bonus and strata-titling) and affordability enablers (covenant on title for non-market units) to incentivize the creation of attainable housing. You can read more about PAtH in our Small Housing Guidance Paper on the topic.
Local governments continue to face challenges with respect to housing supply and affordability. Gentle density infill housing strategies provide a promising way to increase housing supply in already built areas, but the question of affordability still remains.
To address this challenge, James Moore (City of Kelowna) and Matt Thomson (Urban Matters) joined Small Housing in April 2023, to share their insights with the Gentle Density Network on how the City of Kelowna has approached its efforts to increase gentle density supply and affordability.
The webinar also discusses Small Housing’s Guidance Paper (2023) that explores existing and emerging tools for local governments to increase the supply of gentle density and enhance its affordability.
Key findings:
Gentle density housing is more attainable than single-detached homes due to shared land costs, smaller square footage per unit, and shared building surfaces.
The local government tools listed can make it easier to build this form of housing, and can help to bring down the costs of development. This, in turn, will help to incentivize the production of new supply. As more supply comes online, housing prices cool.
If local governments stack the tools (and their related cost reductions), they may be able to create sufficient incentives to make the inclusion of below-market units viable within a development.
There are additional tools that can be leveraged by community partners, such as non-profits, lenders, and other levels of government, that can further support the creation of new and affordable gentle density homes.
Did you know that over a fifth of homeowners across urban areas and over a third of homeowners in rural areas would consider building a small secondary home on their property in the next five years? That’s according to Small Housing’s province-wide public opinion study (April 2023) that sought to understand how British Columbians perceive small-scale infill housing in single-detached neighbourhoods.
In this video (June 2023), Avalanche Insights presents Small Housing’s survey results, detailing the key barriers and opportunities that the public face in regard to engaging with gentle density housing solutions.
Key insights:
Half (52%) of respondents are very concerned about lack of affordable housing in British Columbia. 73% are at least somewhat concerned.
There is little consensus on the cause of the housing problem. Those most impacted say economic intervention would solve the issue (49%). Those least impacted are more likely to name building more housing generally as a solution (34%).
Nearly half (47%) of respondents cite a positive emotion in reaction to the small housing solution, 10% say they feel hopeful.
Over a fifth of homeowners across urbanism say they would consider building a small secondary home on their property in the next five years, including 33% of those in rural areas.
The prospect of upzoning single-detached neighborhoods has planners, civil engineers and utility providers wrestling with how to plan for servicing the increased density, and councils and finance officers wondering how to pay for it all.
In this Gentle Density Network webinar (August 2023), we explore these challenges and offer solutions with the help of a great lineup of speakers.
For more information on the Gentle Density Network, head to our dedicated website.
In this session of the Gentle Density Network webinar series (September 2023), Small Housing assembled a group of parking and transportation reform champions to help the Gentle Density Network explore what parking reform and gentle density might look like in their communities.
Our presentations and respective speakers include:
Edmonton’s Open Option Parking – letting people decide for themselves – Colton Kirsop, Business Lead, Community Planning, McElhanney, and former City of Edmonton planner
Getting to Zero: No-parking gentle density developments – Julian West, Developer, Urban Thrive
Bringing active transportation & car shares to your city – Alison Gu, City of Burnaby Councillor
Parking reform efforts in smaller and car-dependent communities – Nancy Henderson, Sr. Local Government Advisor, Urban Systems
