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3-storey home proposed for tiny lot in Vancouver single-family neighbourhood

Kenneth Chan
Kenneth Chan
|
Oct 29 2022, 1:41 am
3-storey home proposed for tiny lot in Vancouver single-family neighbourhood
Artistic rendering of the tiny house on the tiny lot of 1916 William Street, Vancouver. (Lanefab Design/Build/Daily Hive/Google Maps)

It appears the persistence of a laneway and custom home builder specializing in modular construction has finally worked. Their idea for a highly unconventional development is now being formally considered by the municipal government.

Since acquiring the property in June 2021, Lanefab Design and Build has been looking to make use of the highly unusual lot at 1916 William Street —  near the southeast corner of the intersection of Victoria Drive and William Street in East Vancouver.

Bryn Davidson, co-owner of Lanefab, has been butting heads with City of Vancouver staff over the possible uses for the site, and some of this frustration spilled over onto his social media last year when the municipal government ordered his company to remove their “office pod” structure.

This is not only an orphan lot within a single-family neighbourhood, but it has a highly irregular size of just 540 sq ft, with a street frontage of only nine feet and a shallow depth of 60 ft. It has served as a driveway for the garage of the adjacent house to the west at 1216 Victoria Drive, and as an ad hoc parking space for the adjacent house to the east at 1922 William Street.

The municipal government has now accepted Lanefab’s development permit application for consideration to pursue a permanent narrow building development on the site.

Tiny lot at 1916 William Street in East Vancouver owned by Lanefab Design/Build. (BC Assessment)

1916 William Street Vancouver Lanefab f

Tiny lot at 1916 William Street in East Vancouver owned by Lanefab Design/Build. (Google Maps)

“We see this project as a continuation of that collaborative spirit between our team and the City with the aim of showing what is possible with small lot urban infill,” reads Lanefab’s application.

“While there are only a few lots like this in the city, we believe that this project can be a source of learning and inspiration for all future forms of housing that might be considered in RS and RT zones across the city. Likewise, we think this will be a memorable and unique addition to the neighbourhood, and will potentially play a character defining role in the way that the Sam Kee Buiding has played a similar role in Chinatown.”

The newly publicized application shows they are looking to build a three-storey single-family house with a basement, roof deck, and front yard and back yard.

The total floor area would reach 1,202 sq ft. The floor plan includes “stairs, a bathroom, and a usable bedroom.”

1916 William Street Vancouver tiny home

Artistic rendering of the tiny house on the tiny lot of 1916 William Street, Vancouver. (Lanefab Design/Build)

1916 William Street Vancouver tiny home

Artistic rendering of the tiny house on the tiny lot of 1916 William Street, Vancouver. (Lanefab Design/Build)

But to achieve this highly unconventional building form, they are asking City staff to approve several relaxations to the prevailing requirements.

They want to increase the allowable building depth from 21 ft (35%) to 30 ft (50%), increase the allowable floor area ratio (FAR) density from 0.6 FAR (324 sq ft) to 2.24 FAR (1,202 sq ft), increase the allowed building coverage on the site from 45% (243 sq ft) to 50% (270 sq ft), disregard the minimum site area requirement of 3,294 sq ft for a single-family home, and reduce the minimum parking space requirement to zero.

Additionally, they want the requirement for spacing on the side of the building to be eliminated, which would allow the building to come within only inches of the facade of the existing house to the east.

1916 William Street Vancouver tiny home

Artistic rendering of the tiny house on the tiny lot of 1916 William Street, Vancouver. (Lanefab Design/Build)

1916 William Street Vancouver tiny home

Artistic rendering of the tiny house on the tiny lot of 1916 William Street, Vancouver. (Lanefab Design/Build)

It is acknowledged by Lanefab that the adjacent house at 1922 William Street would be impacted by their new building, but they assert the old structure’s windows facing the tiny lot are “non-conforming with regard to fire code.” This existing house at 1922 William Street is set for a redevelopment as a character home with an infill addition, but it has yet to start construction. Lanefab notes it reached out to the property owner about acquiring the tiny lot to form a land assembly with their project, however they received no response.

BC Assessment records show the assessed value for the tiny lot has been consistently extremely low for most of the past decade, reaching a high of $7,200 for the 2015 assessment roll and a low of $3,600 in the 2016 roll.

For the 2021 roll, the property had an assessed value of $4,900 — about $9.00 per sq ft.

Contrast this to the $1,837,600 assessed value ($1,744,000 land; $93,600 structure) for 1922 Willam Street, which has a lot size of 4,000 sq ft — seven and a half times larger than the tiny lot next door. The per sq ft assessed value of just the land component is $379 per sq ft — 42 times more than the tiny lot.

But the canyon-width difference in the assessed value no longer exists, as of early this year.

The 2022 roll deems the tiny lot’s assessed value to be $173,000 or $320 per sq ft, representing a 35-fold increase from 2021.

It is unclear what exactly triggered the staggering year-over-year increase in the assessed value of the lot.

Lanefab’s acquisition of the property last year was worth $210,000. The property also changed hands in July 2020 in a deal worth $88,000.

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