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Tiny lot in East Vancouver sees 35-fold assessed value increase in just one year

Kenneth Chan
Kenneth Chan
|
Jan 22 2022, 2:43 am
Tiny lot in East Vancouver sees 35-fold assessed value increase in just one year
Tiny lot at 1916 William Street in East Vancouver owned by Lanefab Design/Build. (Google Maps)

A lot in East Vancouver treads within the outlier territory, given that it is minuscule compared to the typical standard size lot in single-family neighbourhoods.

Even more unusual was its assessed value, which was previously well below the the city’s values on a per square foot bass.

The property at 1916 William Street — near the southeast corner of the intersection of Victoria Drive and William Street — carries a lot size of just nine feet for its street frontage and a shallow depth of 60 ft, giving it an area of approximately 540 sq ft. It does not have any permanent structure, and visually it resembles a driveway for the adjacent house.

1916 William Street Vancouver Lanefab

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

BC Assessment records show the assessed value for the tiny lot has been consistently extremely low for 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 the adjacent single-family house at 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 earlier this month.

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 a lot that is essentially orphaned, but records show the property changed hands twice within the past two years. It was sold for $88,000 in July 2020, and then again for $210,000 in June 2021.

As the result of the most recent deal, the property is owned by custom home and laneway home builder Lanefab Design and Build, which has been highly vocal in advocating for the easing of regulations to allow for the construction of tiny homes.

Lanefab saw some media and social media attention last year after it budded heads with the City of Vancouver over the tiny lot’s possible uses. The municipal government ordered the builder to remove an “office pod” structure that had been installed on the lot shortly after the acquisition.

Bryn Davidson, a co-owner of the company, recently suggested possible interim uses for the lot could entail an art installation or a parklet with a picnic table and lighting.

Kenneth ChanKenneth Chan
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