Multiplexes will soon replace single family homes all over Vancouver. How many stories will be erased from our history?
I was reading an article in the Vancouver Sun yesterday called “Multiplexes may be coming to your neighbourhood soon.” It’s City Hall’s way of densifying our neighbourhoods, replacing those entitled single family homes with up to six strata homes on a single lot.
2667 East Pender Street:
The article is illustrated with two pictures – the five-unit development proposed for an east Pender Street house in the Hastings Sunrise neighbourhood “made possible through the city’s ‘missing middle’ zoning,” and the little house that it replaces.
And, then I realized, hey I know this house.
The new project, says the article, would almost double the livable square footage, and the guy who now owns the property expects to get $1.65 million each for the two units in the front of the building and another $900,000 each for the ground level two-bedroom units. It doesn’t say what the new owners will pay for the laneway house at the back, or the monthly strata fees. But let’s assume fees will be hefty, and clearly at these prices, we’re not talking about first-time, average wage-earning home buyers.
Detective Joe Ricci:
So, let’s take a minute to look at the diminishing heritage house stock that these multiplexes will replace. The house in the article was built by Vancouver Police Detective Joe Ricci in 1922. Joe immigrated to Canada from Falvaterra, Italy in 1906, and six years later, he was the first Italian to join the Vancouver Police Department.
Joe raised his two daughters in this house, and in 2014 when I took photos for my book Sensational Vancouver, his daughter Louise still lived there. I know because I sat with her in their kitchen going through boxes and boxes of newspaper clippings and photos about her Dad. Louise showed me the back porch where Chinese gangsters broke into Joe’s house during the Tong Wars of the 1920s, and threw chicken blood all over the cupboards. It was a warning for Joe to stay away.
West Coast Central Club:
Joe was on duty March 20, 1917, the night that Police Chief Malcolm MacLennan was killed in a shootout in Strathcona. He worked on the dry squad, the drug squad, and later, the Morality Squad. He left the force and founded the West Coast Central Club right next to the old police station on Main Street. Louise worked at the club and remembers serving newspaper reporters like Jack Wasserman and Jack Webster. “Webster used to sit beside the planters so nobody would see him. I’d serve him screwdrivers,” Louise told me. She remembered Officer Bernie “Whistling” Smith as well as crime boss Joe Celona and Judge Les Bewley.
That’s just one house’s story. I wonder how many more we’ll be erasing in the coming years.
Related:
- Sensational Vancouver
- Joe Ricci’s Vancouver
- The story behind a 1924 photo
- The Black Hand’s Vancouver Connection
© All rights reserved. Unless otherwise indicated, all blog content copyright Eve Lazarus.
19 comments on “The House that Joe Built”
Very sad news, thank you Eve. No respect for heritage in this city, seemingly. Multiplexes are a definite thread to the old houses. I’m working on a character retention project in the 500 block of Georgia only a couple lots Fromm where MacLennan was killed. I worry that the multiplexes are going to replace character retention that is meant to save the old houses not tear them down.
Yeah, I agree, and I’m not sure razzing these old houses and replacing them with unaffordable units will help anyone except the developers. At last in Kitsilano you had to replace a heritage house with a smaller footprint and that managed to save a lot of old stock. Not any more. And what happens to the gardens, or are they just more space to fill?
another great story from old Vancouver, history that should not be lost ! funny thing to me is,the house looks just like our house in North Van except for the fancy rockwork at the front .
Really enjoyed this post, the dilemma of housing needs today and retaining a sense of the past, the entire Ricci story. A fine Sunday morning read, Eve…
Thanks so much Bill, glad you enjoyed my Sunday rant
thank you for this, Eve. Stories like this make me cry! What a beautiful Craftsman home, and now it’s going to be gone! An absolute shame. And what beautiful photos; love the one of Louise on her dad’s lap with her mother sitting so gracefully at the feet of her husband and daughter. (Is that Louise’s mom? She looks so very young!) The prices quoted for the new suites seem absolutely obscene. (Has anyone actually done any feasibility studies as to whether or not the infrastructure can handle this explosion of housing? Think of the water alone, let alone everything else that goes into running a city.) Thank you again for drawing our attention to the loss of such heritage.
The indifference to built heritage in Vancouver (well, Canada in general)and the quality of life that preserving older streetscapes brings to a city seems to be leading us into a really bleak future. Admittedly, small houses on large lots were an element of a world long past where land was cheap, but there was also less extreme wealth. As you point out “the housing crisis” basically provides an unassailable argument for civic, provincial & federal governments to give carte blanche to the development industry. No matter how many modest craftsman style bungalows get flopped to build $1.6 mil condos, it’s not going to eliminate the shanty town at Crab Park. Nobody is interested in housing actual homeless or working young people trying to get a foothold. We have an affordable housing crisis- nobody who can service a $900k to $2 mil pricetag is lacking options. And ironically as we are wiping out the older housing stock, since many of the bottom end houses were rentals and already have multiple suites, we are losing net affordability.
Yes, keep thinking about all those rooming houses carved out of old Kits heritage houses that could be offering affordable housing now. What happened to them?
Some were renovated turned into duplexes and sold. Some were bulldozed and turned into condo. Some where bought by people who lived there in the 1970s and renovated the houses and are back in Kits, but they’re a lot richer now than they were then.
A lot of people who lived in those houses were students or young people starting out. I don’t know if seniors would want to live like that and people with severe addictions wouldn’t work.
I love this house and have walked by it and stared at how solid it looked. Thanks for the history on it. (PS the neighborhood is sunrise not sunshine.)
Thanks for the note and the correction!
Thanks for the very interesting article. The missing middle is being peddled in Victoria … supposed to fill the housing gap but we all know it is NOT going to house middle income people. No need for public hearing on rezoning either as city council is doing away with that process. Let’s be honest here … it’s a developer’s dream and a neighbourhood’s nightmare.
I wonder how these redevelopment plans get approved? Residents don’t get to vote on these communities destroying plans. In BC’s case it seems to be the premier who is jamming these significant changes down the residents’ throats. And these new multi units residences will sell for market rates. Only a few well to do people can afford them. It’s not a solution to affordability demanded by the lower paid new comers. The only solution is to reduce the migration inflow to BC and wait for the next election.
This is not going to help with housing. The astronomical prices predicted for each place on this property are only helping the developers, not the average citizen. This should not be allowed!
I think that none of these requested conversions should be allowed. First they will not solve the very high prices on accommodations in BC. And as importantly these large structures will inevitably adversely affect the sense of community enjoyed by current residents. Politicians should remember that their first responsibility is to the comfort and happiness of their current residents.
Just imagine if this approach was applied in France or Italy or Spain because everyone wants to live in Paris, or Rome, fill in the blank. History, architecture and art would disappear! And when does it stop, the duplexes + will not be enough because there will still be more people who want to live in the city of Vancouver. Sky is the limit in wants. Instead of preserving the incredible history and architecture people from around the world would come to see. And that also contributes to economy. Density in my mind is a very mixed up concept that will ruin what should be preserved. And as for more homes, there is lots of land to build on. Modern transportation could preserve the old and build new for everyone.
I’m a part of the fading generation, the Baby Boomers. In my opinion, progress is inevitable, but it doesn’t have to be a negative one. I’ve seen so many traditional homes torn down and replaced by concrete. My issue is…these homes are purchased by those who can afford them and then they’re rented out. There’s no consideration, when it comes to landscaping…new homes should be framed with evergreen trees and lawns (even if the grass is faux) to give it personality and beauty. Going forward, it will always be about the “almighty dollar” (sad).
A facing-the-sun sunny side of the street [ odd numbers on north side ]
And a block from the Hastings Street stores, though few are Italian today.
Furniture from Forst’s appliance Stores a Block away?
I’m kind of torn… on one hand these ARE wonderful homes, on beautiful lots and full of heritage and history.
But…
I’ll be honest. I think the age of the GVRD (not just Vancouver, to be clear!) having large tracts of single family homes has ended. Frankly, it should have ended twenty years ago, but nobody was willing to take some incremental steps then… so now we have a kind of “no exceptions” policy across most of the lower mainland. The powers that be, those who are vote and are elected, those who show up at city meetings and more have made certain that considered change and accommodation was an impossible. So now rapid and forced change is inevitable.
A commenter said
“Just imagine if this approach was applied in France or Italy or Spain because everyone wants to live in Paris, or Rome, fill in the blank.”
Well, LOTS of people want to live in those places, and HAVE lived in those places. Their single family heritage homes have been dead and buried for hundreds… in a few of those cases thousands of years. What exists now is moderate to high density.
The kind that everyone has railed against because of shadows or the wrong kind of development or the wrong people or increased traffic or a loss of green space or…
Is now becoming an inevitability.