People moaning about the size and extravagant design of
homes in West Vancouver is nothing new. This neighbourhood is a well-heeled one
and public outcries are par for the course when it comes to complaints about
home sizes. Mostly the type of moans and groans come from planning application
requests. One family may have applied to build and extension with a summer
house and two extra bedrooms and the only thing the neighbour, or indeed
neighbours can think about will be the incessant noise from builders and
developers who will no doubt be working on the project from morning through
until last light.
The council which oversees planning application in West
Vancouver are mulling over a limit on the size of a new home build. If such a
limit is opposed then what will that limit be? Will the council restrict new
build homes to a certain bedroom limit and will this impact on the value of an
entire district?
A recent meeting was held in West Vancouver which invited
members of the public to speak out on the issues they felt directly affected
their beloved neighbourhood. Passions were running high and the debate raged on
for well over an hour. Many feel the sheer size and amount of “monster homes”
being built in West Vancouver threatens to damage the character of the area
forever.
The problem is, when a district has radically changing land
values (in West Vancouver’s case the land value has soared) then the design and
style of the house changes too. Why build a small little one bedroom home on a
plot that has very high land values? Prospectors want to get more bang for
buck; or in this case build a nice nine-bed, nine-bathroom family monster house
and sell it on one day for millions of dollars.
It is something that has happened in the past both here in
Vancouver and in other big cities in North America where land values shot up.
An influx of new development will see big homes replace the small town houses
and then the character and charm of the place is immediately under threat.
The West Vancouver council has to tread a fine line with
approving only plans that fit in with the existing neighbourhood, or risk the
wrath of the residents that have lived in the neighbourhood for years and feel
as though their home town is under threat from overzealous investors.
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