What Changes are happening in Your neighborhood?

Tedd · Jul 8, 2022

It's been like that in my neighbourhood (suburb of Vancouver, BC) for quite a few years now. It's rare for a house to be sold and not get torn down, and this is in a neighbourhood where most of the houses are less than forty years old. A house down the street that was built in the 90s is being torn down as I write.

I suspect several factors are involved. One, of course, is that the value of the building is shrinking relative to the value of the land, so it's easier to rationalize tearing down and rebuilding. But I think a more persistent trend is toward more house and less property. People seem to still want detached houses, but they don't want the effort that used to go along with owning one. In my neighbourhood, so far as I can tell, every new house that gets built is built to the maximum floor area that the bylaws allow (which is based on lot size). In the case of smaller properties, the remainder of the lot gets covered in cobblestone or something similar, so that there's no lawn and very little other landscaping that requires maintenance--if any at all. On larger properties, all of the maintenance of the landscaping is hired out. Only a handful of older residents on smaller properties, such as me, cut their own grass, and even fewer trim their own hedge. It's essentially "apartment living" but in a detached house.

Ralph Johnstone · Jul 8, 2022

We've seen a similar process here for the last couple of decades where completely livable homes have been levelled to make way for a new build single homes.

However, what we have seen for the last five to ten years is faaaaar, faaaaar worse. Whole blocks of residents are being lured into selling their home for anywhere from 25 to 50% over what they would get individually selling them Once purchased, the entire block is levelled and 3 - 4 story condo's are being built.

We're told this is being done to lower the insane cost of housing here in Vancouver, BC. All of these new condo's now go for a million plus and are bought by offshore investors. Locals cannot afford them. People continue to flock to Vancouver and housing prices are stratospheric. The land developers control municipal government. "Densification is a Must" scream the newspaper headlines.

Our roads are now completely failing us. We live in what used to be a sleepy little mountain village called North Vancouver, situated a few miles north of Vancouver BC proper. Traffic is grid locked from 2:00 PM to 6:00 PM every day. You go nowhere in a great hurry.

Sorry to say, but if you keep an eye on any larger city near you, what we're seeing here is most likely what you will see there. Greed at its absolute finest. Build, build, build with not a thought towards the outcome ten minutes from then.

"Sustainability" is also a nice word developers like to throw around. Pretty soon we'll be tearing down the 20 year old 3 - 4 story condo's and building 30 - 40 story condo's. I guess it's all sustainable as long as the residents in the upper floors don't run out of thinning air due to the elevation of even taller condo's in the future.

We have seen the civilization of the world at its peak back in the end of the last century. Sorry folks but it's all downhill from here for one single, individual, solo, solitary, lone reason, GREED with a capital "G".

And that's my rant for the day

. Off to the boat

.

WayneH · Jul 8, 2022

The summer tourist season here in Central Texas is floating down the Guadalupe River below Canyon Lake. Cold water and 90°F air temperatures causes traffic jams of people floating in the river. We avoid the local town on summer weekends due to the number of cars trying to get into and out of the tube rental places.

And then these people decide to move up here, tear down all the trees, put up 4000 sqft homes, and security lights because the cess pool they came from had to have them and ruin the night sky for those of us who were already here. Oh, yeah, the entire county is designated a "Dark Sky" community and you're not supposed to have lights on all the time.

Tedd · Jul 8, 2022

I hear you, @WayneH ! We searched for months to find a neighbourhood full of trees and with minimal street lights. When we moved here it was lush green in the day and pitch black at night. But every new house that gets built cuts down all the trees on the property, or very nearly, and then gets built with blazing outside lights and, all too frequently, yard lights. For the last few years more and more of the newcomers have been clamoring for street lights. It's frustrating because you can build in any one of hundreds of nearby neighbourhoods that already have lots of lights and no trees.

jviss · Jul 8, 2022

I am moving to an old, old, seafaring city named New Bedford, MA - at one time the wealthiest city in the world, and known as "the city that lights the world" during the whaling era. The prices of houses are going up, up, up, and commuter rail to Boston is coming in late 2023, but there's not a lot of teardown and rebuild activity going on, at least not now. Lots tend to be small, and most houses were built before people had cars. We'll see. I hope it gets better, i.e., a bit less gritty, without becoming over-gentrified. ("Though many neighborhoods were gentry when they were built up in the 19th and early 20th centuries.)

shemandr · Jul 8, 2022

What galls me about the McMansions being built in Southold NY is that the people who build them often tire of living in them and in too few years put them on the market. Meanwhile we are stuck with this garish palace to someone's ego. Often those mansions replaced sensible homes which had grace and charm. What was those house's sins? They didn't have a modern floor plan. Read "Open concept." Or didn't have a kitchen island. They were houses that defined the way you live in them. Morning sun here. Evening breeze there. Cocktails on the screened in porch. Now the people define the house and live the same there as in their year 'round residences or anywhere else. There is no soul to those houses.
Or am I just getting cranky?

walt · Jul 8, 2022

The town I live in (Ridgway Colorado) just got designated a dark sky community which I like. Just about any night without clouds or much moon, you can see the milky way. The county actually has restrictions on lighting. Any light fixture must have a shield that prevents any upwards light and restricted to 800 lumens per fixture. This is 40 watts incandescent or between 6 to 10 actual watts if LED. This is enforced in new builds, Im not sure how it could be enforced in existing homes but people just being made aware goes a long way.

What I really dislike lately are short term rentals.. The option for this tends to result in higher real-estate prices because you can have people investing in basically a $$ generating business that they get to use every once in a while. But short term rentals usually are way noisier than any other home in the neighborhood (sometimes very obnoxious) and a bunch of other problems I have personally seen. Im in an HOA for the first time ever now and the one good thing I can say about the HOA is that they dont allow short term rentals.

Telluride Colorado is about 40 miles from where I live and they let things get out of hand with STR. Investors like it because they purchase a money making business but they get to use it as a second home when they please. Its resulted in long term rentals getting converted to short term rentals and the folks who were living there getting booted out. The Telluride medium realestate listing price is now $1800 per square foot so of course any business in the town has a real hard time getting any employees because they have to live at least 50 miles away to afford any sort of housing. I heard on the local radio that 40% of the residences there were now STR..

Don S/V ILLusion · Jul 8, 2022

I thought this was a sailboat web site.

Tally Ho · Jul 8, 2022

I bought my house about 30 years ago. I am in a small town (Saint John, IN), and for 27 of the last 30 years, I have had a farm behind my house. Even after the old farmer died, the land was leased out for farming.

The town has been steadily growing (maybe more than “steady” lately). Lots of new subdivisions replacing farm land.
Then, about 2 years ago, they broke ground on a subdivision behind my place.

At least the homes are LARGE and expensive…so it will help property values if I ever sell. Met some nice people in the new subdivision and no one has bought the lot directly behind my house (yet). Wifey is worried, but I told I was waiting until I got a look at the neighbor lady (or her daughter)

. And she may want to see if they have a pool boy

When I bought this house, I was out looking for 20 acres of land to buy…never found it, but wife saw this 1-street subdivision and the model home we eventually bought. Now we are surrounded by newer homes and subdivisions and a new school down the street.

The price of…I dunno….

Greg

Don S/V ILLusion · Jul 8, 2022

Maine Sail said:
This is the sails call lounge Don…

Obviously…

jon hansen · Jul 8, 2022

bass tournaments, come to sturgeon bay and kill all the animals we have. get a prize.

best fishing in the county is/was 15' off our beach. kill the females on their nests, get a prize.

endless bass boats next to our swim raft.

Ralph Johnstone · Jul 8, 2022

Don S/V ILLusion said:
I thought this was a sailboat web site.

And it still is.

We're looking at all the reasons we should be taking to our boats and say the hell with overcrowding and densification in what were once beautiful cities. Will the last person to launch, please turn out the lights at SBO ?

JamesG161 · Jul 8, 2022

It takes one very strong wind to cause rebuilding of landlubbers homes and marinas.

.Hurricane Katrina

I am still seeing the rebuild today

Jim...

RoyS · Jul 9, 2022

I spent an idyllic summer on Cape Cod when I was 16 years old. The town I was in had one police officer and he was about 80 years old. There were mostly trees and a few single family homes. As the years rolled by I lived and worked near Boston while day dreaming about retiring to Cape Cod. After I retired I drove back down to exactly where I spent that summer at age 16. What a rude awakening from my recurring day dream! Shopping malls everywhere. Traffic jams. The beach I usually had alone with my girl friend was now an association beach with a parking lot. Motor boats with water skiers now ruled the lake. Never thought of retiring there again. This is what the Indians must have felt when the wagon trains arrived. The buffaloes are not coming back.

jssailem · Jul 9, 2022

It was happening back in the late 90's Los Gatos California. Money, before the Tech Bubble burst, found single story bungalows on tree lined streets with large yards.

House purchased. House torn down. Landscape stripped. New multi-story house built over most of the lot. Neighbors found it difficult to walk between the houses to their back yard without leaning against the new McMansion. Their landsacape began to suffer as the shade of the new bulding changed the sun patterns. Zoning codes revised. More houses gone. Price of sewer and water escalate as the infrastructure is not up too handling the new demands. Traffic demands new and bigger roads. Residents move into new house. Sleep on carpeted floors, put house up for sale in 6-18 months reap financial reward and move on to try it again.

The bubble eventually bursts but not before leaving a scorched earth landscape.

Does it happen with boats?

DougM · Jul 9, 2022

Bought my current winter house in 2020, Four others on my street have sold and have had extensive interior remodeling done. The vacant lot beside my house , which I thought would be unbuildable,now has a house on it that sold for nearly twice what I paid.

rgranger · Jul 9, 2022

I live in Charleston, SC. 'nuff said!

What Changes are happening in Your neighborhood?

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SBO Weather and Forecasting Forum Jim & John

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SBO Weather and Forecasting Forum Jim & John

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