. However, a heritage designation does not protect a house from demolition. The asking price is $4.999M, a reduction from $5.5M in the four months it’s been on the market. It sits on two 33’ wide city lots, which wasn’t unusual for a big house when it was built in 1914.
Although the house has been deemed an important heritage building, it’s not safe from demolition, says Goldman. “This is the last gasp of prosperity at the time,” says Luxton. “The economy completely collapsed. As we know, Kitsilano, after the war, you couldn’t give these big houses away, so they got broken up into rooming houses, and three or four families would live in them. You could buy one of these big houses on a big lot for really cheap. The neighbourhood shifted away from single family.“It’s in a prime location, ripe for redevelopment, and it needs investment obviously.
“There is no longer any incentive to do that [retention],” he says. “The Vancouver Plan is really a plan for displacement and clear-cutting the entire city. Here’s this lovely home, the neighbourhood landmark, stood there proudly for 110 years. It has never really been an exclusive single family home. For years it operated as a rooming house for elderly women.
“One of the things that’s clear is that the plan does not place any value on established neighbourhoods or communities, nor built heritage,” says Mikicich. “It completely disincentivizes retention of these buildings because people will think, ‘why bother saving it because I can get the same [result] for tearing it down?’ That’s really the conundrum.”
GoldinYVR Lorne_Goldman Hi there 👋 While our work does focus on conservation of Vancouver’s heritage places, we do this through education and grant programs and not through direct advocacy. As such, we do not address demolitions, petitions, or sales related to specific properties.