The pressure in BC to move houses instead of demolish them

Proponents of lifting and moving homes to a new location, rather than demolishing them, are encouraging governments to streamline the relocation process to help meet waste diversion targets and provide affordable housing in underserved communities .

“We just need the municipalities to connect the dots, remove the red tape, expedite permits so more buildings can be saved,” said Jeremy Nickel, president and CEO of Nickel Bros., a family-owned relocation company. since the mid-1950s.

Given the legacy of a company like Nickel Bros., saving homes from the wrecking ball through development is not a new concept.

The company is one of many in British Columbia that moves dozens of homes each year. With real estate values ​​at record highs and landfills choked with demolition waste, Nickel and others say now is the time to move home.

In a 2020 reportMetro Vancouver highlighted moving home as a viable way to reduce waste from the demolition and construction industry. A third of all waste in landfills such as the one in Metro Vancouver comes from the industry.

Proponents point to a house move on Vancouver Island earlier this year as a model example.

TLA Developments could have demolished two single-family homes in Esquimalt, BC to make way for a five-story, 46-unit condominium. Instead, the wooden houses were donated and moved to the Songhees First Nation.

Songhees First Nation Chief Ron Sam said the endeavor provided housing for his community and met regional waste reduction goals

“We look forward to more opportunities to partner with developers like TLA, keeping viable homes off the landfill and providing families with safe, secure, long-term housing,” Sam said at the time.

Proponents say such relocation projects will become more common if cities make the process smoother.

Lighthouse, an organization that researches green initiatives in the construction industry, recently produced A study about home relocation in BC to identify what kept more homes from being moved and reused elsewhere instead of being demolished.

About 3,000 homes were demolished in Metro Vancouver last year, according to the study. Twenty percent of them, 600, could have been relocated.

The cost to move a home is about $100 to $125 per square foot, while new construction can cost up to $450 per square foot, the report said.

Call to reduce barriers to relocation

According to the Lighthouse report, the barriers to relocation include a “lack of industry awareness, unsupportive licensing schemes, tight timelines and misalignment of incentives.”

It calls for more municipalities to require homes to be automatically assessed for potential relocation, to issue permits that allow additional time for home relocation before demolition, and to require developers to pay security deposits that are refunded if moves are realized .

Homes that cannot be moved should be assessed for demolition to save building materials.

“The challenges we face is that the industry is moving very quickly to demolish,” says Gill Yaron of Lighthouse.

“You acquire land, you want to clear it quickly, as quickly as you can, so you can build. So time is needed.”

Joseph Dahmen, an architecture professor at the University of British Columbia, developed a tool in 2017 that predicted that 25 percent of Vancouver homes could be demolished by 2030 due to an increase in property values.

He welcomes the industry’s call to make relocation home in BC more feasible.

“They point to the need for policies to catch up with power and capacity,” Dahmen said.

Municipal response

Local leaders say they are open to changes that could help preserve homes through relocation.

The City of Coquitlam built 600 homes in the 1960s in the Burquitlam neighborhood, where property values ​​now exceed home values ​​due to the expansion of public transportation in the area and the desire to create multi-unit housing. to develop.

Craig Hodge, a Coquitlam city councilman, says his council is working to move those homes instead of demolishing them, with a handful already slated for relocations by Nickel Bros. next month.

“We just need to get away from the idea that we’re going to smash and drag houses,” Hodge said. “That should be the last option, not the first option when we look at redevelopment.”

Hodge, who serves on a regional zero waste committee and chairs the National Zero Waste Council, had a house on his Vancouver Island estate moved to the back of the lot, rather than demolish it, to make way for new construction.

He plans to rent out the relocated house, which has moved with the furniture still in it.

“It proved to me that it could be done,” he said.

“We saved the house and we created some rent … in a community that is short of rental housing, which is just about every community in British Columbia.”

Hodge says the council in Coquitlam is getting its engineering and planning departments to work together to come up with kinder policies for home relocation.

Examples include the granting of phased demolition permits whereby homes can be lifted before the final demolition permit is issued.

Hodge and others said the county also has a role to play in potentially changing BC’s building code to make it easier to move older homes to new foundations in new locations.