Not only is it expensive to buy a home, be it a house or condominium, in Vancouver, it is also expensive to rent. The city has experienced a building boom in recent years that continues, with scores of residential towers being constructed in the downtown peninsula. Unfortunately, none of these towers are rental apartments. In fact, it has been a very long time since a rental building was constructed. Hence, the vacancy rate hovers around the .3% mark.
An area where there is still a large rental stock is the West End. Primarily concrete towers built in the 1960s, the average rate for a one-bedroom apartment is $1000 per month, as of 2006. A more affordable alternative is the 3-storey walkup, known in architectural circles as the “California Dingbat.” These woodframe structures have been a Vancouver landmark since the 1950s, and are crucial in the rental market. They almost always follow the same pattern: Three storeys with a penthouse (which takes up an area of one half of the building’s footprint), flat roofs and horizontal strips of windows.
These apartments offer lower rents than their concrete cousins, and tend to have larger suites. Aside from the sound-deadening limitations of wood, and the inconveniences of stairways versus elevators, these buildings are quite livable, though modest. They are typically boxy and uniform on all sides, with the front facades exhibiting a multitude of styles, depending on the builder’s whims.
City hall has realized their value in the rental inventory, and there is a motion to prevent their demolition to make way for more towers. Most everyone has lived in one of these buildings at some point. The dingbats offer students, seniors and everybody in between an affordable place to live within the city, and in a time when no new rental units are being constructed, the modest dingbats must be preserved.
Bookmark to:
