Chapter 5.2 - CASE STUDY - 309/311 Tranquille

 Part 3 - entitiled "Why its so hard to build on Tranquille" is a series of case studies that show how with the current paradigm of City regulation, building or renovation of buildings is financially impossible - thus despite all the great things happening on big lots by big developers, the small buildings largely remain boarded up and empty lots remain empty.

First I want to highlight what our Neighbourhood Plans have been asking for.

In all, The North Shore has had 3 Planning Documents that specifically address the concerns and aspirations of the neighbourhood:

• The McDonald Park Plan (2004)
• The North Shore Neighbourhood Plan (2008)
• The Draft North Shore Neighbourhood Plan (2021)

The North Shore is also addressed specifically in other plans, like KAMPLAN - the Official Community Plan for the whole city, the Sustainable Kamloops Plans, Transportation Master Plans and others.

All of these documents see thousands of hours from City Planners, hundreds of engagement sessions, with thousands of residents, pool their ideas, hopes and dreams for the neighbourhood to come up with a vision that should guide new development, guide City policy and guide City Council decisions on proposals and projects. I also work closely with the community, and the municipality in all kinds of ways. I hear stories and aspirations from all level of community citizen.

In general people on and around Tranquille want:

• More local stores and shops filling vacant store fronts and generating "vibrant streetlife"
• Pedestrian oriented streets that feel safe
• Housing affordability
• Vibrant streets with more people
• Greener buildings and transportation options

A verbatim comment from a Neighbourhood resident, speaking against a new housing project was "we want more shops".

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It is important to realize that it is not just one aspect of regulation that influences these outcomes either.

There is five major documents that influence the ability to build or renovate and the viability of doing so. None of those five in Kamplan or The North Shore Community Plan. While residents and the City spend millions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of hours to create these documents collaborating with community members and the public - most new buildings go through a Development Permit process, in which City Council vote Yes or No on a project. They can often vote Yes for projects that do not at all meet the criteria in the Community Plans, and at the same time, can often vote No on projects who have been dramatically changed and reworked by City Staff to meet the planning documents. 

The five regulatory documents that really make a difference here are:

1. BC Building Code - which the City cannot control
• Provincial Document, regulates things like stair tread length, colours, door heights, swing directions, door knob heights, ceiling finishs, plumbing pipe sizes, electrical cable connections, things like that - in most cases safety issues
2. The Design Criteria Manual - City controlled
• Regulates things like roadway widths, sidewalk width, vehicle turning radius, bike lane widths, traffic signal locations, sewer pipe sizes, backfill specs. It is supposed to be informed by best practices in various engineering disciplines.
3. Division 52 - Off Street Parking Requirements - City Controlled
• Regulates how much parking is required for various uses, like a bowling alley needs 4 stalls per lane. As well as dimensions of stalls, lanes within parking areas, ramps, etc.
4. Division 53 - Landscaping, Screening and Fencing Regulations - City Controlled
• Regulates things like fence materials, allowable screws, colours, schrubs, trees, garbage bin enclosure gates, etc.
5. Zoning - In this case "C1-T Tranquille Road Commercial" - City Controlled
• What uses are allowed, for example, allowed to have a Video Outlet or Television Broadcaster, but not allowed a Bowling Alley or Art Gallery. Includes for example which aspects of Off Street Parking and Landscaping Apply, Setback, Lot Coverage, Height Limits, Maximum number of units, Floor Area Ratios and others

All of these documents impact each of these case studies.

309/311 Tranquille

This boarded up decrepit eyesore and haven for undesirable activity is suffering from two redevelopment problems.

The first is its owner and the dynamics of taxation and incentives. The properties tax assessment is as below:

The current owner is the type of person who does not want to invest in making a neighbourhood better. They have bought a property on the gamble that the prices will go up, and by simply paying the tax bill once a year, of $6,600 - like a stock or mutual fund. As you can see, the value of the property has increased by an average of $17,500 per year, so its really a smoking deal. Why not just knock the building down? That is because, when someone who owns this property actually goes to redevelop, the value of the building knocked down is deducted from the Development Cost Charges levied by the City. If the building were to be knocked down, they would loose that tax incentive.

Unlike downtown, where this could be rented for surface parking to make more money, on the North Shore, it has more value up, than down. Downtown, the revenue from parking would be more than the DCC incentive. For clarity, if parking cost money and was hard to find on the North Shore, like it is Downtown, it would make sense to tear down this building for parking. 

Recently, some redevelopment properties on Tranquille have sold for approximately $80 per Square Foot. At this property of 9640 Sq. Ft. lot, it could sell for about $774,000. So really, the $17,500 return per year is really far short of the actual return on this speculation at sale time. Until something impels this owner to sell, to make doing-nothing more expensive than doing-something, instead of directly financially rewarding the investor for doing-nothing with little risk, this property will remain this way.

Now lets talk about the second problem:

Let's say the property did go up for sale for market rate though, and we wanted to build a mixed-use apartment building here, like the cities plan asks for. A proposed Business Case as follows. In order to simplify, we will assume that the ground floor is 50% Commercial, and 50% non saleable space, which is also what the City Zone requires it to be. Each floor above, we could build the following:

We could theoretically fit 13 small studios at 550 Sq. Ft. per floor, or 6 family sized units at 1200 Sq. Ft., or a number of options in between. Usually a developer, especially in a smaller market like Kamloops, will build a mix of unit types so that they are not depending all on one demographic of purchaser. But for simplicity, lets choose 7  two-bedroom apartments per floor at 1032 Sq. Ft.. Check out what happens with the development and sales prices on the units based on different numbers of floors:

With one floor of commercial, and one floor of residential, the costs of building just the residential units, and the selling price required to be viable, is $396,022.63. You can see that at 5 stories of residential on top, 35 units altogether, each unit is viable at $288,989. That is a spread of $120,000 or so, by dividing the cost of the land between the units. 

Building a building of course is not so simple. So lets discuss what is going to happen on the ground floor of this building. We know we want Commercial development of some kind, it brings street vibrancy, jobs, etc. - and it is required by zoning code to be there, at least 50% of the ground floor. So at 50% of the ground floor, that Commercial Unit has to be bigger than 4820 Sq. Ft. With circulation for fire escapes, mail rooms, elevator removed, we have 2410 Sq. Ft. left. The City also requires in Division 53, Landscaping, Screening and Fencing Regulations that landscaping cover "not less than 5% of the Site". So in this case, remove another  420 Sq. Ft. so that we can add some xeriscaped rocks and grasses somewhere. That leaves us 1990 Sq. Ft. on which to fit our parking in the back.

Our lot is 14.6m wide, and parking stalls have to be 5.7m deep with a 7.3m aisle in the middle. So by code, we can only have parking on one side of our lot. With only 20% of the back of the lot for parking, we can fit 11m of parking deep. So in fact, it would be better to build the width of the back of the lot, like all the old building on Tranquille do - only that is not allowed. You are not allowed to back into alley spaces anymore.

Or to stack parking stalls, which is also not allowed, even though hundreds of buildings downtown and on Tranquille built before the current code do. If the old way of doing things - stacked parking across the back of the lot was allowed, though not convenient, we could fit 10 stalls. But in any case, with one minimum disabled stall at 3.7m and the rest at 2.7m - this property can hold 4 parking stalls.

That is right, following the City regulation, you can fit 4 parking stalls in total if you are planning a multi-story mixed use building.

Now lets look at what you actually need for parking.

By the cities zoning bylaw, we need between 18 and 50 parking stalls. This lot fits 4 parking stalls. 

So lets just go underground right! With construction costs underground, with the required HVAC to prevent carbon monoxide poisoning, the pumps to deal with the flood plain and circulation we have the same formula as up above - we have about 7230 Sq.. Ft. per floor. By angling the stall by 45 degrees, at a width of 5.7m we can fit (optimistically, as we haven no room for code sized ramps and engineering) 8 stalls per 7230 floor. To provide the 18 stalls needed for 1 story of commercial and 1 story of residential, we would need ~2+ floors of underground parking at a cost of $1.4mil. Each floor of underground will cost $900,000 or so at $150/Sq.Ft. - which is optimistically cheap. So considering the full development, meeting full parking requirements, the following is what you get:

Assuming we allow a 6 story building on this lot, which based on the number of failed building proposals at fewer stories that were not supported by the City Planning Staff is maybe not likely - but assuming we allowed it - The cost of a 1000 Sq. Ft. Condo in this building would be $626,890. 

You can also see that because of the influence of Land Cost, building fewer units does not make it cheaper. The most expensive comparable ~1000 Sq. Ft. 2 bedroom condo on Tranquille sold for about $459,000 (mind it is the penthouse):

So lets just pretend, how high would the building need to be, if people would actually pay $459,000 for a two-bed unit in this building, and parking could be built infinitely down? The answer is never. 

At 750 floors high, and 1500 floors into the ground of parking, you still are at $573,552.45 per Two Bedroom Condo. 

To reflect, our 4 parking stalls version, it was selling these same units for $288,000. Will someone save themselves $200,000 to not have a car? Will they simply pay for parking off site at a market rate somewhere else (which is currently $0 with all the empty lots)? For example, rent someone's unused alley garage for $50/month - or rent from a neighbouring property that has empty parking stalls?

Remember though, how all these various regulatory documents influence this. If lane and parking stall widths were made smaller in the Criteria Manual, you would be able to fit more small cars, though few if any pick up trucks. If you allowed stacked parking arrangements, or backing into alleys, you could add more parking with ease. Simple changes to lane design on Tranquille itself, can easily open up hundreds of On Street Stalls for commercial use and visitors. 

Will the North Shore have a parking problem one day if a few dozen buildings go up like this? For sure. But if by parking problem you mean people will have to pay market rates for parking, and that we will have a few thousand new residents on the street, supporting businesses and filling store fronts first, then you would also be right. Right now, we are so lacking in development, that it makes more sense to keep a boarded up building standing for tax incentive of a few thousand dollars, than to knock it down at charge $4 per day for employee parking. 

Perhaps enough buildings around this building were to get built, so that people were willing to pay a few bucks an hour to access the businesses or residences in the area like they do Downtown - suddenly this boarded up building would be better financially as a paved surface parking lot and much less liability too.

You know what is way worse about Tranquille than future congestion? The current No Congestion. No Vibrancy. Just cars driving at top speed through a strip of half vacant store fronts, empty lots and boarded up buildings.

Even if these people could not find off site parking, which at this time is so absurd as to be tough to acknowledge. We are not asking people in the suburbs to give up their cars, we are asking if 35 people might like to live in a Walkable, Transit Accessible, redeveloping area $100,000-$200,000 cheaper than existing apartments with parking in other areas of a comparable size. We don't need everyone to give up their cars, we need to see if 35 people will accept parking a block from home, or perhaps maybe, not have a car, or share a car. How many thousands of carless students, young people working in the service industry, folks with developmental challenges that are prevented from cars, are forced to pay for parking in their existing buildings that they cannot use.

Recent developments like Colours on Tranquille and Huston Place were able to provide cheap parking by have huge aprons of surface parking on giant lots surrounding their buildings. You could always buy there for ~$390,000+ and get parking included. It is a free market, and people can pay what they can afford. Right now though, unless you can afford parking, the criteria says you cannot have housing. 

Oh and as far as generating taxes go, the property currently pays the City $6,600 per year - a valuation of $482/Sq.M. Developed to 6 stories, it would pay taxes on $14,700,000 of real estate - $16,330/Sq.M. With those kind of returns, imagine what kind of nice sidewalks, bylaw officers, street trees and transit we could fund instead. Taxed on 33 times more value. Bringing in $217,000 more per year to pay for RCMP, street clean up, beautification, new pavement, pot hole repair, all those great things the City does.

We need to learn the lesson - Urban and Car Oriented Suburban are two different things. Urban development will only start happening in a meaningful way once we accept this. Urban development needs to be for people who use transit, bike, walk. People whose amenities are out the front door - the proximate shops, cafes, restaurants, parks, childcare, jobs. Not the people who drive an extra 30 minutes to save $4 at Costco. Developers will always provide the amount of parking on site that is financially viable. On some sites, that will be alot, but on many typical infill lots like this one, its not very much.

If we have any hope of meeting climate goals, or the 1997 Official Community Plan goal of 35% of all trips by not-car travel by 2020 (which we did not even get close to meeting) - we have to build walkable places, which are not designed around cars. Places like Tranquille are already walkable, and are just missing the places for people who might like to live here. Again, not everyone is being forced to live here, but those who might like to are currently occupying other homes, that you might like more than where you are living now.

Urban Places like Tranquille and Downtown will never win the game of parking and driving. The suburbs will always have much better parking and much better driving. No matter how many levels of underground parking you build, the people from the suburbs will never want to live in Urban areas.

They will rarely, except when gruesomely forced to, try to find parking two blocks from their destination. Living in the suburbs is all about your private pool, your private car, your private home theatre, your private yard. Living in the Urban City is all about life in public, at venues, galleries, parks, streets, cafes, restaurants. Until we (citizens, planners, councilors) collectively understand this difference, we will not change the codes, and we will not see the situations in our Core Neighbourhoods improve.

Some people will hate the following way of living, but is living in Small City, walkable urbanism, really all that bad? Check out the photos below, a combination of google street view and travel photos, from places between 200,000 people and 2000 people, from the UK to Japan, to India to Serbia, to Estonia to Key West, Sun Peaks, Whistler, Victoria and Halifax. This is not crazy, it is not the exclusive place of large, old cities. 192/195 countries in the world consider this standard.