The City of Vancouver has released a much-anticipated report on just how many homes, apartments and condos in the city are sitting empty.
Perhaps to the surprise of many, the first-of-its-kind report indicated there has been no change in the percentage of empty homes since 2002.
There has been speculation in the past over how many residences in Vancouver are, in fact, vacant, but there has been no definitive effort to quantify these numbers so far.
The city report released this morning shows that in 2014, there were 10,800 non-occupied housing units in Vancouver left empty for a year or more. The data from a total of 225,000 homes was analyzed.
The report says the percentage of unoccupied homes has remained steady since 2002 – at about 4.8 per cent for all housing types. The highest non-occupancy rate was seen in northwest Vancouver at 7.4 per cent.
GRAPHIC: Non-Occupied Housing Units in the City – All Units
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The non-occupancy rate of single-family homes and duplexes was only about one per cent Vancouver-wide, meaning most of the empty housing involved condos and apartments. The highest non-occupancy single-family homes and duplexes rate was, again, in northwest Vancouver at 1.6 per cent.
GRAPHIC: Non-Occupied Housing Units in the City – Single Family and Duplex Units
Of all the empty homes identified, 90 per cent were condos and apartments. Specifically, the condo non-occupancy rate was estimated to be around 12.5 per cent in 2014.
The non-occupancy in Vancouver is generally in line with the rest of Metro Vancouver, the report finds. It also finds the rate of empty homes in Vancouver and the region is in line with other large cities in Canada.
However, the numbers presented today are current up to 2014, as last year was not measured.
The study specifically looked at how many homes are sitting unoccupied on a long-term basis, but did not assign a cause to why the homes are being left empty.
It was based on electricity consumption data provided by BC Hydro from 2002 to 2014.
A home was deemed non-occupied in a given month if it registered as non-occupied for 25 or more days in that month.
The data was analyzed and reviewed by a panel of external industry experts to evaluate the methodology and findings.
Despite the lower than anticipated non-occupancy rates, city staff are still recommending to come up with ways to encourage home owners to rent out currently available space and look into why so many condos and apartments are not part of the rental market.
However, the limitation of the data supplied by BC Hydro is it doesn’t provide the basis for identifying specific units and owners.
Green Party Vancouver City Councillor Adriane Carr told Global News the report findings came as a surprise to her.
She questioned why the data did not include the new-builds that are potentially sitting empty in a very fast-developing market.
“It could mean we do have more empty homes than is suggested in the report,” says Carr.
READ MORE: Anger grows over Vancouver’s vacant homes
The City of Vancouver currently has no authority to create a vacant properties registry and require owners register empty homes. It also doesn’t have the power to mandate occupancy.
It says it has limited tools to enforce actions to discourage empty homes, so the support of the provincial and federal governments will be crucial moving forward.
Carr says while the city’s hands are relatively tied, they can still do work with strata councils to identify why condos are not being rented out and try to increase occupancy.
The next empty housing report is expected to come out in the next two years.
See the full report below.
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