A sky-high listing for a modest home in Vancouver’s West End is quickly becoming the face of the city’s affordability crisis.
The two-storey, four-bedroom house at 1511 Barclay St. is listed for $6.98 million, but views of the home show it’s seen better days.
The listing admits the 96-year-old house needs “a little TLC,” but highlights the property’s potential for a “land assembly” with the possibility of adding an infill or a laneway house behind the original building.
GALLERY: click to see images of the $6.98 million home
An assessment of the skinny 4,323-square-foot property in July 2017 valued it at $3,456,000, but the house itself was only valued at $117,000, according to BC Assessment.
The last time it was sold was in October 2015, for $2.8 million — slightly higher than the previous assessment at $2.6 million.
Global News attempted to contact the real estate agent behind the listing, but was told she was out of town.
City promoting laneway houses
Laneway houses have become the latest trend in the West End, where several older or heritage homes sit on lots big enough to add an extra, smaller development on the same property.
These homes can be built as high as three-and-a-half to four storeys tall on 33-foot-wide lots, provided a 20-foot shared courtyard is included between the existing home and the infill, according to the city’s 2013 West End Plan.
The city says laneway homes are the ideal solution to solving two problems at once: preserving heritage homes and increasing density in desirable neighbourhoods.
“If someone approaches the city with a proposal to develop a property, we would require that they first prepare a study of the heritage merit of the house,” a city spokesperson said in an email.
“If the house has heritage merit, the zoning allows for a laneway infill building of three to four storeys, and if the owner choses to demolish a house with heritage merit then they would be limited to a lower density on the site.”
City council recently approved the naming of eight West End laneways, with new street signs on the way to identify them, which will give many new and in-development laneway homes their own separate addresses.
The lane behind 1511 Barclay St. has been renamed as Stovold Lane.
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