The Hongcouver | Vancouver’s vacancy study, the ‘key finding’ it didn’t find and the vacant homes it didn’t count
The ‘finding’ that Vancouver’s vacancy rate is in line with other cities wasn’t in new research - it was copied from a previous study and inserted in the City’s summary of latest data
When Caroline Adderson heard last week that a report commissioned by the City of Vancouver had found only about 1 per cent of single family homes and duplexes were unoccupied, she couldn’t believe it.
One in a hundred? It was a “ridiculously” low number, thought Adderson, a local author and creator of the Vancouver Vanishes Facebook page and bestselling book that mournfully documents how perfectly livable and often beautiful homes are left vacant then demolished amid the city’s soaring real estate market, to be replaced with mansions in keeping with value of the land on which they sit.
The reason the report’s results so differ from Adderson’s perceptions about the empty, darkened homes she sees across the city are quite clear: many simply weren’t included in the study.
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Ecotagious, the company that produced the long-awaited occupancy report, analysed electricity meter data to decide whether a dwelling was occupied, finding just 950 non-occupied single family homes and duplexes in the City of Vancouver in 2014.
The 2011 census tally was some 190 per cent higher than Ecotagious found
Powerless homes - including the bereft pre-demolition dwellings that so sadden Adderson and others - were excluded from consideration. After reconnection, they remained excluded for another full year.
