Vancouver Can Make Real Estate Prices Lower By Going Higher

How do you fight back when a real estate price in a city is out of the reach for most residents?  What do you do? How can Vancouver make real estate prices lower and more affordable? This is the dilemma being faced by the city of Vancouver, where property price to income ration is over 12, making it one of the most expensive city not only in Canada but in the world. Compare that with Toronto where price to income ratio is around 6 and Thunder Bay (top ranked city in Canada to buy real estate in) has a price to income ratio of around 2.5.

Government has tried to fight back by imposing visa restrictions for entry into the city but when the price is this high, the solution has to be something better.  Something where you can take a page out of Dubai’s book, maybe not as far fetched as Burj Khalifa (the worlds tallest building) but going as close to the sky may be the solution Vancouver is looking for.

How High Can We Build? here is a video, which has more than 13 million views. It clearly says, people like to see, hear and watch something high.

This is exactly what “Vancouver architect Richard Henriquez has a solution for Canada’s least affordable city. Get vertical. Build higher, without limits. Ignore the fussy horizontalists, people who “go crazy” when any new tower is proposed for Vancouver’s downtown.”

Built on a natural peninsula surrounded by water, the downtown area already resembles a man-made forest, at least when viewed from a distance. Just 5.8 square kilometres, not including Stanley Park, the downtown peninsula is already stacked with concrete and glass.

But there are only a handful of towers that might be called skyscrapers, and nothing more than 600 feet in height.

Here is the making of tallest man made structure, a city in the sky.  Burj Khalifa, which owns its success to seven key inventions.  As you watch the video, you will see what i mean. Vancouver can learn something from it.

For various reasons, none of which make any sense, Henriquez says, tall is anathema in Vancouver. It should be just the opposite. Tall towers mean less congestion at ground level, with more living space up top, he notes.

Vancouver architect Richard Henriquez says build high in Vancouver

In a city that preaches high residential density, its determination not to reach for the sky seems oddly counter-intuitive.

Local developer Jon Stovell has for years campaigned for taller buildings. Last month, he delivered a speech to developers in which he advocated towers up to 1,000 feet in the downtown area.

“Let’s finally let go of our bucolic fishing village past and embrace the reality of a city that we have become in the eyes of the world,” he told his audience.

The 3D model of the building is on display at the Museum of Vancouver exhibition Your Future Home- Creating the New Vancouver.

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Building high up is popular in most mega cities.