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City could require 10 per cent of new condo parking spots to include electric car chargers

Vancouver city council will soon decide whether to force developers to install electric car-charging stations in at least 10 per cent of all new condo parking lots — a proposal that’s creating a chicken-or-the-egg debate.

If the vote goes through Thursday, Vancouver would be the first city in Canada with such a mandate for residential buildings. In addition to the 10-per-cent requirement for condo parking spaces, it would also see the city install a limited number of public charging stations at its EasyPark lots, eventually expand this to include on-street locations, and develop a strategy for retrofitting existing buildings.

“Electric cars are coming. They are in Europe and in Japan,” said Mayor Gregor Robertson, echoing observers who see that while Vancouver might lead Canada, it would be playing catch up to many cities elsewhere, such as San Francisco and Paris, which already each have hundreds of charging stations and growing culture for electric car use. “We need to be prepared.”

City staff estimate that the cost of installing chargers for 10 per cent of parking spaces, with allowance for future upgrades, would cost less than 0.5 per cent of the building cost.

They believe that, while this would be a new cost to developers, it would “enable early adoption of EVs [electric vehicles] in our community, allow for later expansion as the market demands, allow the development industry to test the market take-up and introduce limited new costs that are not likely to adversely affect land values.”

The proposal would include an 18-month grace period for these requirements and support “developers to find possible strategies to offset the new incremental costs associated with this infrastructure.”

This, however, seems to be of little comfort to developers, who would like to see the ratio for charging stations reduced from 10 per cent to five per cent of parking stalls.

In April, city staff made a proposal to the Urban Development Institute, which represents developers, that charging infrastructure would be required for 20 per cent of parking stalls. UDI responded that this ratio was too high, “given the cost of providing the infrastructure, the lack of widespread market penetration of the vehicle technology, and BC Hydro’s capacity to deliver the additional power required to charge these vehicles.”

On Tuesday, Jeff Fisher, deputy executive director of UDI, said the organization is working with the city, but has some specific concerns.

“We are always supportive of going green and efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but we want to make sure that this is the right green-car technology. There are a number out there. We have had hydrogen fuel cell vehicles and concepts like the ‘hydrogen highway’ for some time. We feel it might be premature to mandate this.”

He added that while 0.5 per cent of the cost of the building is small, “when you look at the cost of other fees that the industry is facing, in aggregate, it is more significant.”

Fisher said that, for now, UDI would prefer to see a voluntarily or incentive-based approach to making charging stations available. Part of the conundrum is that there are currently fewer than 10 such electric vehicles in the city. A few months ago, the City of Vancouver and BC Hydro signed an agreement with Mitsubishi Motors to use its newly-launched iMiev electric vehicle as test run models for their fleets. It’s not clear yet exactly how many vehicles this will involve and exactly when they would arrive, but the hope is that orders would quickly increase.

Don Chander, past president of the Vancouver Electric Vehicle Association, which supports the proposal, said that providing infrastructure for charging electric vehicles in all new multi-family residential buildings is increasingly important as density increases. He added that some 18 major automakers have announced electric vehicle models, making it “urgent to start building this infrastructure.” The VEVA estimates that the average cost of implementing EV infrastructure at the time of construction is around $1,500 per parking stall.

‘Encouraging signs’ that construction sector is bouncing back from the bottom, says industry spokesman

The value of building permits issued in southwestern British Columbia soared by more than 36 per cent in May, helping to lead the country to what one analyst called a “whopping” increase that beat expectations.

The increase in southwestern B.C. was led by a 95-per-cent rebound in non-residential permits, compared to the month before.

That’s enough to prompt the head of the region’s construction sector to suggest the industry may be on the rebound.

Keith Sashaw, president of the Vancouver Regional Construction Association, cautioned in a news release Tuesday that “it is too early to tell if the worst is over for the construction industry,” but added: “There are certainly some encouraging signs the construction industry may have reached the bottom of the market and is now on an upward trend.”

Statistics Canada said Tuesday that the value of building permits issued nationally in May surpassed the $5-billion mark for the first time since October.

That represents a “whopping” 14.8-per-cent hike over April, according to Charmaine Buskas, senior economics strategist with TD Securities.

“This report is at odds with expectations,” Buskas added.

For the province of B.C., the percentage increase was far greater, soaring 26.4 per cent over April’s figures.

Of his region, Sashaw said: “The large surge in commercial permits issued in May is the highest regional figure since last November.

“But, he noted, residential permits in the region increased by just one per cent.

“The construction industry anticipates the institutional-government sector will be heading higher in the next year or so when more of the fiscal stimulus spending hits the economy,” said Sashaw.

“It is our hope that increased building activity in 2009 will set the stage for a recovery in 2010.

“But May’s rebound also reflects just how far the sector has fallen.

“Year-to-date, total building permit values in the Lower Mainland-Southwest region are down 57 per cent to $1.3 billion compared to last year, led by residential permits, which are down 65 per cent to $687.3 million,” the construction association release pointed out.

And, it added: “[Year-to-date] non-residential permits are down 42 per cent to $613.2 million in the same period.”

But Sashaw noted: “The June housing sales numbers released last week also offer hope that new housing construction will pick up in the coming months, possibly as early as the fourth quarter this year.”

And, he added: “The construction industry anticipates the institutional-government sector will be heading higher in the next year or so when more of the fiscal stimulus spending hits the economy.

It is our hope that increased building activity in 2009 will set the stage for a recovery 2010.”Buskas of TD Securities said the national increase could mostly be explained by “massive increases in two main sub components — multi-family units and institutional permits.”

“Clearly, builders were not scared off by the weak macro economic backdrop, and in fact were helped by government spending.”

However, she also cautioned, “This pace of rising activity is unlikely to continue.”Statistics Canada also attributed the new building activity to increases in the number of permits issued for multi-family dwellings in Ontario and institutional permits in Alberta and Ontario.

BUILDING UP AGAIN

Percentage change in the value of building permits issued in May, compared to a month earlier:

Canada +14.8

British Columbia +26.4

Alberta +48.4

Saskatchewan +54.5

Manitoba +3.4

Ontario +15

Quebec +3.3

New Brunswick -27.6

Nova Scotia -13.9

Prince Edward Island -18.7

Newfoundland -3.7

Source: Statistics Canada

TORONTO – Despite all the talk of a housing downturn and economic crisis in Ontario, the province’s two biggest cities both saw record housing resales last month for the month of June.The Toronto Real Estate Board said Monday there were 10,955 sales in the Greater Toronto Area in June, a 27% increase from the 8,600 homes sold a year ago. It was the best June for sales since the board started tracking the numbers in the mid 1960s.

In Ottawa, housing sales jumped 12.5% in June to 1,895, also a new record for the month.

The average sale price in the GTA last month $403,972, up 2% from a year earlier.

In Ottawa, the average sale price rose 3% annually to $306,925.

“I think the next stage” might be price pressure, said Doug Porter, deputy chief economist at BMO Capital Markets.

“The moderation we have seen in prices may not last long if this kind of sales and listing balance remains in place.

“Porter said the mad scramble to buy a house is playing out across the country, as consumers wade back into the market tempted by interest rates the lowest they’ve been in 50 years.

Five-year fixed rate mortgages were as low as 3.75% last month, though they’ve nudged back up to about 4.5% since.”Vancouver sales were up about 76% from a year ago, the second best June ever for them.

Calgary sales were up 27%, and Edmonton sales were up 38%,” said the economist. “

A lot of people emerged from their foxholes over the winter and have been brought in by low mortgage rates or a belief the economy is going to improve.

“There was some pent-up demand, things almost froze over solid over the winter.”

Sliding prices mixed with low interest rates offset impact of sluggish economy

Lower Mainland real estate markets saw big gains in June sales, with the Metro Vancouver real estate board posting its second busiest and the Fraser Valley its fourth-most-active June on record.A combination of the slide in real estate prices last year and current low interest rates offset the negative influences of higher unemployment and a contracting economy, Carol Frketich, regional economist for Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp., said in an interview.The Metro Vancouver area covered by the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver recorded 4,259 sales through the Multiple Listing Service in June, a 76-per-cent increase from the same month a year ago.The inventory of unsold homes in the board’s area declined 27 per cent to 13,252 compared with the same month a year ago. The benchmark price for a typical detached home was $701,384 in June, still down 8.4 per cent from the same month a year ago.

The benchmark price is a calculation based on the features of homes most typically sold in that category.

In the Fraser Valley, realtors racked up 1,982 sales during the month, a 40-per-cent increase from the same month a year ago, the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board reported Friday.

The benchmark price of a typical detached home was $471,788, down eight per cent from June 2008. However, it was up 1.3 per cent from May when the benchmark was $465,939.

“The resale market signals that buyers are returning to the market,” Frketich said. “Prices are stabilizing and on the supply side, [the number of] listings is moving lower. So we’re seeing the adjustments we would expect to see.”

The total number of sales for the year to date was still down, owing to the dismally slow months of January and February, but has been trending higher over the past five months, Frketich said.

“Keeping in mind that last year June was a couple of months into the [market] slowdown,” she said, “we would expect to see an improvement [in sales] compared to the second half of last year.”

However, how lasting the boom in sales will be depends on how well the overall economy performs, according to housing economist Tsur Somerville, director of the centre for urban economics and real estate at the Sauder School of Business at the University of B.C.

“Real estate tends to be a leading [economic] indicator,” Somerville said. “It’s not that you need to have employment numbers recover for real estate to recover.”

However, June’s boom in sales was stronger than he would expect given the state of B.C.’s labour market and of the global economy.

“Obviously, first and foremost, [the rise in sales] is about mortgage rates,” he said. “From a housing perspective, if the economy is not recovering, there really can’t be a substantive recovery in your housing market,” Somerville said.

In the meantime, buyers with means are being drawn into the market.

In previous months, the strengthening of sales was seen at the entry level with first-time buyers, but Paul Penner, president of the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board, said valley realtors are now seeing stronger sales at the higher end of the market. “Still, a lot of it is driven by interest rates and affordability,” Penner said in an interview.

Though the economy might still be in recession, Penner said there are buyers who have jobs who “still have someplace to go every Monday morning and still have their paycheques every second Friday, so they’re not as frightened by some of the negative projections.”

One Hot MonthThough overall economic conditions remain dicey, buyers were attracted by lower prices and mortgage rates in June bringing Lower Mainland real estate sales back to numbers last seen at the height of the market. Below are some of the figures with a comparison to June 2008.

Greater Vancouver

Houses
Unit sales: 1,667 +82%
Benchmark price: $701,384 -8.4%

Townhouses
Unit sales: 802 +78%
Benchmark price: $441,620 -7.3%

Apartments
Unit sales: 1,790 +69%
Benchmark price: $356,880 -8.2%

Fraser Valley
Houses
Unit sales: 1,047 +56%
Benchmark price: $471,788 -8%

Townhouses
Unit sales: 413 +38%
Benchmark price: $301,103 -10%

Apartments
Unit sales: 287 +10%
Benchmark price: $231,014 -9.6%

Source: Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver, Fraser Valley Real Estate Board.