Densified in an earlier era, neighbourhood is in the crosshairs again

In a Mount Pleasant enclave along West 10th and West 11th Avenues, there stands some of Vancouver’s most pristine heritage houses, pink, blue and yellow Victorians and Edwardians, and several coach houses, as old as the 1890s. Strolling along the streets is like stepping back in time.

They look like historic single detached homes, but they are some of the city’s most livable “missing middle” density, a mix of strata condos, duplexes and rental units – the result of a zoning experiment that goes back to the 1990s. According to planner Sandy James, who did her thesis on the community back in the 1980s, it started when the Davis family – legendary for their historic homes – moved into the then-rundown neighbourhood and started saving the old houses by scraping money together and converting them into affordable multifamily suites. The city’s policy change made house conversions official and enabled residents to densify their homes while retaining the character and preserving the historic look of the street. As a result, the rows of houses have become a tourist destination. It is one of several policy and demographic shifts that led to the densification of many detached houses throughout the city.