Vancouver magazine, April2016 by NextHome

Why does this city hate pets? P.56

A PR I L 2016

# J UST BE T T E R #J

Lynn Valley vs. Deep Cove West End vs. Downtown False Creek vs. Yaletown

Best s d o o h r u o b h g i e N 39 urs stack up? o y s e o d w o ated. H ranked and r IMAGE CREDIT

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We’re still waiting on our government to legalize marijuana, but it’s a different story south of the border. Pg 64

APRIL V O L U M E 4 9 // N U M B E R 3

DE PA RT M E N T S

City

The proposed Commercial Drive bike lane gets a rough ride; How a barista gets by on $25,900; Why ‘walk left, stand right’ might be completely backwards. Pg 13

Taste

How to carb load for the Sun Run in style; A vegetarian restaurant tries to bring in the meat eaters; Why nuoc cham might be the condiment of 2016. Pg 23

Style

Vancouver’s newest “It” girl; Strellson suits up with a standalone store; The enduring appeal of denim. Pg 31

The Byrnes Block in Gastown/ Chinatown, #19 in our Best Neighbourhoods ranking

feature story PG 41

Washington State welcomes the world of weed into its backyard; Feeling stabby? This class is for you. Pg 63

WATER STREET: GASTOWN BIA/PAMEL A SAUNDERS

EXTRAS

T H E BE ST N E IGH BOU R HOOD S For the time being, let’s put aside the ever-present conversation about Vancouver’s place among the world’s best cities. This month, it’s all about a more local one: whose ‘hood rules? Is it an old stalwart like Kits, or a rising star like the Olympic Village? As it turns out, it was a hard-fought battle—with a surprising winner. Read on and start bragging (well, more).

Editor’s Note An inside look at how we ranked the city’s best neighbourhoods . Pg 10

Vancouver Specialist By Charlie Demers

Pg 66

ON THE COVER Photo by Albert Normandin

VA N M A G . C O M A P R I L 2 0 1 6

Editor-in-Chief Max Fawcett Art Director Paul Roelofs Senior Editor Trevor Melanson Associate Art Director Naomi MacDougall Assistant Art Director Jenny Reed Assistant Editor Jenni Elliott Online Assistant Kaitlyn Gendemann Videographer Mark Philps Contributing Writers Charlie Demers, Hadani Ditmars, DJ Kearney, Neal McLennan, Amanda Ross, Chad Skelton, Jimmy Thomson, D.B. Thompson, Eagranie Yuh, Nick Zarzycki Contributing Artists Eydís Einarsdóttir, Clinton Hussey, Evaan Kheraj, Joe McKendry (contributor illustrations), Andrew Querner, Carlo Ricci, John Sinal, Martin Tessler, Milos Tosic, Luis Valdizon Editorial Intern Eliot Escalona Art Intern Ying Tang Editorial Email mail@vanmag.com

Vancouver Office Suite 560, 2608 Granville St. Vancouver, B.C., V6H 3V3 604-877-7732

East India Carpets D I S T I N C T I V E D E S I G N S S I N C E 19 4 8

VANCOUVER MAGAZINE is published 10 times a year by Yellow Pages Homes Ltd. Copyright 2015. All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be reproduced without the publisher’s written permission. Not responsible for unsolicited editorial material. Privacy Policy: On occasion, we make our subscriber list available to carefully screened organizations whose product or service might interest you. If you prefer that we not share your name and address (postal and/or email), you can easily remove your name from our mailing lists by reaching us at any of the listed contact points. You can review our complete Privacy Policy at Vanmag.com. Indexed in the Canadian Magazine Index by Micromedia Ltd. and also in the Canadian Periodical Index. International standard serial no. ISSN 0380-9552. Canadian publications mail product sales agreement #40068973. Printed in Canada by Transcontinental Printing G.P. (LGM Graphics), 737 Moray St., Winnipeg, MB, R3J 3S9. All reproduction requests must be made to: COPIBEC (paper reproductions) 800-7172022, or CEDROM-SNi (electronic reproductions) 800-563-5665. Distributed by Coast to Coast Ltd.

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A NEW YORK ITALIAN STEAKHOUSE IN THE HEART OF DOWNTOWN VANCOUVER Vancouver’s newest dining experience reintroduces the city to Chef Bruce Woods. Chef Bruce puts a premium on locally sourced and curated ingredients. His homemade pastas and the finest cuts of beef, guarantee a truly memorable dining experience. Our award winning wine list and wine by the glass program is sure to contain a new gem for discovery.

Publisher & General Manager Tom Gierasimczuk Senior Sales Manager, Western Canada Edwin Rizarri Account Managers Deanna Bartolomeu, Judy Johnson Sales Coordinator Karina Platon Production Manager Lee Tidsbury Advertising Designer Swin Nung Chai Marketing & Events Manager Dale McCarthy Event Coordinator Laura Lilley Marketing Assistant Kaitlyn Lush Administrative Assistant/Online Coordinator Kaitlyn Gendemann Vancouver Office Suite 560, 2608 Granville St. Vancouver, B.C., V6H 3V3 604-877-7732

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Lodging 40% less than Seattle

A beautiful municipal Golf Course

Free parking

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President Jacky Hill Director, National Sales & Channel Management, Lifestyle Nadine Starr National Sales Manager, Channel Management, Lifestyle Ian Lederer National Sales Director Moe Lalani Director of Content Susan Legge Yellow Pages NextHome Head Office 500–401 The West Mall Etobicoke, Ontario, M9C 5J5 855-626-4200 Fax: 416-789-9705 U.S. Sales Representation, Media-Corps 1-866-744-9890 info@media-corps.com subscriptions enquiries 800-363-3272

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SPEAKER

POWER

WITH GREAT POWER, COMES GREAT

EVENT

SERIES

CONVERSATION Back for a second year! Vancouver magazine and Brian Jessel BMW present the second annual M Power Series, networking and thought-leadership speaker events featuring Vancouver’s Power 50 honorees, hosted at the luxurious Brian Jessel BMW dealership. Don’t miss the first panel, featuring architect Gregory Henriquez and social good entrepreneur Joel Solomon, at 6 p.m. on April 19, titled “How our runaway real estate boom can be channeled for social good.”

Attendees get the new copy of Brian Jessel Magazine!

Gregory Henriquez

Architect, Henriquez Partners

SCHEDULED DATES April 19, 2016 June 14, 2016 September 13, 2016 November 15, 2016

Joel Soloman

Chairman, Renewal Funds

LOCATION

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From the Editor

Behind The Numbers How did we decide that False Creek was the city’s best neighbourhood? We didn’t—the data did

Coming in the May issue THE 27 TH ANNUAL RESTAURANT AWARDS

In May, we serve up everything you need to know about the most eagerly anticipated—and hotly contested—industry event of the year, from the best restaurants in the city to the people who make them that way.

THE TIPPING POINT

In New York, veteran restaurateur Danny Meyer has done away with tipping at his high-end establishments. But is anyone in Vancouver brave—or foolish—enough to do the same thing?

VA N M A G . C O M A P R I L 2 0 1 6

and weaknesses of each of the 39 neighbourhoods that make up the City of Vancouver and the North Shore. Finally, we assigned each of those variables a weighting, fed them into an algorithm, and watched as it produced the ranked list that you’ll find starting on page 41. Now, full disclosure: Because we think affordability is a defining issue for most Vancouverites, we gave it the heaviest weighting of any variable at 20 percent. The rest ranged from two to 10 percent, and you can see how much emphasis we placed on each variable by going online to vanmag.com/neighbourhoods. But don’t just go there for the math. In the process of building our algorithm, we created a tool that allows anyone to adjust the weightings on the 12 variables and produce their own customized list. Maybe you don’t care about green space. Maybe you really, really care about green space. Either way, the choice is yours, and the results are able to reflect that. So go online, set your preferences, and play with the tool. You’ll have fun—we promise.

Max Fawcett max.fawcett@vanmag.com

RYAN GIRARD

YOU HAVE MY WORD: I didn’t rig these results. I know that’s probably how it looks—a new editor who was born and raised in False Creek comes in, and suddenly it gets tapped as Vancouver’s best neighbourhood—but the truth is that this list is the furthest thing from an arbitrary ranking of this city’s neighbourhoods that you can find. After all, we didn’t solicit anyone’s input, and we didn’t ask for anybody’s opinion. Instead, we let the data do the talking. Don’t get me wrong—I’m thrilled that the data speaks as highly about False Creek as I always have. It’s a credit to the planners and politicians who decided, more than 40 years ago, that it was worth taking a risk and trying something different. Its evolution from a social experiment into a model of progressive community building is a reminder of what we can achieve in this city when everyone comes together around a common cause. But how did the data determine that it’s the best neighbourhood in the city? Well, we gathered all of the information about life here that we could get our hands on, from property values and school test results to the number of coffee shops per capita (hey, it’s Vancouver) and their vulnerability to earthquakes (ditto). We then used that information to create variables that could objectively measure the strengths

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City

VANMAG .COM/CITY

W A L K I N G V S . D R I V I N G / M O N T H -T O - M O N T H / T H E P R I C E O F D I R T

AT I S S U E

PAUL KRUEGER/FLICKR

Lane Change Here we go again. In December, Vancouver city council approved 12 new bike lanes to be built over the next five years as part of the city’s Transportation 2040 plan. But while local cyclists were encouraged by the addition of routes down Richards, Bute, Smithe, and Nelson streets, the proposed lane on Commercial Drive ran into more resistance. Once again, a local business group is objecting to a bike lane being built in its neighbourhood, and once again those objections revolve primarily around reductions in parking spaces and the impact that would have on nearby merchants. “Using a street like Commercial Drive, where many of the longtime family businesses are already economically vulnerable, is not

VA N M A G . C O M A P R I L 2 0 1 6

AT I S S U E

worth the risk,” says Nick Pogor, the executive director of the Commercial Drive Business Society (CDBS). “We really think that taking the existing cycling infrastructure, making it better, and improving upon what’s already here is the way forward.” Charles Gauthier, the president of the Downtown Vancouver BIA, understands Pogor’s position. After all, when the City of Vancouver was in the earliest innings of building out the city’s new bike lane infrastructure, it started in his back yard—and he felt largely the same way. But five years later, and with an economic impact study on the books, he’s decided that bike lanes aren’t necessarily the mortal threat to local merchants they looked like at the outset. “I think they have some valid concerns,” he says of the CDBS. “But having said that, I think we came out of it on the other end. That’s not to say there aren’t some retailers experiencing negative impacts, but at the same time [bike lanes] appear to be popular, they’re well-utilized, and they’re getting people in and around the downtown.” Pogor’s primary concern, of course, is the on-street parking

that a separated bike lane would cannibalize, and he points out that Commercial Drive has less in common with Hornby and Dunsmuir streets and more in common with busier thoroughfares like Davie, Denman, or Robson. But Samuel Baron—an SFU master’s student and principal with Slow Streets, a Vancouver-based urban design and planning group—thinks the focus on parking is misplaced. His group published a report in January 2015 on the virtues of a separated bike lane along Commercial Drive, and it noted that there are over 700 parking stalls surrounding the Drive between Broadway and First Avenue that are free and available to the public. Putting a separated bike lane along the Drive would eliminate just 87 spaces along that same stretch. “This thing polarizes. It’s that whole bikes versus cars thing, and it’s not about that. To me, it’s about designing this retail street to better reflect the needs of the residents and the fact that it’s one of the primary retail streets in Vancouver. It’s one where people go specifically to be a pedestrian because it’s an interesting place to walk and an

How do people get to Commercial Drive?

2% 3% 93% VA N M A G . C O M A P R I L 2 0 1 6

interesting place to be.” In an online petition the CDBS posted in order to rally support for its position—and opposition to the bike lane—it posed a rhetorical question to readers: “Why risk negatively impacting the character of the Drive with this proposed change to the neighbourhood?” But Tania Lo, a longtime local resident and cycling advocate, thinks that question ought to be turned on its head. “Why risk leaving it the same? There are more people moving to this area, and if you want to make it easier for people to get around you’re going to have to change it. You cannot leave it as a thoroughfare, where people use it to get through the Drive. You should leave it for people who want to be there—and that isn’t what the street is built for right now.” —Max Fawcett

665

This thing polarizes. It’s that whole bikes versus cars thing, and it’s not about that.”

Number of people arriving every hour

SOURCE: SLOW STREETS

City

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MON T H-TO --MON T H

T H E M ON T H LY B I L L

INCOME AFTER TAXES

How a Full-Time Barista Gets by in This City Name: Michelle Hanley Age: 22 Gross salary: $25,900 Born-and-raised Vancouverite Michelle Hanley has been a full-time barista at JJ Bean on Commercial Drive for a year and a half. She is also the sardonic wit behind the satirical Twitter account for Kingsgate Mall and writes Vanpooper, an unpaid monthly column for BeatRoute Magazine in which she reviews public toilets. A self-described “borderline coupon lady,” Hanley relies on her uncanny ability to sniff out deals and find scores in the discount bins to make that coffee shop income stretch. —Jessica Barrett

VA N M A G . C O M A P R I L 2 0 1 6

$1,950

Rent (sharing a two-bedroom basement suite in Mount Pleasant) Heat Phone plan with Wind Mobile Internet (shared with housemates) Bank fee Donation to WSPA (“I can’t say no to those people with the clipboards”) Groupons for Castle Fun Park and Pinkberry frozen yogurt Scratch & Win tickets Gas for her friend’s van (“He drives me everywhere. We’re like platonic life partners”) Two Americanos and two vegan doughnuts from Cartems (“I feel like my entire life is a struggle between my hatred of gentrification and my love of artisan donuts”) Clothes (silk Hawaiian shirt from Value Village, jeans from Old Navy, and shoes from Payless) Yard expansion for Neko Atsume (“It’s a game on my phone. The concept is you have a yard and fill it with toys for cats. Would recommend”) Ramen packs Steam buns from T&T Supermarket (“I don’t really buy groceries”) Bottle of Prosecco Beer Eating out: McDonald’s, Bon’s Off Broadway, What’s Up? Hot Dog!, Hon’s Wun-Tun House, Bandidas Taqueria, Budgies Burritos (“I spend all my money on burritos”) Cabs Christmas presents Mac lipstick Makeup and shampoo from Shoppers Drug Mart Movie ticket for The Night Before (with $2 coupon) Cover for live music 12 trips on SkyTrain Two rides on Maxzone motion simulator ride at Metrotown Spotify subscription

$600 $58 $48 $15 $15 $18 $29 $25 $95

$11

$73

$3 $9 $12 $150 $233

$50 $180 $20 $40 $9 $50 $33 $13 $11

Total Spent

$1801

THE REMAINDER

$149

I do put money in my savings account sometimes. I’m trying to one day save up enough money for a bed frame so I don’t have to sleep on a mattress on the floor.”

IAN A ZARIAH

City

IT’S B E A U T I F U L I N S I D E

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City

CIT Y SEEN

By TREVOR MELANSON

Supply and Demand

enemy as any outside economic force. Consider a 2015 report from Toronto-based Neptis Foundation, which found that 86 percent of new residents (or their mathematical equivalent) between 2001 and 2011 in the Toronto-Hamilton region moved onto new land. For B.C.’s Lower Mainland, just 31 percent did Is Vancouver’s geography also to blame the same over that decade. In Vancouver, which for soaring house prices? has less available land than Toronto, fewer detached homes are being built. That means VANCOUVER: UNAFFORDABLE resort town in the this isn’t just a (foreign) demand problem but making? That was the hypothesis of a November also one of supply. We’re building up, not out. The truth of this is borne out in condo prices, Maclean’s story (kindly titled “What’s the point which have not increased at the same rate as of Vancouver?”). It was a familiar tale for any detached homes in recent years. According tuned-in Vancouverite, suggesting the city to MLS, Greater Vancouver condo prices was at risk of turning into one of “millionaire increased 20.9 percent over five years as of last homeowners and their support staff.” winter, compared to 51.2 percent for detached Looking at the typical price of a detached homes. And while the typical detached home home on Vancouver’s west side ($2.9 million in dense Greater Vancouver currently costs as of December 2015, according to MLS), one 85.2 percent more than the typical detached might think we’re already well on our way, that home in sprawling Greater Toronto (as of foreign capital is encroaching like Sauron onto December), the price difference between condos our beautiful West Coast Shire. But the thing in these respective regions is significantly less: about this lovely land—mountains, ocean, a 31.8 percent. In other words, you pay a hefty nearby border—is that it’s perhaps as much our premium to own dirt in Vancouver. Which isn’t to say the city doesn’t have a problem. People make more money in Toronto, after all, and 2011 census data revealed that a quarter of Coal Harbour condos, popular with Compared to Toronto, foreign investors, are sitting empty. It’s just that detached homes the cocktail of causation is a complex one. And in Vancouver cost this: Perhaps Vancouver never had a white85.2% more picket-fence future, with or without the influx of and condos cost foreign capital. Building between sandy beaches and majestic mountains comes at a cost. 31.8% more

C A S E I N P OI N T

STAND RIGHT. WALK LEFT. Any halfway decent SkyTrain rider instinctively follows this cardinal rule. It’s understood that walking saves time—and that getting in the way of people who want to walk is an invitation for murder (or, in Canada, disapproving scowls). But is it actually faster? Last December, the London Underground asked riders at one of its busiest stations to stand on both sides. The trial was based in part on a study that showed few riders were willing to walk up particularly long escalators (like the one at Granville Station) and just ended up creating a longer single-file line. The results? The tube station moved almost 30 percent more people using the stand-only strategy.

VA N M A G . C O M A P R I L 2 0 1 6

STAT SOURCE: MLS

Standing Still m

SPONSORED REPORT

Capilano Audi Stays One Step Ahead

The North Shore’s favourite luxury automotive dealership opens a brand-new service shop to meet the needs of their loyal customers, and showcase the latest models and revolutionary e-tron technology

nown for providing intimate and comfortable car shopping experiences, Capilano Audi and its respected product expert team have been an integral part of the North Shore for over four decades. “We aren’t a ‘big box’ operation,” says General Manager Derek Lau. “We’re a family owned-business that has formed deep roots in the local community.” With the launch of an all-new supplemental service shop this spring, Capilano Audi further separates itself from other automotive dealerships. Designed to minimize wait times and expand available services, it was ultimately a commitment to superior customer service that inspired the state-of-the-art facility. The new service shop will better accommodate the latest models, including this year’s newly redesigned Audi Q7, Audi A4 and Audi’s first electric hybrid vehicle. Making its Canadian debut in the A3 Sportback is Audi’s revolutionary e-tron electric plug-in system and it’s no surprise that environmentally conscious British Columbians are responding with enthusiasm. With equal emphasis on

efficiency, driving dynamics and foot print reduction—unlike any other vehicle in its class—the A3 Sportback e-tron is perfectly suited to the Lower Mainland driver. “Many city centre dwellers will never have to pay for a drop of gas again,” says Lau, explaining that the e-tron™ technology offers up to fifty kilometres of battery-operated driving, with a small displacement gasoline engine providing additional mileage as needed. Just one test drive in Audi’s first e-tron car will dispel any misconceptions about electric vehicles. With a longestablished reputation as the industry benchmark for interior cabin design, Audi’s A3 Sportback e-tron combines classleading refinement and cutting-edge technology making the shift to an electric car a natural choice. “For instance, you can remotely monitor the battery level or average fuel consumption using a smartphone app,” says Lau. Going forward, Audi plans to extend the e-tron technology to all vehicle models. “It has increasingly become a point of value in the Audi ownership experience,” reveals Lau. “It’s very exciting.”

813 Automall Drive, North Vancouver, BC | 1 877 878 3314 | capilanoaudi.com Created by the Vancouver advertising department in partnership with Capilano Audi

THAI RESTAURANT

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TASTES OF THAILAND

Join host Max Fawcett, Editor-in-Chief at Vancouver magazine, who will take you on a culinary journey through the regions of Thailand.

5 Vancouver Thai restaurants from all regions of Thailand creating 5 signature dishes with only 1 LUCKY WINNER! Monday May 9th from 7pm-9pm at Sala Thai Restaurant Vote on your favourite dish while watching the art of Thai Fruit Carving and the beauty of Thai Dancers. Tickets just $60 (plus fees) each and can be purchased at salathai.ca/events

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Taste

V A N M A G .C O M /T A S T E

V EGE TA RIA N 2 .0 / LOC A L FL AVOURS / T HE PERIL S OF $26,000 SCOTCH

oSpaghetti puttanesca, featuring olives, capers, onion, anchovy, and garlic ($17)

THE DISH

LUIS VALDIZON

Performance-Enhancing Pasta

Let’s be honest, folks. Sure, there’s lots to love about the Vancouver Sun Run, from the picturesque route to the bragging rights that come with completing it. But the best thing of all might be the permission it gives you to eat carbs with abandon. And if it’s an epic feast of carbs that you’re after, you can’t do much better than Cambie Village’s Sorella. The spaghetti puttanesca, in particular, is deceptively simple. Its tomato base can hardly be called a sauce, in that there’s just enough of it to cling to each noodle and transport the finely minced ingredients to your palate—each bite a perfect composition of briny, savoury, sweet, and aromatic. And after you’ve twirled the last perfectly al dente

VA N M A G . C O M A P R I L 2 0 1 6

THE DISH

noodle onto your fork, all that remains is a faint slick that’s just enough to swipe with a finger. Sorella’s name means “sister” in Italian, and it’s easy to see the connection between it and La Buca—which, along with the Sardine Can, is owned and operated by chef Andrey Durbach and his business partner Chris Stewart. But where La Buca specializes in classic regional pastas, Sorella lets loose with ItalianAmerican tradition. “In the south of Italy you get pastas with tomato sauce and oil; in the north, you typically have a little bit of cream,” Durbach says. “When Italian immigrants went to North America, a new genre of pasta emerged: a mix of tomato sauce and cream, things like penne alla vodka and spaghetti with meatballs.” Even still, Durbach is adamant about certain traditions, such as bringing in dried spaghetti and penne that has been extruded through brass dies, which affords a coarse texture that helps sauces cling to them. “Certain shapes are supposed to be dried,” he says. “There’s nothing intrinsically better about fresh pasta.” Sorella is open seven nights a week from 5 pm, closing at 10 pm Monday through Saturday and 9 pm on Sundays. Fans of Pied-à-Terre, which previously occupied the space, will remember the cozy interior—so while walk-ins are welcome, reservations are recommended. —EAGRANIE YUH Sorella

3369 Cambie St., 604-873-3131 sorellayvr.com

VA N M A G . C O M A P R I L 2 0 1 6

IN + OU T

Mainstream Appeal Will Meet’s meatless fare stand out in competitive Gastown?

THERE WAS already irony in the name Meet on Main. The popular vegetarian restaurant sells comfort food—burgers, fries, nacho fries—without, of course, any meat. Now, perhaps unintentionally, Meet has an ironic location, too—in Gastown’s Blood Alley, where the bloodless eatery’s second space will have its work cut out for it. In a neighbourhood with high rents and plenty of other restaurants, co-owner Jason Antony says Meet in Gastown will need mass appeal in order to survive. But can a vegetarian restaurant compete for non-vegetarian customers? “We don’t put a big vegetarian banner on the door,” says Antony, who’s been vegan for 12 years. Non-vegetarians have a habit of assuming vegetarian restaurants are not for them, he explains, and he’s made it his personal mission to change that—partly for ethical reasons (“I see us as a transitional space for people”) and partly for business ones (“To have mainstream success, you need to have a place that can appeal to a wider audience”). It’s the second time in recent years the space has had a new occupant. Mark Brand’s Boneta closed down in 2013, and Japanese restaurant Shirakawa shut its doors last year. It wasn’t for lack of amenities, though, given the space’s tall glass walls and a rare courtyard patio. “It’s a tough business, vegetarian or not,” says Antony, who nonetheless remains hopeful for two reasons. “One, vegetarianism has grown, and two, I think people have really opened up to what we’re doing.” —TREVOR MELANSON

BEFORE Shirakawa AFTER Meet in Gastown 115–12 Water St. 604-688-3399 meetonmain.com

MEET: VELOUR PRODUCTIONS; SHIRAK AWA: ANDREW QUERNER

Taste

PROMOTION

TASTE THE CITY CONTEST March 14th - April 30th

Ask for Luigi is a casual and intimate Italian-inspired restaurant, specializing in fresh handmade pasta. Pop into the little Italian joint at the corner of Alexander and Gore and ask for Luigi. Tell them Paulie sent you. They’ll take good care-a-ya!

305 Alexander Street 604.428.2544 askforluigi.com “We Plate Authenticity.” Focused on bringing the heart of Thailand to your Vancouver doorstep, Sala Thai is where you will ﬁnd traditional, hearty fare. We are excited to share the distinct taste of authentic central Thailand. Featuring private rooms, catering options and happy hour.

102 – 888 Burrard Street 604.683.7999 salathai.ca The Thai House group oﬀers an authentic innovative Thai menu utilizing authentic ingredients in new ways. Visit Yaletown’s Urban Thai Bistro or the new Pink Elephant at Marine Gateway. Happy Hour everyday 3-6pm, $5 appy and $5 drinks. Urban Thai Bistro 1119 Hamilton St 604.408.7788 Pink Elephant 1152 Alberni St. 604.646.8899 434 S.W. Marine Dr. 604.428.8800

thaihouse.com

Cactus Club Cafe delivers an unparalleled experience through exceptional food quality, world class design and a personal approach to service. With a culinary program led by Chef Rob Feenie, the menu exempliﬁes West Coast living, focusing on fresh, local, quality ingredients that are Green Table and Ocean Wise™ certiﬁed.

Various locations cactusclubcafe.com SHURAKU is Vancouver’s very first SAKE BAR offering the widest selection of sake by the glass with fresh SUSHI and IZAKAYA style comfort food in a casual atmosphere. The “Daily Specials” sheet features seasonal and unique finds as well as traditional dishes inspired by Chef Yamamura’s culinary roots in Japan. Centrally located in DT Vancouver.

833 Granville Street 604.687.6622 shuraku.net

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Taste

C OM MON DE NOM I NATOR

Local Flavour Meet the condiment that’s gunning for soy sauce’s spot in your fridge

Try this other local sauce

BETT Y’S KING SAUCE

This locally made XO sauce has a cult following, and for good reason—its combination of Thai chilies, jalapenos, lemongrass, garlic, dried shrimp, and chili flakes is bewitching. ONLINE ONLY

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By max fawcett

Y Other Uses

Sure, you could use nuoc cham as a dipping sauce— and who could blame you? But Thompson Tran says it’s capable of much more than just that.

You should always listen to your mom—just ask Thompson Tran. He’s executive chef and owner of The Wooden Boat, a Port Moody-based catering company that recently released its own nuoc cham sauce (the magical Vietnamese elixir that includes fish sauce, rice vinegar, sugar, and water). Tran, who worked in kitchens like Bishop’s and Il Giardino before branching out into catering, started making his own sauce largely because he couldn’t find a decent version on store shelves. But, he says, it was his mother’s encouragement that sealed the deal. “She said, ‘Why not take the best recipes from all your aunts?’ And I did.” His bottles of nuoc cham first hit shelves back in November, and

they’ve been popular right from the start. And while they’re already being sold by a handful of stores, he’s in discussions with players that would take that to a whole new level. “Very large retailers,” he says. “I’m not going to say who.” What he will say is that his nuoc cham is a perfect substitute for soy sauce. For Tran, who has high blood pressure, the comparatively low sodium content in his product is an added bonus. “Everybody’s always looking for a healthier alternative to the condiments that are out there, and I think nuoc cham is a really great way of enjoying a lot of different foods.” He has big plans for it in 2016, too. “Our goal for this is to be on pretty much most—if not every—shelf in Western Canada.”

AS A SALAD DRESSING Not on a conventional green salad, mind you. “It’s probably one of the best coleslaw dressings I’ve ever had. It goes alongside a hamburger really well—just leave the mayonnaise out.”

VA N M A G . C O M A P R I L 2 0 1 6

KEVIN JAMIESON

AS A MARINADE Tran suggests roasting at a lower temperature before cranking the heat up at the end to caramelize whatever you’re cooking (chicken and fish are best). “You have to be careful because there’s sugar in it. But for me, it’s a really well-balanced marinade.”

ROCKET SALAD parmesan crusted chicken breast, arugula, vine tomatoes, red onion, lemon caper dressing.

Taste

LAST CALL

The Curious Case of the $45,000 Whisky Why those ultra-high end bottlings aren’t meant for us mere mortals

a few yearS back I had the opportunity to attend a gathering of whisky aficionados (that’s Italian for “nerds”) to taste the release of an ultra-rare 50-year-old bottling from Glenfiddich. Prior to tasting a special thimbleful of the star attraction, we were treated to the 30- and 40-year-old expressions of the same whisky, and as the night wore down someone confessed that, truth be told, they actually preferred the 40-year-old. Emboldened, another expressed a passion for the 30, and around the table it went without anyone voicing their unqualified love for the grand poobah. Finally, someone said it: “What difference does it make? Whoever spends $26,000 on a bottle of whisky isn’t actually going to drink it.” That was on my mind last month when The Balvenie rolled into town to hawk their own ultra-rare 50-year-old whisky at a price tag of $45,000. It made me realize the purchasers

BU Y T H E B OT T L E

Black Bottle Whisky

Burn Stewart DiStillerieS | $31

Whisky companies are used to lavish and showy product launches so it was a peculiar surprise a few months back to see Black Bottle whisky make such a quiet entry into the B.C. market. The blend has a cult following in the U.K., where it’s noted for its peat and depth belying its low price point, and at just $31 they’ve managed to bring the frugality nicely across the pond. It’s perfect decanter whisky.

VA N M A G . C O M A P R I L 2 0 1 6

By neal mclennan

of this stratum of whisky weren’t really purchasing a spirit. They were purchasing an investment that, as The Guardian pointed out, outpaced both gold and stocks in the last year—a fact not lost on BC Liquor Stores, which has increasingly moved into selling ultrahigh-end whiskies. It also wasn’t lost on the numerous people who registered in the lottery for the opportunity to buy the Balvenie for the equivalent of three Kia Rios. I don’t know why the idea of treating liquor as an investment irks me. Buying Bordeaux futures has long been at the nexus of commerce and oenology, and I take no issue with storing gold in a vault instead of turning it into a lifesized rhino statue. But the idea of a distiller taking so much care, having so much foresight, and being willing to put up with so much risk only to have the finished product stored in some vault is an affront. To lift me up, I called bartender Brad Stanton at Prohibition, where he’s crafted a reserve list full of pricey heavyweight whiskies—for people to actually drink—including a 50-year-old bottle of the aforementioned Glenfiddich for thirsty oligarchs. “We’ve sold a few drams of it” he says, but admits it doesn’t exactly fly off the shelves. “People do love to gaze at the bottle, though.” A few days later I was heartened to learn that the ultimate buyer of the Balvenie wasn’t some Martin Shkreli-esque speculator but our own Fairmont Pacific Rim—a victory for the drinker, I thought. And then I saw the price: $2,600 an ounce, or the equivalent of $67,600 for the whole bottle—a mark-up of $22,600. So much for that victory.

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ON T R E N D

TREVOR BRADY

The Gaby Effect SITTING IN Gastown’s The Birds and the Beets, Gaby Bayona is sporting an all-black jumpsuit from One of a Few on Water Street, thick-framed glasses, and ash-blond hair in a bob that’s precisely the length everyone is trying so hard to achieve right now. She is, in other words, the living definition of being on point. But her sense of style is also inescapably effortless, and that’s reflected in (and by) the international popularity of Truvelle, Bayona’s kinfolk-inspired bridal collection that launched in 2013. It’s also why the underwear line she started recently with Toronto designer Mary Young is almost certain to be a success. “I didn’t want to make lingerie that was too bridal-y,” she says. “I wanted to combine Mary’s aesthetic with my minimalist style, but nothing too syrupy.” It’s that inclination towards teamwork and willingness to work with partners—along with her robust network of industry contacts—that’s at the heart of her expanding empire of fabric. “I bumped in to Mary [Young] in Toronto—she’s so cool, and I was like, ‘We should do something together.’ That’s how it started with

VA N M A G . C O M A P R I L 2 0 1 6

A L E

B W R

Truvelle

235 Cambie St., Mezzanine 604-602-0498 truvelle.com

Get the Look

Rooney underwear set ($150) Etsy.com Bayona combined Truvelle’s signature lace and colour palette with Young’s commitment to comfort

VA N M A G . C O M A P R I L 2 0 1 6

ON T R E N D

the headpieces too; my friend Sandra has this collection called Olivia The Wolf and I said, ‘Sandra, let’s do something together!’” That approach also applies to Bayona’s successful jewellery line with local designer Catherine Hartley, and it’s a big part of why her brand is growing so quickly. She’s learned that all you need is the infrastructure— a studio, a production team, and the machinery—and a willingness to let the relationships flow naturally. “I reach out, tell them I’m a fan, and say I would love to work on something kickass with them,” she says—and says it so casually that it’s easy to forget she’s a 23-year-old that’s running a multitude of successful labels and travelling across North America to do it. We’d say big things are in store for her, but it seems like they’ve already arrived. —Jenni Elliott

Style

D E S T I NAT I ON S H O PPI NG

Not Your Father’s Suit

Swiss retailer Strellson sets up shop on Vancouver’s hottest high street

The Shop

STRELLSON

1108 Alberni St. 604-428-9054 strellson.com

IF THERE were a Venn diagram for “men” and “like wearing suits” in Vancouver, it’s fair to assume that the overlap between the two circles would be pretty small. But Strellson, a Swiss brand with locations in more than 40 countries, is betting they can find a way to grow that demographic—or, at the very least, make sure they attract their business. Their new standalone store on Alberni Street near Thurlow opened in December, and so far business has been brisk. The reason for that might be Strellson’s ability to balance affordability and quality. No, its shirts, suits, jackets, and outerwear aren’t as inexpensive as the stuff you might find at Top Man, Zara, or H&M, but neither are they priced in a way that would require most Vancouverites to dedicate an entire paycheque (or two) to the experience. “There’s not a lot of good stuff in the middle,” says Mark Altow, the president of Strellson North America. “We’re one of the few.” That middle should appeal to Millennials, who are more interested in wearing suits than their Gen-X peers might have been at their age but just as unwilling to pay the sticker price on a major-label brand. And as for Vancouver’s reputation as an aggressively—and maybe even obnoxiously—casual place? Well, Altow thinks there are still plenty of people who care about putting together an outfit. “The new suits are cool. They’re trim, they’re short, and they’re not your dad’s suit. We’re seeing a resurgence of interest in that—even in Vancouver.” —Max Fawcett

The Pick Morfil Waterproof Jacket ($398) Strellson’s Mark Altow says that multifunctional outerwear (like this jacket) will be a big part of the spring/summer 2016 catalogue

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Style

T H E HOT TA K E

By amanda ross

True Blue

denim. It’s the most versatile, chameleon-like textile in your closet—high or low, classic or trendy, it can be all things to all people. It didn’t start out this way. Denim’s lowbrow provenance can be traced back to Middle AgesWhy a great piece of denim is worth era Genoa, Italy, when it was standard-issue fighting for—literally sailor gear. Fast forward to 1873, when Bavarian immigrant Levi Strauss and tailor Jacob Davis cleverly fashioned the sturdy fabric into the first blue jeans, the dependable uniform of miners and cowboys. Embraced by greasers in the ’50s, hippies in the ’60s, and punk and metal “Oh mon dieu, you could make a gorgeous vest with this ,” the stylish French gentleman beside in the ’70s and ’80s, jeans were finally co-opted by designer labels, where they’ve sat firmly me gushes as he strokes the denim offcut I’ve ensconced ever since. found. It wasn’t easy to dig out from the deep Although fashion is always cyclical, I roll recesses of a jam-packed bin, but such is the my eyes when people wax on about denim being system at the frenetic Coupons de Saint Pierre back again this season. True style is never about in Paris’s fabric district. I had been wondering whether it was worth hauling these heavy three- slavishly following trends, and in my mind this wardrobe staple never went out. Its inherent metre panels back to Vancouver, but the man’s charm had an envious tone, so I held said fabric beauty—along with the creases, sags, and lines that evolve each time you wear it—is in the fact in a death grip and bolted for the till. that it’s the most democratic garment in your The irony is that after visits to Colette, Le wardrobe, one that’s not subject to the whims Bon Marché, and those high street shops for inspiration (Goyard, Céline), the most covetable and vagaries of fashion’s rigid dictates. So let the headlines laud the latest Pharrell gig at gems I snagged in Paris were simple scraps G-Star, or Danish menswear maker Soulland’s of 20-euro denim fabric. Whether I’ll make collaboration with American heritage stalwart a knock-off couture vest out of the stiff, dark Lee. You can rest easy knowing that, brand cotton twill remains to be seen. Maybe I’ll just name or no-name, your jeans are always a place use it to recover the Adler-esque stools I picked on which to leave your own mark. up on Craigslist. But herein lies the beauty of

R E TA I L T H E R A PY

j Summer breezes are just around the corner with the new Indigo Denim stripe scarf ($44.50), part of Indigo’s new spring collection inspired by far-off, dreamy destinations. indigo.ca

VA N M A G . C O M A P R I L 2 0 1 6

j Find (Canadian-made, Japanese denim) Naked & Famous’s Sky Blue PowerStretch in Superskinny Guy ($145) at Dutil, Vancouver’s go-to denimhead emporium. dutildenim.com

j Local athleisure jean brand Dish & DU/ER’s new women’s lightweight water- and dirt-resistant anorak ($189) goes from online to in-store at their new Gastown flagship, which opens in April. dishandduer.com

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winter can lead to dull, dry skin, eczema and acne,” shares Dr. Natalie Rahr of Yaletown Naturopathic. Proper hydration and basic supplements like omega 3’s, antioxidants and probiotics, as well as working up a sweat in an Epsom salt bath or infrared sauna, are important for skin integrity and clarity.

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Get Well. Stay Well. Do you suffer from ALLERGIES? Hay fever? Here at Yaletown Naturopathic Clinic our practitioners provide support and guidance to find the root cause of your allergy symptoms. With the most accurate allergy testing for both food and environmental allergens our team can create a customized protocol that will put the SPRING back in your step! NATUROPATHIC MEDICINE is a distinct primary health care system that blends modern scientiďŹ c knowledge with traditional and natural forms of medicine. At Yaletown Naturopathic Clinic we provide evidence-based natural therapies to bring you back to optimal health.

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C OV E R S T O RY #32

IS IT YOURS? #2

Vancouver’s

Best Places to Live

( and worst... )

#19

JENN CHAN

It’s one thing to think that you live in the best neighbourhood in town. It’s quite another to have a list that can prove it. Now you can, with the city's first-ever quantitative ranking of all 39 neighbourhoods. So read on, dig in, and find out how your own slice of the city stacks up.

VA N M A G . C O M A P R I L 2 0 1 6

37 17

15 23

2 7

34 36

22 8 1

5 6

29 28

SCORE BOARD n

24 16

33 39

35 31

Neighbourhoods matter.

hey’re the gr ammar that we use to discuss our cities, the building blocks that help us construct our sense of place, and the lenses through which we experience our community. If we’re being perfectly honest, they’re also the things that we like to argue about with each other—their merits, their flaws, and which one is better than the rest. But while it’s one thing to use subjective factors to make an argument on behalf of one’s neighbourhood of choice, we thought we could do a bit better than that. A lot better, actually. That’s why we pulled together data about every aspect of life in this city and fed it into the maw of an electronic beast, one that produced what we think is the definitive ranking of Vancouver’s best neighbourhoods. That said, while our ranking is inherently data-driven, that doesn’t mean it’s completely devoid of choices or preferences. What makes a neighbourhood great to one person is often what makes it grating to another. So while we’ve created our recipe for a desirable neighbourhood—one that’s in the column to the right—you can whip up your own online based on your specific needs.

The Not-So-Secret Sauce

Find your perfect 'hood at vanmag.com/neighbourhoods

Data Sources: City of Vancouver, Statistics Canada, YP

VA N M A G . C O M A P R I L 2 0 1 6

Weighting of this issue's data sets, out of 100 percent

Affordable

20%

Good for raising kids

10%

Has lots of good restaurants and coffee shops

10%

Has lots of green space

Is economically and ethnically diverse

Has neighbours who stick around

Is full of smart, engaged people

Is economically healthy

Is easy to commute to work from

Has lots of singles—and places to meet them

Doesn’t have a lot of home break-ins

Will stay standing after an earthquake

Compiled by: Chad Skelton

T H E TOP T E N

SCORE

56.8

False Creek

COURTESY OF SÉBASTIEN L AUNAY

The Rankings

1. False Creek 56.8 2. West End 56.6 3. Lynn Valley 55.7 4. Main Street (Riley Park) 55.4 5. Downtown: 55.2 6. Olympic Village/ Fairview: 54.8 7. UBC: 54.5 8. Yaletown: 54.2 9. Kitsilano: 54.1 10. Killarney 54.0 11. South Granville: 53.9 12. KensingtonCedar Cottage: 53.7 13. Capilano: 53.1 14. Hastings Sunrise: 52.7 15. Seymour/Deep Cove: 52.7 16. South Cambie: 52.6 17. Dundarave/Ambleside: 52.6 18. Crosstown: 52.0 19. Gastown/Chinatown: 51.9 20. Commercial Drive: 51.9 21. Renfrew-Collingwood: 51.4 22. Coal Harbour: 51.3 23. Lonsdale: 51.3 24. Mount Pleasant: 51.1 25. Pemberton/ Pemberton Heights: 50.8 26. Sunset: 50.8 27. Victoria-Fraserview: 49.7 28. Strathcona: 49.4 29. Downtown Eastside: 48.7 30. Horsehoe Bay: 48.1 31. Marpole: 47.4 32. Caulfeild: 47.2 33. Shaughnessy: 46.5 34. West Point Grey: 46.2 35. Kerrisdale: 46.0 36. Dunbar: 44.3 37. British Properties: 43.7 38. Arbutus Ridge: 43.5 39. Oakridge: 39.0

POPULATION: 5,795

there should be little doubt that the communities that were built along False Creek in the last two decades, from Yaletown on the north side to the Olympic Village on the south shore, are resounding successes. But there should be even less doubt that they owe much of their existence to the community that came before them. False Creek South, with its artful mixture of mixed-income residential, people-friendly retail and abundant green spaces, is the personification of what urban theorist Jane Jacobs thought an urban community should be. And yet, this ranking will come as a surprise to some people, given that False Creek South tends to sit in the shadows of the towers to its north and east. But it’s time to give False Creek South its rightful place in the sun. Its success was anything but assured when it was originally conceived of by planners and politicians more than 40 years ago. Indeed, it was more of an experiment than anything, a test of whether you could turn a tract of post-industrial urban land on the south side of False Creek into a thriving mixed-use community. Would people even want to live that close to the downtown core, and in that kind of social and architectural configuration? The answers to those questions might seem obvious now, but at the time it was far more uncertain. False Creek’s heritage, after all, didn’t exactly suggest that it would be an ideal location for young families. “The place was on fire half the time,”

says Ray Spaxman, who was the city’s newly-appointed director of planning at the time the False Creek South plan was created. “It was like a horrible industrial area, and at one point there were lots of people living in shacks above the water. Everything was awful down there.” That changed quickly, though, and the log booms and pulp mills were slowly replaced by a fledgling patchwork of co-operatives and market housing all tied together by a sense of common purpose. Richard Evans, an architect who made the decision to move into one of those cooperatives with his family in 1986, says that spirit has created a community that’s unique in the city today—one that’s both affordable and admirable. “Imagine a whole city where the planners, the creative people, the politicians, and the business people were all talking about what they could do together. Everybody held this amazing vision. I’m sure there were detractors, and I’m sure there were people that didn’t agree with that. But it prevailed— and look what we have.” Affordable: 66.9 Low Crime: 62.7 Economy: 66.0 Diversity: 35.6 Restaurants: 49.1 Kids: 40.0 Commute: 68.6 Singles: 32.0 Smart and Engaged: 66.4 Green Space: 62.0 Stable: 54.1

T H E TOP T E N

SCORE

56.6

West End POPULATION: 39,910

the west end absolutely crushes it when it comes to affordability, low levels of property crime, and access to green space— thank you, Stanley Park—but gets edged by False Creek due to the fact that it’s an awfully difficult place to raise kids and one where there’s a lot of turnover. For singles and the childless, though, it might be a better bet than our overall winner.

SCORE

55.7

Affordable: 52.1 Low Crime: 78.7 Economy: 78.8 Diversity: 34.8 Restaurants: 25.7 Kids: 74.0 Commute: 30.9 Singles: 25.3 Smart and Engaged: 47.9 Green Space: 85.3 Stable: 83.1

VA N M A G . C O M A P R I L 2 0 1 6

Affordable: 71.7 Low Crime: 81.2 Economy: 50.6 Diversity: 47.3 Restaurants: 51.0 Kids: 14.7 Commute: 70.8 Singles: 72.6 Smart and Engaged: 53.7 Green Space: 99.4 Stable: 8.9

Lynn Valley POPULATION: 25,500

no surprises here: Lynn Valley rates highly when it comes to green space, the economic clout of its residents, and the quality of its schools. Even less surprising? That it’s bad for singles and lacks diversity. Still, if you’re looking for an explicitly family-friendly neighbourhood, this might be your best bet. Just don't delay, lest you get priced out by the West Van inheritance money that's been pouring in of late.

Main Street (Riley Park) POPULATION: 21,800

riley park is Vancouver's Goldilocks neighbourhood: neither too strong nor too weak in any of the categories. It scores strongly on economic and cultural diversity, its population of smart and engaged residents, and its economic vitality, and misses the mark a bit in terms of property crime and the number of singles (and volume of opportunities for them to change that status). One amenity that wasn’t factored into our scoring: proximity to Nat Bailey Stadium, and the epic summer nights to which it routinely plays host.

SCORE

Affordable: 59.0 Low Crime: 37.7 Economy: 76.5 Diversity: 70.6 Restaurants: 45.4 Kids: 47.6 Commute: 45.4 Singles: 40.4 Smart and Engaged: 60.0 Green Space: 43.7 Stable: 64.3

55.4

WEST END: WEST END BIA; LYNN PARK BUILDING: PO YANG; MAIN STREET: GRANT HARDER

SCORE

Affordable: 53.7 Low Crime: 81.0 Economy: 40.2 Diversity: 68.7 Restaurants: 99.9 Kids: 18.0 Commute: 82.7 Singles: 98.4 Smart and Engaged: 49.4 Green Space: 17.7 Stable: 10.9

55.2

Downtown POPULATION: 16,400

the idea of downtown being an attractive place to live would have been a difficult one for previous generations to stomach. But no more—and no wonder. With a huge range of restaurants, bars, and coffee shops to choose from (just look at that score), a lively social scene, and the city’s easiest commute, it’s an increasingly popular neighbourhood in which to live as well as work and play. As a result, you can bet that population figure is on its way up.

VA N M A G . C O M A P R I L 2 0 1 6

T H E TOP T E N

SCORE

54.1

SCORE

54.5

SCORE

54.3

Olympic Village/ Fairview POPULATION: 19,440 Remember w hen people were worried that the Olympic Village was going to be a failure? Those days are clearly behind it now, and with the gorgeous new BMO Theatre Centre joining a rapidly expanding roster of bars and restaurants and a booming craft beer scene, it’s safe to assume that even better ones are on the horizon for those who live in the Village.

Affordable: 62.3 Low Crime: 61.2 Economy: 69.2 Diversity: 54.4 Restaurants: 82.5 Kids: 13.2 Commute: 75.1 Singles: 54.9 Smart and Engaged: 76.5 Green Space: 21.2 Stable: 21.0

VA N M A G . C O M A P R I L 2 0 1 6

UBC

Yaletown

Kitsilano

POPULATION: 12,780

POPULATION: 11,585

POPULATION: 43,195

once upon a time, in a land far, far away— okay, the late 1990s—UBC was a sleepy community of students, professors, and academic staff living in a clutch of low-rise buildings Today, it’s practically a city unto itself, with a growing number of residential towers and all the amenities to match. That drive towards density will kick into an even higher gear once the UBC subway extension finally gets built. For anyone using the 99 B-Line, that can't happen soon enough.

Sure, the sh a pe of Yaletown’s boundaries has changed a bit over the last decade or two. But can you blame developers for trying to tie their projects to the name—or buyers for wanting it as their home turf? After all, if you're looking for a neighbourhood that personifies the best qualities of post-Expo Vancouver, it has to be Yaletown. Sure, it's maligned in some quarters of the city. But we think that's as much a function of jealousy as anything.

it wasn’t th at long ago that the idea of Kits being ranked the 9th best neighbourhood in Vancouver would have been heresy. But it retains most of the traits that once made it the city’s most coveted ‘hood, from its educated and engaged citizens to its range of urban amenities and enduring socio-economic stability. It might even be getting short-changed a bit, given that its adjacency to some of the city's best beaches isn't part of our formula.

Affordable: 50.6 Low Crime: 80.1 Economy: 9.8 Diversity: 79.6 Restaurants: 42.6 Kids: 68.3 Commute: 59.0 Singles: 59.2 Smart and Engaged: 41.2 Green Space: 99.5 Stable: 19.5

Affordable: 37.1 Low Crime: 86.0 Economy: 79.5 Diversity: 60.1 Restaurants: 75.3 Kids: 32.6 Commute: 62.6 Singles: 44.8 Smart and Engaged: 53.8 Green Space: 51.2 Stable: 40.6

Affordable: 54.0 Low Crime: 60.9 Economy: 68.9 Diversity: 39.3 Restaurants: 57.5 Kids: 48.2 Commute: 68.6 Singles: 65.9 Smart and Engaged: 76.7 Green Space: 32.1 Stable: 24.8

OLYMPIC VILL AGE: BRUCE IRSCHICK; UBC: LEOBOUDV: KITSIL ANO: DAVID STRONGMAN

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T H E VA N M AG Q& A

Concrete Ideas

SCORE

54.0

KILL ARNE Y COMMUNIT Y CENTRE: IMAGE COURTESY OF HCMA ARCHITECTURE + DESIGN, PHOTO BY MARTIN TESSLER; BRENT TODERIAN PORTRAIT: STUART MCEVOY

10.

Killarney POPULATION: 33,885 the idea of a finding a starter home might seem about as likely as finding a unicorn for young Vancouver families today, but it's not pure fantasy yet—not in Killarney, anyways. With real estate prices that haven’t gone completely parabolic, a bit of green space, good schools, and lots of cultural and economic diversity, it’s a great option for young families that are still chasing the dream. Added bonus for those families? It's just a short drive to the nearest IKEA.

Affordable: 74.0 Low Crime: 56.1 Economy: 47.5 Diversity: 80.1 Restaurants: 22.9 Kids: 62.2 Commute: 27.8 Singles: 34.7 Smart and Engaged: 25.1 Green Space: 59.9 Stable: 72.0

What does Vancouver’s former chief planner think about the viaducts coming down? Here's what he had to say. Brent Toderian doesn’t exactly have a reputation for withholding his opinions, much less ones central to the planning and development of his city. As such, it was probably no surprise to anyone that he came out swinging in support of removing the Dunsmuir and Georgia Street viaducts. Now that council has voted in favour of doing that, we caught up with the city’s former chief planner to find out why he thinks that decision matters—and why the next one the City makes on that file might be even more important. In the past, you’ve said that “saying no to freeways was very likely the most important decision earlier generations of Vancouver citizens and leaders ever made.” Is saying yes to getting rid of the viaducts going to be the same for this generation? I don’t want to split hairs here, because you should never let hair-splitting get in the way of a good narrative. But I’d say it’s our generation’s chance to remove the asterisk beside the statement that we rejected the freeways. It’s not a freeway rejection moment, because we never built the horrible things. As such, we don’t have to tear down the horrible things, like most other cities have to. A lot of the pushback from people has been based around the idea that removing the viaducts is going to make traffic worse and create gridlock downtown—or, at least, exacerbate the existing traffic problems. When you remove something like a viaduct, the world doesn’t continue the way it did before. Things change. People change. And that’s because people behave differently when you change the conditions. There’s an old debate about whether traffic operates like a liquid or a gas. A liquid, in the sense that if you introduce a new pathway it would move to it, but that assumes it stays constant. A gas expands or contracts. But I’d say both of those are wrong. Traffic behaves like people, and people change their minds. The most powerful example of

that is that after the freeways were rejected, we built homes in our downtown for about 70,000 more people at a time when the narrative was that people didn’t want to live downtown. When you change the condition that you’re not going to be able to drive into the downtown as easily as you might like, people change their living choices. And they’ll choose to live downtown if you give them a great living environment. It’s the best example of the ripple effect of these kinds of decisions. What’s the most important ripple effect from the viaducts coming down? There have been discussions about it being a barrier, both physically and psychologically. But to me what’s important isn’t just their removal but what gets built in their place. The first part of the important decision has been made: to remove them. The second part of the important decision is to build something outstanding in their place—to build a neighbourhood. Yes, I think it’s a good thing for the neighbourhoods around them that they’re being removed, but that opportunity can be squandered if we don’t build something exceptional. There are all sorts of ideas for what we should do with the land once the viaducts are down. What’s the one thing we shouldn’t do? Whatever we build has to have the purpose of substantially strengthening the neighbourhoods and the city. And then, when you get into the details, it’s about an urban boulevard that’s an urban street, not just a different type of traffic sewer. We’re essentially removing one elevated traffic sewer, and we don’t want to replace it with an at-grade traffic sewer. It’s easy to use the term “urban boulevard,” but it’s actually fairly challenging to build one successfully. It’s not just about the approach to the asphalt. It’s also about how the built form, the architecture, frames and creates the street. I’m very interested in how that urban boulevard, both horizontally and vertically, gets created.

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B E S T N E IG H B OU R HO OD S

Best of the Rest

Your ‘hood of choice may not have won best overall, but take heart—there are other ways for it to shine

Hot Spots Looking to meet someone new? Here’s how many people you'll find who are single (well, aren't formally partnered up), as a percentage of the overall population, in a few neighbourhoods. Downtown Overall: 42.5 Men: 46.7 Women: 37.4

Created by Studio Het Mes from the Noun Project

Percentage of residents with jobs in the arts and culture sector Downtown Eastside: 20.0 Gastown/Chinatown: 10.5 Commercial Drive: 10.5 Olympic Village/ Fairview: 10.4 Kitsilano: 9.7 CITY AVERAGE: 6.1

Percentage of residents aged 25 to 64 with a university degree UBC: 76.5 Dunbar: 66.8 West Point Grey: 66.6 Shaughnessy: 65.1 Yaletown: 59.7 CITY AVERAGE: 44.2

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36%

CEDAR COTTAGE

One Bedroom, 2010: $748 One Bedroom, 2015: $1,017

West End Overall: 46.6 Men: 49.1 Women: 43.9

Strathcona Overall: 45.1 Men: 52.8 Women: 35.0

Mount Pleasant Overall: 43.5 Men: 45.5 Women: 41.7

Fresh Faces Most ethnically diverse neighbourhoods *The chance that any two people, chosen at random, will be of a different race

Dunbar

Sunset: 78.0% KensingtonCedar Cottage: 75.0% Victoria-Fraserview: 74.2% Renfrew-Collingwood: 72.8% Coal Harbour: 71.1%

Overall: 28.8 Men: 30.8 Women: 26.9

Least ethnically diverse neighbourhoods

Commercial Drive Overall: 41.7 Men: 45.0 Women: 38.7

City of Vancouver Overall: 36.9 Men: 39.5 Women: 33.7

Horseshoe Bay: 14.6% Seymour/Deep Cove: 29.4% Kitsilano: 31.7% False Creek: 32.8% Capilano: 38.5%

CANADIAN TOURISM COMMISSION

The Creative Class

Biggest Rent Increase, 2010 to 2015:

Best Neighbourhoods for Foodies Vancouver Magazine award-winning restaurants per 10,000 residents Gastown/Chinatown: 13.4 Downtown: 9.8 Coal Harbour: 7.3

Coffee shops per 10,000 residents

Best Neighbourhoods for the Eco-Conscious Percentage of residents that walk or bike to work Coal Harbour: 46.2 Downtown: 44.0 West End: 41.0 Gastown/Chinatown: 40.3 UBC: 37.6 Downtown Eastside: 36.6 Crosstown: 36.1 Strathcona: 33.1 Yaletown: 32.6 Olympic Village/Fairview: 26.7 CITY AVERAGE: 15.3

COAL HARBOUR: JAMES STEWART

Percentage that take transit to work RenfrewCollingwood: 38.1 Mount Pleasant: 36.8 Marpole: 36.5 South Granville: 34.8 Commercial Drive: 34.2 KensingtonCedar Cottage: 33.0 Kitsilano: 32.8 Sunset: 31.9 Olympic Village/ Fairview: 31.0 West End: 29.6

Downtown: 47.0

Getting Schooled Average share of students meeting or exceeding expectations in reading, writing, and numeracy at all public elementary schools

Coal Harbour: 29.2 Gastown/Chinatown: 20.7

Bars and Clubs per 10,000 residents Downtown: 18.9 Gastown/Chinatown: 9.3 Strathcona: 3.9

Caulfeild: 98.9 Horseshoe Bay: 98.3 Dundarave/ Ambleside: 98.2 British Properties: 96.0 Kerrisdale: 94.5 South Cambie: 93.5 South Granville: 93.2 Marpole: 91.3 Oakridge: 91.3 Dunbar: 90.1

CITY AVERAGE: 27.1

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B E S T N E IG H B OU R HO OD S

A TALE OF TWO

TOP : TAYLOR’S LOOKOUT/BRITISH PACIFIC PROPERTIES LIMITED: BOT TOM: WEST END BIA

’HOODS The West End and the British Properties probably seem like polar opposites with-in Vancouver’s spectrum of neighbourhoods. After all, one’s a densely populated urban playground, while the other is a relatively secluded preserve of single family homes. And yet, they both face the same basic challenge: how to adapt to changing circumstances and the evolving needs of their residents. In order to succeed, each will have to strike a delicate and difficult balance between the new and the old, and between their past and the present. It won’t be easy.

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A TA L E OF T WO ’HO OD S

West End Woes

BY TREVOR MEL ANSON

W 52

When Tobias Toleman and his partner Heather moved in 2014, they made an effort to stay in the West End. “It’s central and we like the neighbourhood a lot,” Toleman says, “but I don’t see Heather and I living there for much longer.” Why the change of heart? The rent is too expensive, for one, says the 30-year-old website manager, who’s lived in the West End for five years. “I’m making more money now than I ever have, but I still have less savings than when I was going to school full-time.” And then there’s the West End’s subpar transit options: it takes Toleman an hour and 15 minutes to get to his office in North Vancouver (“each way, without traffic”). The same trip, he says, would take 20 minutes by car. If and when Toleman ultimately leaves the West End, he won’t be alone. Between 2006 and 2011, the population of the West End stagnated—technically, it decreased by 13 people, according to Statistics Canada. At the same time, by way of example, Mount Pleasant added 2,784 residents. A decade earlier, it was the other way around—the West End was adding and Mount Pleasant was losing—but neighbourhood desirability has since shifted

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eastward. Now St. Paul’s Hospital, a major employer in the area, is six years away from also moving east to the False Creek Flats by Science World after 120 years of being in the West End. With St. Paul’s departure, the West End will lose an organ—at a time when the neighbourhood faces plenty of challenges. Stephen Regan, executive director of the West End Business Improvement Association, won’t deny that the exit of the hospital will likely sting. “People who work at St. Paul’s live in the West End,” he says. “Davie Village and all of these businesses have grown up with St. Paul’s as part of the customer base, so when it moves it will certainly be disruptive.” Regan can only hope that another job creator moves in, though condos will likely be a part of the mix. But whatever opens up in its place won’t do so inside the old hospital, which is fated for demolition. A major reason St. Paul’s is leaving is the fact that the 120-year-old building is in desperate need of seismic upgrades—more than $80-million worth. It’s a problem that extends beyond the hospital. Indeed, the West End would likely incur more damage than any other

CIT Y OF VANCOUVER ARCHIVES

With its beautiful beaches and rich history, the West End is iconic Vancouver—but are its glory days behind it?

The word we landed on is, yeah, the West End kind of needs a revitalization.”

IMAGES COURTESY OF THE WEST END BIA

Stephen Regan

neighbourhood in the city in the event of an earthquake—be it the Big One or even just a pretty big one. “We didn’t know what was needed back in the ’70s,” says Perry Adebar, head of civil engineering at UBC. Among the 343 older concrete towers that Adebar and two fellow researchers examined for a report on seismic vulnerability, over half were located in the West End. He says publicly-owned buildings such as schools and hospitals are often upgraded (or moved, in St. Paul’s case), but all those privately-owned apartments? “No one’s looking at them.” Whether or not those much-needed upgrades are ever made, the West End will welcome a spate of new (presumably more earthquakeready) developments in the years to come. Most notable among those is the massive 53-storey Burrard Place tower being built along the neighbourhood’s downtown edge. A handful of new towers have also been proposed in the heart of the West End, such as a 19-storey building at Davie and Jervis and a 22-storey one along Thurlow. This is a real shift, Stephen Regan says. “There was a moratorium on residential development in the West End for a long time.”

But the West End community plan, adopted by the city in 2013, changed that—and could help reverse the neighbourhood’s recent slide. “The word we landed on is, yeah, the West End kind of needs a revitalization,” Regan says. The plan now is for more development and an increase in walkable public spaces, such as a new permanent plaza on Bute Street south of Davie, which the city approved in December. It’s the first in a series of facelifts planned for Davie Village. “I think you’re going to see a lot of new buildings and new people moving into the West End,” Regan says. And so, despite the departure of St. Paul’s, despite the West End’s earthquake preparedness problem, despite a decade of losing people and prestige to the east side, and despite—to Tobias Toleman’s point—the area’s lack of rapid transit and reliance on trafficjammed buses, Regan remains optimistic. He even thinks we could see, within the next few years, a “Renaissance of the West End.” But it should be incremental, he says, so as to protect the neighbourhood’s economic, architectural, and human diversity. “That’s the tricky balance.”

Opposite page: The west side of 800 Bute Street as it looked in May of 1974, and the 1000 block of Pacific Street in August of 1976 Current page: Scenes from Davie Street, including the new permanent crosswalk at Bute Street and one of the West End’s famous sunsets

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A TA L E OF T WO ’HO OD S

What’s Old Is New Again

BY HADANI DITMARS

T 54

The sTory of the British Properties reads like a cinematic saga. As Donald Luxton and Lilia D’Acres recount in their 1999 book, Lions Gate, it’s a narrative that spans the Great Depression, political intrigue, skulduggery from a rival railway developer, and the Second World War. Now, as it approaches its 85th anniversary, British Pacific Properties (the company that owns and developed the land known as the British Properties) is embarking on its next great adventure: densification. Geoff Croll, President of BPP, is using words like “walkability,” and architects are drawing up plans for new 12-storey towers in what has been historically a low density, car-oriented, singlefamily enclave. The BPP area, less than half of which is developed, comprises a huge swathe of West Vancouver between the Upper Levels Highway and the 1,200-foot elevation line, and includes Arthur Erickson-designed modernist gems and sprawling mansions as well as wildlife and pristine forest. But extensive community consultation has called for more multifamily dwellings and concomitant amenities, including commercial and retail centres. As a result, an open plateau on the southwestern edge of the 4,000 acres of land that the Guinness family acquired in 1931 is slated to become the home of a new mixed-use “retail village,” while new, smaller-footprint homes are encouraging families to settle in the area much as they did in the post-war era. “There’s a sense that it’s coming full circle,”

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says Croll, who himself was part of the post-war baby boom and grew up in West Vancouver. “We’ve been selling single-family detached homes as small as 2,400 square feet,” he says of the more mid-century-sized offerings that are a pointed contrast to the monster homes that mushroomed in the 1990s and 2000s. “We’re also moving back to a diversity of housing that can accommodate young families,” he adds, pointing out similar new developments within walking distance of Mulgrave elementary school. There are even plans afoot to build new semi-detached homes in the new BPP developments to the west, where secondary suites will be allowed so that young families can have mortgage helpers or older family members living with them—a first for the area. More important, perhaps, is the plan to build a new mixed-use village off Cypress Bowl Road— meaning area residents can shop above the Upper Levels “for the first time ever,” Croll says. Among others, it will serve the new Rodgers Creek neighbourhood, a 215-acre parcel of land that will one day be home to 700 families. “I’m glad to hear they’re finally going to put retail above the Upper Levels,” says author Douglas Coupland. He grew up in the Properties in the 1970s, a time he recalls as being a “very Brady Bunch” era. “The absence of any form of retail has been the Properties’ biggest mark of shame for decades. If you needed butter or scotch tape you had to drive five miles down to sea level [to Park Royal].” Other important things have changed

THE PEAK AT MULGRAVE PARK , BRITISH PACIFIC PROPERTIES LIMITED

How density and diversity are remaking the face of Vancouver’s most exclusive neighbourhood

The absence of any form of retail has been the Properties’ biggest mark of shame for decades.”

TERRY DADSWELL: CIT Y OF VANCOUVER ARCHIVES: PRIVATE RESIDENCE BY BRITISH PACIFIC PROPERTIES

Douglas CouplanD

since Coupland’s childhood, a time when the community newsletter was called the Tally Ho and the Properties were nicknamed “Martini Hill.” That’s especially true in the new developments to the west of the original Capilano Estates area, where the changes are as much about demography as they are about density—and serve as a rebuke to the darker parts of the neighbourhood’s past. While many parts of North America had racist covenant clauses, the British Properties was notorious for enforcing a strict “whites-only” and antiSemitic policy until the mid-1970s. In 1996, when West Vancouver’s first synagogue was built across from the main entrance to the British Properties, it was defaced with swastikas. The very next day a group of well-meaning Unitarians removed the offending graffiti. Now the Properties are home to large Asian and Iranian populations attracted by the same dreams as their WASP predecessors. Azadeh Sheikh-Nabi, a 33-year-old mother and businesswoman, grew up in the Properties and is raising her young family here. “I remember arriving from Tehran in 1998,” she says. “The trees and the mountain air reminded me of the resort area near the Caspian Sea. It was beautiful.” Her neighbours were friendly but mainly aging Anglo-Canadian couples. “But now,” she says, “a lot of families are living here with kids.” She still resides in the Chartwell area, where she and her dentist husband both grew up, and she’s still in touch with her high school pals

from Sentinel Secondary, many of whom are also raising young families in the area. “It’s a great place to raise children,” she says, noting the access to hiking trails and nearby Hollyburn Mountain, excellent schools, and a sense of “safety and community.” But an additional determining factor, she says, was the fact that “it’s a much better deal, real-estate wise, than Kitsilano, Dunbar, or Shaughnessy,” where some of her friends live. Indeed, while the stereotype of the British Properties as a luxurious haven for the wealthy still has merit, the new Vancouver real estate reality means that price per square foot is significantly cheaper here than on the west side. The push for density aims to trade on that reality—one that speaks as much to the changing face of the British Properties and area as it does to that of the rest of the city. For her part, Sheikh-Nabi welcomes plans for new retail and housing developments, but she says achieving density here will require a “delicate balance.” This is, after all, a neighbourhood whose original plans—which were drawn up by the Olmsted Brothers, famed landscape architects who were known for New York’s Central Park—included designs for a polo field. The new luxury may be downsized, and the old sales pitch of exclusivity peppered with planning buzzwords. But the new BPP developments, named for pioneering farmers like James Rodgers, still join the old logging roads monikered after Guinness family estates arcing their way up the mountain.

Clockwise from far left: The Peak at Mulgrave Park; Mansions on the mountain; A (nearly) priceless view of downtown; The British Properties, circa 1941

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NO PET CITY BY TREVOR MEL ANSON

I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y B Y R O N E G G E N S C H W I L E R

References? Check. Damage deposit? Check. Pets? Ruh-roh. How Vancouver has become the least pet-friendly city in Canada—and how to change that

When a 10-year-old Geremy Arnold met Buddy, his new half-German Shepherd, half-Alaskan Malamute puppy, he would never have imagined that he’d willingly give him up one day. The two grew up together— through elementary school, through high school, through good times and bad—and when Arnold moved out eight years later, ready to take on adulthood, Buddy naturally came with him. But two years later, as often happens with young Vancouverites trying to make it in the world, Arnold had to move back in with Mom. To make matters worse, in his mother’s new place “she wasn’t allowed dogs.” Buddy was bounced around, staying at his aunt’s place and later with a friend’s parents. In the meantime, Arnold looked for a home that would take both him and Buddy—without luck. “I had come to the point where I needed a place, and any place would do,” he says. And so, Arnold did the unthinkable: he found a farm that rescued dogs and gave up Buddy. Weeks later, as Arnold spotted other dogs in his new building (grandfathered in prior to a pet ban), he decided to defy the rules and went to retrieve his old pal—only to find out it was too late. Buddy had been adopted. Eight years later, he says, “not a day goes by that I don’t think about him, if he was happy, or mad that I abandoned him.” Arnold, who has since adopted another dog, says his experience isn’t unusual. He’s heard numerous tales from others just like him, who have found out the hard way just how unforgiving this city can be for renters with pets. “It really seems unjust,” he says, but in Vancouver, where over half of residents rent, landlords have the upper hand. There is simply more demand than there is supply, a fact reflected in Vancouver’s vacancy rate, which sat at 0.8 percent as of October 2015 according to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. The national average for large cities, by way of comparison, was 3.3 percent. But if it’s bad for the average renter, it’s a whole lot worse for the average pet-owning one. Indeed, in a city where almost every rental specifies “no pets,” it borders on impossible. This isn’t a secret, mind you. The City of Vancouver itself, which passed a motion in 2013 to investigate the matter, has acknowledged

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NO PET CITY that pet owners face “extreme discrimination.” Yet the problem persists, and with ever-escalating real estate prices keeping more and more people in the rental market, it may very well get worse. That’s because making the legislative changes that would empower pet owners is a provincial matter, and the province hasn’t seemed very interested. “There are a lot of stakeholders involved with strong opinions,” says Amy Morris, policy and outreach officer at the BC SPCA, “and it’s challenging to effect change because there are people who oppose that change heavily.” Morris would know. Most SPCAs don’t have someone in her position, a policy wonk who pores through databases and works with various organizations, every level of government, and the media to make B.C. a more pet-friendly province. Half of all the pets her Vancouver branch takes in (excluding transfers from other branches) are surrenders, and 45 percent of those surrendered pets were given up for housing-related reasons last year. Morris, 29, believes that lower-income renters suffer most. “There might be pet-friendly housing that’s above what they can pay,” she says, but “lower-rent places tend not to be pet-friendly.” While Morris lacked current local data on how many landlords refuse pets, a quick city-by-city Craigslist comparison was telling. Among a sample of roughly 600 rental units per city (taken November 20, 2015), the percentage of landlords who had checked both the “cats ok” and “dogs ok” boxes was far lower in Vancouver. While just 5.6 percent of landlords ticked both boxes here, fully 20.7 percent in Calgary, 15.4 percent in Montreal, and 8.1 percent in Toronto did the same. Of course, landlords that haven’t checked those boxes may still allow pets (and, in Toronto’s case,

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cannot actually ban them thanks to a provincial law), but it does suggest a lower level of pet friendliness in Vancouver. Morris says she certainly felt the pet-related pinch when she moved here from Montreal: “My partner and I had two dogs, and it was really tough to find housing—to the point where we ended up having to pay $400 more per month just to have a place that allowed two dogs.” And it’s not just dog owners struggling to put roofs over their heads. Alannah Hall, board chair of the Vancouver Orphan Kitten Rescue Association, says her organization was forced to change its answering machine last year because they were receiving too many calls from pet owners asking if VOKRA would take in their cats. “We were getting them every day,” Hall says. VOKRA only fosters feral and stray cats for adoption, however, and Hall says they’ve been noticing a disturbing trend of late. Not only do they receive more reports of homeless cats around the end of each month as people are moving, but increasingly the cats they’re rescuing are domesticated, not feral, which suggests they were abandoned. “We had a case where somebody just moved and left their cat in the apartment.” Hall, whose cat Max (“short for Maximus Purrus”) was found deserted in a trailer park, has a theory: “I think people are dumping cats.” But if landlords keep saying no to animals, what can be done? The answer to that may lie in Ontario, which long ago amended its Landlord and Tenant Act to effectively declaw pet bans—even in cases where the renter agreed to one. Legally, there are now only three pet-related reasons a renter can be shown the door in Ontario: if the landlord or another tenant’s peace and quiet is “substantially interfered” with, if

In Ontario, it was the province that changed the laws. It will have to be the same here.” City Coun. tim StevenSon someone has a severe allergic reaction to the animal in question, or if the animal is dangerous. In Toronto, the one city that nearly rivals Vancouver in terms of the competitiveness of its rental market, pet owners were thrown a bone. And the result, 26 years after the pet-friendly changes to its Landlord and Tenant Act? According to Tracy Heffernan, a lawyer and provincial director with the Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario, there have been “very few landlord and tenant decisions relating to problems with pets since the provision was enacted in 1990. This would suggest to me that there have been very few problems.” None of this is news to Vancouver city councillor Tim Stevenson, who in 2013 began pushing for the city to follow in Ontario’s footsteps with the backing of Mayor Gregor Robertson. He says the issue was put on the back burner during the 2014 civic election and is only now remerging under the purview of the city’s rental advisory committee. “Unfortunately,” he says, “there’s nothing the city can do, as the powers live with the province. In Ontario, it was the province that changed the laws. It will have to be the same here in B.C., and so far they’ve shown little interest.” Once the rental advisory committee comes up with a strategy, he says, the City of Vancouver will formally lobby the province, a process he’s hoping will begin by summer. Of course, that process will have its enemies. David Hutniak, CEO of LandlordBC—the largest landlord association in the province with 3,300 members—says his organization

From top: Geremy Arnold’s first dog, Buddy; Erin Ryan and Grubber; Amy Morris’s former pets, Pepinot and Winston

prefers the current arrangement over the one they have in Ontario. “We’ve been actively involved in this conversation with the City of Vancouver, and the bottom line is it’s a financial issue.” Pet deposits, he says, are capped at half a month’s rent (plus the standard damage deposit every renter pays). If the damage costs more, it’s the landlord who’s out. How often does this happen? Hutniak says that while he doesn’t have hard data, his position represents the views of his organization’s members. As he puts it, “We’re not social housing, we’re market housing.” In that vein, he offers his own solution: build more rentals. “If there was a high vacancy rate, there would be more landlords open to pets—if it meant attracting tenants.” But BC SPCA’s Morris doesn’t buy the argument that pet owners cost landlords more money. In fact, the opposite might be true. She cites a 2005 study from animal welfare nonprofit FIREPAW (perhaps the only major study conducted on this topic in North America), which surveyed American renters and concluded that there was, in fact, an economic argument to be made for appeasing pet owners: they stayed longer. On average, 46 months as opposed to just 18. That reduced turnover meant less advertising and fewer renovations for the landlord. As for damage, the study found that units with pets incurred about $40 more of it on average—far less than any pet deposit, and far less than units with kids, which generated an average additional bill of $150. Landlords aren’t the only hurdle that Fido has to jump over, however. Stratas, which exist in every new condo building, are another. B.C.’s Strata Property Act limits the number of pets allowed to one per tenant: one cat or one dog, although tenants are allowed two birds and a “reasonable

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So Vancouver, you can almost hear it talking about real estate prices.

Ethically-raised Pemberton beef marinated in Sasquatch Stout.

COAST COAL HARBOUR HOTEL 1177 West Pender – 604.673.2173 prestonsrestaurant.ca/vancouver #prlvancouver 60

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NO PET CITY number” of hamsters or fish. The strata can amend this rule, but often, whether because of internal opposition or mere indifference, it does not. The result, Morris says, is that there are effectively two levels of governance a tenant has to deal with. “They have strata rules they have to follow and they have landlord rules they have to follow. I’ve found places where the landlord says, ‘I don’t care, but the strata cares.’ One place I found, for example, said, yeah, that’s fine, two dogs, and then I looked into the strata rules before I signed the lease, and the strata rules said, no, you can only have one pet.” The strata act needs tweaking, Morris says, particularly since many pet owners have two animals so that neither feels lonely when the humans are out and about. In fact, VOKRA strongly prefers it for their kittens—they ask that you adopt at least two of them. Then there’s transit. You can’t take your dog on the SkyTrain unless it’s in a kennel, which means you can’t really take your dog on the SkyTrain unless you’re strong enough to carry it on there in the first place. This is not necessarily the norm, Morris says. Cities like Toronto, Calgary, and Seattle allow leashed dogs on transit, but not Vancouver. While TransLink makes an exception for seeing-eye dogs, many pet owners fall between the cracks. “I have a friend who’s in a wheelchair,” Morris says. “It’s not a therapy dog, so the argument is that the dog could be left at home, but when it comes to actually trying to get to a vet, it can be really challenging.” Morris’s war, in short, has many battles to be waged—not just against landlords. In the meantime, how’s a pet owner to get by? Erin Ryan, a research coordinator for the BC SPCA who also happens to sit beside Morris—and whose long-haired

We’ve even provided references for the cat.” Erin ryan tabby cat, Grubber, has been running around the office for the duration of our conversation—offers some advice. Every single apartment she’s moved into with Grubber (three in Vancouver and two in Victoria) originally said “no pets,” but she convinced the landlords otherwise. “We’ve had good experiences where landlords just tick the box that says no pets, but they haven’t said anything in the ad,” Ryan says. “Once they get an opportunity to meet us, we bring up the idea: would they be open to considering one cat? We treat it like a job interview. We come with a resumé, not just for us but also a pet resumé for Grubber, so they can get a sense of what she’s like, what it would be like to have her in the building, because she’s an indoor cat, she’s small, she’s well-behaved. We’ve even provided references for the cat.” But even then, Ryan says, it’s not easy. “I would say that for every 10 listings we open, we’re closing nine of them because they blatantly say ‘no pets, no exceptions’ in the ad.” Her latest move, a five-month endeavour, was a reminder of just how difficult finding an apartment with even a six-pound cat can be, let alone a dog. In this market, human connections like the one she made with her current landlord have been her saving grace. “He was very stringent and asked a lot of questions,” she says. “We thought for sure he wasn’t going to call us back, but he did, and then he later said that he was also a pet owner. He had three cats in his North Vancouver home. There are people out there who understand the situation, and our landlord—we were lucky he was one of them.”

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