Two properties on Oak Street go before City of Vancouver council next week seeking rezoning for rowhouse developments.

6110-6170 Oak Street & 975 West 46th Ave is a 42,144 SF site located at the northeast corner of Oak and West 46th Avenue. Listraor Homes is proposing to rezone the property from RS-1 to CD-1 to permit a 33 unit rowhouse development under the guidelines of the Oakridge Langara Policy Statement (OPLS). Listraor purchased the property in 2012 as an assembly of single family lots for a total of $9,295,000.

6010-6050 Oak Street is a 24,574 SF site located on the east side of Oak Street between 43rd and 45th Avenues. The owner is proposing to rezone the property from RS-1 to CD-1 to permit a multiple-dwelling development with 19 strata-titled rowhouse units and 9 lock-off units at a floor space ratio (FSR) of 1.2. This site was an assembly of single family lots purchased in 2010 for a combined value of $5,450,000.

A look at the Real Estate Board of Vancouver’s September statistics shows continued evidence that pricing is beginning to be affected by a rapid slowdown in sales. Overall benchmark pricing is down 0.8% YoY and 1.8% over the last six months.

A more detailed review of performance by submarket shows some clear winners and losers over the last 6 months around the time the market started to show signs of weakening. Only 4 submarkets did not show a decline in benchmark prices over the past 6 months: Coquitlam, North Vancouver, Port Moody and Squamish.

Source: REBGV stats. Benchmark resale price change over 6 months ending Sep 2012.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the biggest benchmark price decline over the past 6 months was for single family homes on the West side of Vancouver, declining 6.3%. Richmond was not far behind. Port Coquitlam also showed a decrease of 4.0% in attached homes.

Squamish and Port Moody were clearly two of the strongest markets, showing price increases over the past 6 months for every housing type. One could argue that every submarket will eventually show declines, although some markets, such as Squamish appear to have little room to drop amid stagnant sales activity since 2007.

Housing Analysis Blog has underaken a more in-depth analysis of the stats release; worth the read…

As reported in the Globe and Mail, the Canada Post Site at 349 West Georgia (Homer and Georgia Street) has been listed for sale. The site is a full city block, 130,000 SF in total area, and allows a density of 5.0-7.0 FSR.

“…there are already roughly 20 companies and pension funds interested in the site, including the budget retailer Target.”

Due to view cones covering the property, the site would potentially allow buildings only up to 225-285 feet.

For more visit: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/vancouvers-canada-post-building-a-brokers-dream-a-heritage-advocates-nightmare/article4597726/