 Bracing for Gateway Effect - Globe & Mail June 2, 2006 Bracing for the Gateway Effect
A new study says highway improvements will increase land values by up to 20 per cent. But the skeptics believe there's more to the story
MARCIE GOOD, June 2, 2006
Special to The Globe and Mail
You might expect Laura Lintunen to complain about the time she spends in her car. She lives in Hammond, a neighbourhood on the border of Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows, and commutes to City Hall for her job as a finance manager for Vancouver Fire Rescue Services. An average trip is just over an hour, but an accident on any of her three routes, the Barnet Highway, Lougheed Highway, or Highway #1 to the Mary Hill bypass, could end up costing her three hours.
Yet, like thousands of other daily drivers in this region, she has coping techniques. She commutes with her husband, Aki, and if they discover a problem on the perpetually bottle-necked Pitt River bridge, they turn back and work at home or take the West Coast Express. Sometimes they avoid the rush by staying in the city to go to a restaurant, a luxury they gave up when they moved to the small town. She even tries to enjoy the ride. "Especially on the way home, you decompress, get all arrangements for dinner. You get all the work stuff out and the transition to home is easier."
Ms. Lintunen and her husband bought a large lot four years ago for a dirt-cheap $60,000 and built their own home with a garden. The drive, she acknowledges, is one of the trade-offs of living in the suburbs.
That's generally the way people think about living in a metropolitan area: a nice house equals a lot of mileage. But the authors of a report released this week predict that will all change soon.
Don Campbell, a best-selling real estate writer and analyst, generated much media attention with The Gateway Effect: the Impact of Transportation Improvements on Housing Values in the Lower Mainland and Fraser Valley. Co-authored with Russell Westcott, the document estimates the cumulative impact of the provincial government's Gateway Program, including a number of highway and public transit expansion projects, will be to raise real estate values in certain areas by 10 to 20 per cent.
"What the twinning of the Port Mann and other projects will do is physically bring the suburbs closer to the central business district," Mr. Campbell said in an interview. "If they open up all of these different chokepoints and the prices are much less expensive compared to the Lower Mainland, it's a clear path for people to choose to live in a region where they can commute and have a bit of a yard."
Infrastructure plans aimed at reducing congestion include twinning the Port Mann bridge, adding another lane to Highway #1 from the Cassiar tunnel to Langley, new North and South Fraser perimeter roads, and new Pitt River Bridge and Mary Hill Interchange. Other projects already approved include the rapid-transit Canada Line and Evergreen Lines, and the Golden Ears Bridge.
According to Mr. Campbell's research, in which he looked at studies on other urban areas with new transportation arteries, Maple Ridge stands to see the biggest spike in property values. Next on his list of big winners are North Langley, Fort Langley and Abbotsford, and finally Port Moody and Coquitlam. Land in these areas will benefit over and above gains in other areas of the Lower Mainland, and in case of a downturn in prices, they will also lose less.
Citing the current difficulties of truck travel to the Port of Vancouver, Mr. Campbell predicts long-term benefits from these construction projects that will take this region through a possible lag after the Olympics. With easier transport of goods, more companies will choose to locate in this area. More jobs, more people, more taxes.
The report is a ringing endorsement of the $3.5-billion mega-program which has faced much scrutiny and opposition from conservation groups, a seldom-unanimous Vancouver city council, and urban development thinkers who feel that the road expansions promote an unhealthy and unsustainable car-based metropolis. Mr. Campbell, however, argues that Gateway is not about sprawl, as commuting patterns have changed from a dominantly suburb-Vancouver trek to a much more diverse model. Many people who live in outlying areas are driving to jobs in other municipalities. Less traffic on the Port Mann bridge, he says, will also allow for reliable bus transportation.
"I just keep hearing all the politics and all the self-interest groups arguing the points on the Gateway and I just wanted to cut through all that stuff and say, 'Okay, here are the facts'" says Mr. Campbell, an Abbotsford resident. "It's easy to fight change but sometimes change is inevitable and necessary."
Gordon Price, a former Vancouver city councillor and current director of Simon Fraser University's City Program, doesn't doubt that land values will go up if the new highways go in.
Transportation and real estate have had a long symbiotic relationship, from Roman roads to 20th century streetcar systems. But unlike those urban trains that organized a city by manageable travel times, freeways have a way of constantly overflowing their capacity.
"Indeed, this is exactly the point that critics would make; that Gateway is more about real estate and opening up land than it is about transportation," says Mr. Price, a member of the Livable Region Coalition which advocates for more transit options.
The boost in prices, he figures, would be temporary as people rush to buy. "More asphalt to open up more land to more people driving will create a worse problem. The question I always ask is, 'Show me the model that you have in mind when you talk about building more roads to solve the transportation problem.' "
The mayor of Maple Ridge, Gordon Robson, is less than enthusiastic about the prospect of higher land values in his community. "It looks like a Chamber of Commerce brochure to me," he says, when asked about Mr. Campbell's report.
He's skeptical about glowing reports on real estate values because they are a very small element of an area's livability. Not that he's ignorant about change; in fact he's in the middle of a contentious series of public hearings on his city's new official community plan, which deals with many issues of pending growth.
Discussions have raised questions about allowing big-box stores and building on agricultural land.
The goal, he says, is to allow growth while preserving the small-town feeling and healthy environment.
The city is trying to organize development around transit, increase density near the town core, and promote employment zones and LEED-certified buildings.
Currently, an estimated 67 per cent of residents commute and the tax base is 93 per cent residential. That situation, he knows, is not sustainable. "It's difficult to do anything here except own a car, and we're trying to change that," he says.
"Gateway will provide some immediate relief to our traffic congestion but it's not the long-term answer, because you can't build enough roads."
Posted June 02, 2006 by Marcie Good |
