Vancouver's laneway housing program was designed to introduce a denser, more affordable housing type to the city. In spite of their popularity, most laneway homes are comparatively expensive. Many factors conspire to keep this housing type unaffordable. These factors stem from the fact that a laneway house is a miniaturized version of a stand-alone house, requiring dedicated plumbing and electrical connections, mechanical systems and finished exterior walls. But what if we could build multiple family dwellings on our laneways? Then we could take advantage of the synergies of a multi-unit dwelling to create truly affordable housing on land that is currently underutilized.
In order to do this, we need to restructure the typical Vancouver block. Instead of one laneway between two lots, we could create two laneways, shorten the lots on either side and create a new, 80-foot wide lot in the center of the block. The shortened street-facing lots are now a perfect depth for townhouses with plenty of room leftover for modest outdoor space at grade. And because of current zoning setbacks, in most cases we could create these new blocks without demolishing any existing housing.
(From competitor's text)
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