The housing stock in the Dunbar area of Vancouver has undergone significant change in the past five years. Originally a working class neighbourhood with many quite modest homes surrounded by lovely gardens, it is now a neighbourhood that 99% of the people working in Vancouver cannot afford because the replacement homes are built to the maximum footprint and cost millions. Greenspace has been reduced. Included on this website are photos of many (not all) of the disappeared houses.
View Teardowns in the Dunbar area of Vancouver, BC in a larger map

Demolitions West of the Dunbar Community Centre

Monday, January 3, 2011

Farm House Destroyed


Quoting from page 58 in The Story of Dunbar:
Slowly residential development filled in the empty lots in Dunbar. Fred Crowhurst's family moved into a house at 4067 West 32nd Avenue in 1918, where for the next four decades they said they "watched the influx of new neighbours hem [them] in."

The house was situated at the rear of the lot, a sign that it was one of the first to be built in the area. This location results in a nonexistent back yard, but an expansive front yard. Likely remodeled several times and losing most of its farm house character, the house was demolished after it was sold in June 2010. Since this location is just down the lane from where I live, I have photos of more of the stages than I will have of other demolitions.





New construction as of January 3, 2011.
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2 comments:

  1. J. Evan KreiderJanuary 3, 2011 at 11:25 PM

    Will a family actually be any more happy in a gigantic house than the previous families were in the smaller homes? Doubt it. Rather than enjoying the home, everybody will have to work all the time to pay for it.

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  2. Mark KreiderJanuary 5, 2011 at 4:04 AM

    This is a most worthy blogging subject! It will over time document the transition of one kind of neighborhood into another, achieving what some would consider "progress" though this is no progress that I recognize, no forward movement to any better good. I most strongly advise you to take at least a street front photo of every property in the area as time allows to have a catalogue to refer to in the future. If Dunbar construction begins as it does here, one can never know when a lovely old structure will hit the ground because it so often begins at dusk with no warning. Photos taken of properties during different seasons could use the addresses as key words for easy searches. This very activity is happening all around us in Bayside and greater Queens as well as in Cutchogue though not as rapidly. Dunbar residents will hopefully see some classic style norms incorporated into the new construction as I feel you all have a stronger sense of it and a greater connection to your building traditions. Here there seems to be none of that, only total disregard for neighbors and building on the very largest property footprint that is possible. So far as we can discern there exist no zoning laws for square footage, building height or multiple dwellings. And so it goes...

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