Vancouver Needs More Housing

Share this post

Video: Paige Saunders on apartment amenities

morehousing.substack.com

Discover more from Vancouver Needs More Housing

Housing is scarce and expensive, making us poorer.
Continue reading
Sign in

Video: Paige Saunders on apartment amenities

People really do want them

Russil Wvong
Aug 31, 2023
1
Share this post

Video: Paige Saunders on apartment amenities

morehousing.substack.com
Share

A video by Paige Saunders, with Zac Jardak. Looks at differences between older apartment buildings and newer ones, to see if there’s some high-cost and unnecessary requirements that could easily be cut out. But it looks like the answer is no: people really do want these things.

  • Ground-floor accessibility requirements.

  • Elevators - people would pay 10% less for a fourth-floor apartment with no elevator.

  • Sprinklers - people would pay 10% less to live in a four-storey building with no sprinklers.

  • In-suite laundry - people would pay 7% less to live in a building with no in-suite laundry.

  • Balconies - people would pay 12% less if there’s no balcony.

One opportunity for cost reduction that doesn’t apply in Montreal (where Saunders is): single-stair design for low-rise apartment buildings, which makes it easier to build family-size apartments, instead of hotel-style layouts with a lot of hallway space and small apartments. Montreal already has this, because their city-specific building code allows for a shared external staircase, typically a narrow spiral staircase.

1
Share this post

Video: Paige Saunders on apartment amenities

morehousing.substack.com
Share
Comments
Top
New
Community

No posts

Ready for more?

© 2023 Russil Wvong
Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start WritingGet the app
Substack is the home for great writing