Construction is a dirty business, and seems to get continuously worse unit the very end. Hiring cleaners is one of the luxuries of the operation, but it still requires a few days of pre-cleaning just to get to the point where hiring cleaners makes sense. And of course as soon as it is clean, the mess making begins again, so it is wise to leave the cleaning until the last possible moment otherwise it all gets undone
This house is finally clean.
The painters are back to stain the oak railings in the second house. We've had the shop prepare a stain match to the cabinets. The concept here is to make a nice contrast with the lighter floor.
after much surveying, from stakeout of the dig to the corners of the lot for fence building, the project gets a lot of attention from the survey company.
We suffered some delays with the subdivision, however, we had a little luck and the process is nearly complete. The new real property report is a condition of inspection, so I must hand that to the inspector at the final inspection (or fail, and likely get fined which is very unfair in my view). The lawyers also need to have a copy of the rpr to proceed the sale, so the importance of this step cannot be underestimated
this is some key paperwork to have ready for the final inspection.
The painters arrived to do the baseboards and roll the walls. With the paInt now done we can finish a few of the other jobs, have the electricians plate the walls, and start the clean up. Once the place is a little cleaner we can identify the paint touchups.
There are a lot of layers of paint on these walls. The last one looks the best because it has the least damage.
The garage continues to act as a dumpster and we've now likely got a bin worth of junk accumulated. And growing. It is amazing how much waste is produced by the construction site, after the recyclables are removed. Carpet remains a major villain for lacking reuse options. We may have to find a recyclable or returnable carpet supplier next time. Packaging waste other than cardboard is also a tough waste stream to manage.
Large and growing, how much more trash can there be. I may leave this pile until both houses are done and deal with it all at once.
The guys are back to finish the fence, gates, and grass in the rear. This is always a lot more work than it appears, and more costly than you'd otherwise suspect. With the landscaping finished the attention can revert back to the interior of the house where we have the painters back to deal with the baseboard paint and the final coat on the walls.
With the gate on, grass planted, and sprinkler running, we can call this back yard complete. We painted the garage man door and the trims today, so we are ready to clean out the garages of all the junk that has accumulated and finish these houses.
the glass crew is back with the custom shower install. These are always an impressive installation and finishes the bathroom off nicely.
the painters are back to spray the railing material. Normally we do this before the flooring but in this style of stair we needed to do it after. Once the painters are gone we can unmask and clean off the area. Let's hope the overspray is kept to a minimum. With the drywall touchups sanded last week and the railings done today we can get back on the walls and do another coat plus paint the baseboards that went on the hardwood and tile areas.
sabi himself arrived to do the spray. He is super busy with some 10,000 sq ft mansions. You know the job has been squeezed in when sabi is working Sunday.
Portland is making great use of its tram system. In addition to ferrying hospital staff up and down the hill it's a tourist attraction as well offering great views of the Mt. St Helens volcano, and multiple other snow covered peaks. Unfortunately this tourist lacked a camera and had little cell phone battery for photography.
Portland has a premier network of low floor downtown trams and LRT style options that offer a get on, get off convenience that is unparalleled in any North American City I have visited. The difference between the Calgary system and the Portland system is very stark, there the tram adds seamlessly to lifestyle and convenience, in Calgary it just takes lots of people downtown to work. The system works from the moment you arrive at the airport to your hotel doorstep, and to any neighbourhood within Portland you'd like to visit. In combination with high investment in bridges, bike routes, and busses, there is no real need for car ownership during the work week there.
Before arriving in Portland, I had expected to rely heavily on Uber to get around, but never once did we feel compelled to need a driver. In good weather (such as what we had) bikes would be an even better option, however we didnt make use of the bike share service, though it looked good.
I didnt see much about Portland that was not truly fantastic in the few days we were there. This City is a place we can really learn a lot more from. I think the downside to Portland is very costly housing in the desirable districts, and congestion on all the roads and bridges leading out of the core. This isn't a problem when visiting, but could be for residents. We also looked at a house with a $14k tax bill, that was atrocious. Hopefully another visit to Portland can take place and more of the State can be visited. The wonderful vegetarian cafes and many breweries will be missed!
The landscapers are back to finish the fence and rear yards. With this exterior work done I can call the development completion inspection. This is a dp related checkup to see if you actually built what you said you were going to at the planning stage. the landscaping makes the home a much more turnkey offering. Gates and grass are the finishing touches for the new home owners.
visiting Portland, it seems like some of the best urban neighbourhoods are places that wouldn't be built in calgary due to the zoning bylaw.
not enough front setback. Not enough soft surface landscaping. Not allowed in calgary
My future project on 26a st in Killarney features some really nice elm trees, in places the canopy completely overhangs the street. While not native to Alberta, these elms seem to be an ideal long lived deciduous tree. With the advertising in place for the upcoming semi detached DP, the parks department has labeled the two closets elms' replacement value.
We need to run the sewer line in the vicinity of the tree, but we are going to have to give it a wide berth. The tree value closest to the project site is over $17,000. The tree immediately to the north is even bigger, they are reporting it to be worth over $28,000. That is a seriously valuable tree. The next time I have to communicate with the parks department, I am going to ask them what the most valuable tree in Calgary currently is, and where.
This is the start of the comment period on the new semi detached project
The upper part of this block has some exceptionally large canopy trees that completely overhang the street. This is another reason 26a is such a nice location to build new houses. We'll need to exercise some serious caution to avoid these trees. The good news is we have the corner of the block and the trees there aren't an issue. We will be able to drive machinery in from the rear and the side as necessary without harming any of the big trees along the front. What we are going to have to do with the sewer is a much bigger issue.
The plumber is back with needed gas supplies. Fridge, dishwasher and gas range is going in nicely.
Looks like we've got gas at the cooktop.
You know you are in the Rockies in the summer when you have too many bears blocking the way. The curious cinnamon coloured bear was a little shocking to me when he poked his head up and we had a little face to face stare down (I lost) on the corner of the husky road
After heading downhill there was a safe distance for some photos. Fortunately a few riders came up behind me with some dogs. With bait available in the form of dogs, passage was possible. Cute bears.
These bears were not interested in the humans passing by on bike. This road is so steep the bear could easily outrun a climber.
Given the increasingly tight timeline of finishing the semi detached project I elected to get the garage final. I intentionally failed the garage inspection at the end of the last month so that I could avoid a reinstatement fee. Now that it is complete we passed today. Next inspection is the big one however, and we lack some needed paperwork. Let's hope the subdivision goes through and I can get two new real property reports.... soon.
Appliance delivery is another nice progress milestone in the project. It also means a large load of recyclables to the depot. We need the plumber to finish installing all of these appliances, because I don't like to make water connections myself. For example, he must run the fridge water line and connect it to the fridge, add the dishwasher drain line and supply, and do the gas connection to the oven. All of this work is definitely in the realm of needing to know how to do it, which disqualifies this builder, particularly for the gas job. I get to put in the microwave and trim kit (didn't fit, needs kitchen guy back), and the range hood (can't finish until the mechanical final), so basically I can't do anything except recycle (and pay bills, my two main roles in this project).
Ready to go in, we just need our plumber to return with his tools and know-how.
Barn doors are always a nice show piece in a new house. They often save space too when entering a smaller room such as a walk in closet. The semi detached project has benefitted from a couple barn doors and finally we were able to hang them (needed carpet and finishers to come back).
Closed.
Open.
Here is a reprint of a great article that was forwarded to me on a twitter feed (from a Calgary City Planner - is this a sign of generational change at the bureaucracy?). Thanks Desmond for the link. I read this article and was convinced this was written about Calgary, only to later realize it was written for any city, anywhere, where planning is heavily regulated by a local bylaw. I think many people in Calgary would agree that planning here shares many of the characteristics explored in this article by Ryan McMaken of the Mises Institute.
My review of this article was taking place just as I watched land value in prized inner city locations take another jump upward (despite that we are still in a recession). I wonder how much of housing cost in Calgary is directly related to how hard it is to bring new supply to market, and how long and costly it is to appeal to Council for a land use change. I think Calgary is much easier (as hard as it is) to change land use than older established areas, such as in England, where the countryside is protected as green space or listed as a historic resource. So while we have a tough time making progress with modernizing land use, we recently had the Main Streets initiative passed, which was essentially a mass rezoning program of a few key locations. Calgary's local government has at least shown it has the willpower and ingenuity to make some small but meaningful changes, I am sure other areas have been in a planning gridlock for decades.
It's no secret that in coastal cities — plus some interior cities like Denver — rents and home prices are up significantly since 2009. In many areas, prices are above what they were at the peak of the last housing bubble. Year-over-year rent growth hits more than 10 percent in some places, while wages, needless to say, are hardly growing so fast.
Lower-income workers and younger workers are the ones hit the hardest. As a result of high housing costs, many so-called millennials are electing to simply live with their parents, and one Los Angeles study concludedthat 42 percent of so-called millennials are living with their parents. Numbers were similar among metros in the northeast United States, as well.
Why Housing Costs Are So High
It's impossible to say that any one reason is responsible for most or all of the relentless rising in home prices and rents in many areas.
Certainly, a major factor behind growth in home prices is asset price inflation fueled by inflationary monetary policy. As the money supply increases, certain assets will see increased demand among those who benefit from money-supply growth. These inflationary policies reward those who already own assets (i.e., current homeowners) at the expense of first-time homebuyers and renters who are locked out of homeownership by home price inflation. Not surprisingly, we've seen the homeownership rate fall to 50-year lows in recent years.
But there is also a much more basic reason for rising housing prices: there's not enough supply where it's needed most.
Much of the time, high housing costs come down to a very simple equation: rising demand coupled with stagnant supply leads to higher prices. In other words, if the population (and household formation) is growing quickly, then the housing supply must also grow quickly — or rents will rise.
Moreover, where the housing gets built is a key factor. We cannot speak of housing supply for an entire metropolitan area. Metro areas are composed of a wide variety of employment centers and neighborhoods. The mix of employers and workers varies from place to place depending on tolerable commute times, local industries, and geography.
In an unhampered market, of course, as rents rise, housing developers will respond by building more housing where it's needed most — and thus potential prices are highest. Rents will then fall in those areas and developers will stop building housing — or build in other places — until rents rise again. Or, in response to rising rents, current homeowners will turn their homes into boarding houses. Others may build so-called mother-in-law suites over their garages. The number of ways to expand housing is actually quite long.
But, as everyone who's ever tried to do any of these things knows, we most certainly do not live in an unhampered market. In fact, the production of housing is one of the most regulated and micro-managed industries in the industrialized world.
City planners control what sort of housing can be built — and where — through zoning and land-use laws. These central planners tell us where housing must be single-family or multi-family. They tell us if you're allowed to rent out one of your bedrooms to a non-relative. They tell us if you can build an auxiliary housing unit on your property.
With so much government planning at work, the effect has been rising home prices and a higher cost of living. And again, those who suffer the most tend to be those with the lowest incomes.
This is then made even worse by "urban renewal" schemes in which privately owned low-cost housing is bulldozed by governments to make room for trendy shopping districts or for government-owned or subsidized housing.
The Rise of Zoning and Land-Use Laws
Prior to the rise of widespread zoning laws — which became especially popular after the Second World War — housing production was far more responsive to market demand. In areas where there was a housing shortage, many families rented out rooms to what was a booming industry of boarding houses in the nineteenth century and early twentieth century. Residential hotels were popular among the elderly and those living alone.
Over the past 100 years or so, thanks in part to control-freak Progressives who demanded "communistic" boarding houses be shut down, cities began to take over as planners who decided what sort of housing people were allowed to live in.
Over time, this newfangled method of central planning has become immensely popular, and we can no longer say that city planners and local governments are forcing their vision on a disgruntled and resistant public.
Government Controls on Housing Are Very Popular
Indeed, in many areas, it is the private-sector homeowners who most demand that every new townhouse, every new apartment building, and every new storefront be controlled, evaluated, and ultimately controlled by government bureaucrats.
Modern outer suburbs in most metro areas are notable for extremely detailed zoning. But even in traditionally more laissez faire inner areas (laissez-faire in terms of zoning) communities have been moving toward even more stringent zoning laws to prevent diversity and decentralization in land use.
We've all seen it at work over and over again in many of these older inner suburbs: A landowner realizes the housing demand has increased in the area and attempts to put a four-unit building where a single-family home once stood.
Naturally, this change will create more housing, bring down rents, and, of course, allow a private-property owner to exercise his rights as an owner.
But, in many cases, the private-property owner quickly finds he has no such rights.
The neighbors, who don't want to live near a row of townhouses or have more cars parked on the street will protest to the city government, demand a zoning hearing, and fight to ensure that only a single-family unit is allowed on the lot. In many cases, they'll use the increasingly-popular tactic of "downzoning" in which people who earlier bought property with the hope of developing it later will be robbed of their property rights. They'll be told: "sorry, that thing we once said you could do with your property — you can't do that anymore." This is done so that the community's other residents can maintain the status quo in that neighborhood until the end of time.
At the same time, employment continues to expand in nearby commercial areas, so employees — instead of living in inner suburbs — must move further and further outside the urban area and commute on taxpayer-funded roads.
Nor is this problem limited to what many view as primarily residential areas. Even on major thoroughfares, nearby residents will protest new apartment buildings because they are believed to be unsightly, or will create more local traffic, are are simply something different they don't like.
The "solution" in this case is to shift traffic somewhere else — to the suburban freeways, for example — and shift the cost to statewide taxpayers who now must foot the bill for extending infrastructure ever further outward.
In all these cases, one group of voters uses the power of government to force costs onto some other group of voters in some other area — and onto the workers who must live further and further from employment. This is all done to save the "character" of the neighborhood. But it's really done because many homeowners have no qualms about using the power of the state to prevent other property owners from using their own property as they see fit.
The Band-Aid: Subsidized Housing and Inclusionary Zoning
Often, many residents who fight tooth and nail to prevent any increases in housing density or creation of more housing are the same people who say that "something must be done" to make housing more affordable.
Having caused the shortage of housing in places where people actually want to live, our "progressive" advocate for low density and exclusionary zoning may then attempt to sooth his conscience by advocating for a small number of subsidized housing units nearby. Or, he may demand "inclusionary zoning" which mandates that developers set aside a certain percentage of all new units as "affordable" units with legally-imposed limits on how high prices can go.
This, of course, does precious little to solve the problem. The subsidized units that get built are usually very small in number, and only get built after years of winding their way through the zoning and approval process. The inclusionary zoning tactic is even worse because the mandate for low-rent units discourage developers from building anything at all in that jurisdiction.
Thus, new production of housing continues to fall behind regional population growth, and rents and home prices continue to rise.
We Need More Housing of All Types
The solution to this is more housing. Not more "affordable" housing and not necessarily more "high density" housing. Housing, after all, is extremely heterogeneous. Indeed, two identical houses built a block apart are not the same — thanks to differences in location. But types of housing vary widely in nature. There are high-rise apartment buildings, single-family homes, duplexes, boarding houses, and townhouses.
Which is the best type of housing to build in any given location? Thanks to the immense diversity of renters, homeowners, locations, neighborhoods, and unit types, no person can say. In fact, it's impossible to know the answer without allowing property owners and consumers to function within the marketplace. Property owners will attempt to build housing where they feel it will best satisfy market desires. Consumers will attempt to move where housing best suits their desired lifestyle.
City planners would have us believe they can figure this all out ahead of time.
They can't.
Nor should we trouble ourselves with mandating that builders create housing that caters to low-income houses. The problem isn't too little low-income housing, per se. The problem is too little housing overall.
After all, for every new unit built — even if it's a luxury unit — the housing supply increases, prices will fall ever so slightly, all else being equal. Over time, the cumulative effect of new units built for a wide variety of price levels will be to bring housing prices down overall. As new luxury units are built, the wealthiest renters and homeowners will tend to move into newer and fancier units. The older now-less-demanded units will fall in price making them more affordable to lower-income buyers and renters.
Today's luxury units are tomorrow's affordable housing.
Unfortunately, thanks to the continuing role of government in housing production, attempting to meet the needs of renters and buyers continues to be an exhausting quest to deal with an endless assortment of ordinances, mandates, regulations, and plans. The current planners don't want more housing. The government planners only want a certain type of housing. Meanwhile, the renters live in smaller and smaller units, and drive further and further.
But there's one thing of which we can be sure. "Capitalism" will be blamed for it all.
There seems to be no end to the escalation in Killarney land value over the past 10 months. With prices now apparently higher than ever before including the peak of spring 2014 (and rising) finished home values are likely to have a higher floor value as well.
This will also have implications for the cost of buying homes in the areas to the west of Killarney that up until now have had fairly reasonable land values. Once again my advice to potential buyers is they either should have bought already (last year) or need to prepare to pay more in 2018.
Is this the high land sale for 2017? The year is only half over so we can't know for sure. Hard to imagine prices higher than 683 for 50 ft. Nice site though.
The kitchen design features some really nice Blum hardware. After some delays and part number confusion we've got the material installed. Looks good.
Closed
And open.