Comment by wheretolive | Hacker News Reader

Comment by wheretolive | Hacker News Reader

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It's First Shaughnessy District. Most historic area of Vancouver and has many heritage protections e.g. a. can't demolish houses built before 1940, b. every change in the exterior have to be approved by a First Shaughnessy Design Committee apart the city.

By many metrics, FDS is one of the best places in the world to have a house in, due to following reasons:

1. Big lot size: Average size Half acre (21k+ sqft). No other world class city has such sized lots in walking distance to the downtown (< 30mins walk, <10min drive).

2. Incredibly safe.

3. Right next to the Granville shop area which is even closer than the downtown (< 10 mins walk). Major develpment happening in nearby Broadway area.

4. 15mins drive to Vancouver International airport.

5. Incredibly safe.

6. 10mins drive to beach

7. 30-40mins drive to skiing. While Vanvouer itself gets snowed in maybe 10 days an year.

8. Other benefits which apply to Vancouver due to being centrally located in Vancouver.

The problem with this is that by design, it's a nice place for very few people. Zoning central land for houses on massive lots is effectively a cap on how many people can live there; it's an incredibly regressive policy that benefits a few owners of $10M+ homes at a large cost.

Main problem is its a requirement to live around people who like mansions and being hoity-toity.

Mansions might be positive for some. And doesn't take benefits away!

Vancouver downtown is amazing too. Used to live there. But living in a high rise with young kids and constant false fire alarms where a big pain.

The big problem with the mansions is that they take up so much space that there's no room for anyone to live here.

It's such a great area because of the proximity to the city, so we should let more people live here.

Raze the mansions to the ground and build apartments that regular people can afford.

All neighborhoods with 10MM+$ houses are "incredibly safe".

Agreed. Still doesn't take away the other unique features away. I am yet to find any more place with such size houses which are walkable. Which was the charm for me.

Well, if you've made that kind of money, I guess I can't necessarily blame you, but on the other hand it's an absolutely repulsive level of wealth and opulence that would make a lot of people pretty uneasy

Check out Drummond Drive and Belmont on the west side near UBC and Jericho. Makes First Shaughnessy look like paupers.

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