The Brookhouse Residence, a prominent Grandview-Woodland heritage home, may be saved through a redevelopment proposal, according to the City of Vancouver.
A new owner has approached the city about the possibility of a rezoning application for the property, located at 1872 Parker St. at Victoria Drive, which involves rehabilitating the home, dividing it into strata units and adding family townhomes along the rear lane.
Built in the Queen Anne style with a corner turret in 1909, the house is known as the Brookhouse Residence because it was named for printer and editor Arthur A. Brookhouse, who owned it and lived in it with his family from 1927 until his death in 1947, according to the Grandview Heritage Group.
Kent Munro, the city’s assistant director of planning, said a previous owner had considered a heritage revitalization project, but it fell through because he felt it wouldn’t work out economically.
Munro said the house has been vacant for about two years and city staff are encouraging the new owner, who’s done similar projects in the neighbourhood, to get an application in.
“It’s a very good news story. We’ve been working at the Grandview-Woodland community plan for a couple of years now and one of the themes we’ve heard loud and clear is how important heritage is in this community, and particularly in that old neighbourhood between Victoria Drive and Commercial, which is the heart of Grandview really,” Munro said. “We’ve all been very worried about [the house]. In private ownership, of course, there’s not much we can do…. So when [the owner] came in, given all of our work on the Heritage Action Plan and trying to do what we can on our side to save these resources, we jumped all over it.”
Some Vancouverites, including Caroline Adderson who’s behind the Facebook page Vancouver Vanishes, have been critical of the city’s efforts to protect character homes. Courier columnist Allen Garr also recently penned a piece that pointed out the speed of demolitions has accelerated — in the first four months of this year the city issued 342 demolition permits, an increase of 20 per cent over 2014.
The Brookhouse site needs to be rezoned for a heritage revitalization project to be permitted since it’s currently zoned for duplex housing. The rezoning would include public consultation, and an open house for comments, before a proposal went before council, which would decide whether to send it to public hearing.
“One of the things we’re up against now is a race against time because it’s almost like it’s becoming a rescue project as opposed to a rehabilitation project,” Munro said. “The house has been sitting there neglected for two years and it’s been vandalized a little bit, so if and when this application comes in, we want to get it through as quickly as possible.”
Michael Kluckner, a member of the Grandview Heritage Group, said he’s generally supportive of the prospect of the home being preserved through a heritage redevelopment, although he said “the devil is in the details.”
He called the home a neighbourhood landmark in a prominent location and said the vast majority of Grandview-Woodland residents really care about conserving heritage buildings.
“[A redevelopment proposal also] ticks the boxes of broader city programs beyond heritage, about infill and sustainability and so on,” he said. “Again, it will depend on the design and the bulk. But these [kinds of proposals] are becoming common and the alternative is demolition and probably generic duplexes.”
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