Vancouver-based Renewal Development has an innovative solution to Canada’s housing shortage. The company identifies detached single-storey homes across the city that are slated for demolition and, instead of knocking them down, transports them by road (and sometimes by barge) to communities outside Greater Vancouver. The reinstalled bungalows are then modernised; in order to maximise land use, basement suites are often added before the homes are brought to market.

“Some of these houses were only built about five years ago or were refurbished in the past decade,” says Glyn Lewis, who founded Renewal Development after a career as a political advisor in Ottawa and the US. “They are in good condition so demolishing them doesn’t make sense. Some 3,000 single-family homes are torn down every year, so we thought that we could give them a second life elsewhere.”

Renewal Development’s practice of picking up entire houses and hauling them where they’re needed is a novel idea in Canada. Other countries – such as New Zealand, which rezoned several residential districts in its big cities in 2016 – are rolling out the infrastructure required to relocate detached homes and make way for larger developments. “Vancouver moves about 50 houses a year,” says Lewis. “But we should be moving 200 to 300. If we’re ambitious, many urban areas across North America could be moving in that direction.”
renewaldevelopment.ca