‘A lot of bureaucracy’: Kitsilano homeowner blames city for renovation delays

A Kitsilano homeowner, criticized for allowing a garage at the back of his home to collapse, says he has wanted to do a massive renovation but the slow pace of Vancouver’s City Hall is frustrating matters.
The house is located on Arbutus Street, valued just under $4 million and across from Kitsilano Beach.
Aaron Chan, who currently lives in Taiwan, grew up in Vancouver, got his MBA in New York, then worked in Hong Kong and India before Taipei.
But Vancouver has always been home.
“We still have a lot of family in Vancouver and we typically bring our kids to to Vancouver in the summertime, you know, except for the pandemic years,” Chan told Global News.
He and his wife purchased the house in 2021. Chan said the house is 100 years old and they always planned to renovate it.
They started communicating with the City of Vancouver in early 2022 and Chan said they hired an architect.
“We were given a list of things that we need to do,” he said. “And we were very patient and we tried to be cooperative and comply with whatever the city wanted. And every time we submitted what was requested and we always ask the question, ‘Is this the list? Is that it?’ And I think the reply has always been, ‘Yes, this is if you do ABCD, this is what we need from you.’”
Chan said that despite following what the city requested, they would continue to get emails asking them to do more.
“I have been doing skyscrapers in New York, in Hong Kong, Taipei, Tokyo,” Chan said.
“You know, I’m comparing (this) to some developed country, some major city in the world. And so I thought to myself, if I could handle doing major development in those cities, and the codes and regulations are very, very stringent, this is a wooden structure, this is a house, a small house, actually. I thought I could easily handle that, but I guess I was very wrong about it.”
Chan said they only received the demolition permit for the garage this week from the City of Vancouver — two years after starting the process.
“This is a house in dire need of some loving and caring,” he said. “And I’m an experienced real estate developer. We’re talking about a three-storey wooden structure. I never expected this to be this difficult by any global standards.”
Chan said they still don’t have the permits in place to fix the house.
‘When we started that process, there were still a lot of COVID protocols,” he said. “The responses were not quick. You know, the hurdle that we had to go through was a lot. So, yeah, we’re happy to respond to any request from the city. But there is simply a lot of bureaucracy.”
In a statement to Global News, the City of Vancouver said that in 2022 the homeowner for the house submitted a pre-submittal application for proposed interior and exterior alterations.
The development permit application was submitted on Dec. 7, 2023, according to the city, with fees paid on Dec. 19, 2023.
Once the fees were paid, the city initiated the review process.
“On April 16, 2024, City staff issued a deficiency list to the applicant, outlining required revisions and providing comments from our Building Review Branch (BRB),” the city said.
“These revisions are necessary to meet the City’s requirements. Since then, staff have been in regular communication with the applicant to provide support and answer questions. However, the applicant has not yet submitted the revised plans addressing the identified deficiencies.”
The city said the delays in this case appear to be related to incomplete revisions and outstanding requirements on the part of the applicant.
In June 2023, the City of Vancouver adopted the 3-3-3-1 permit approval framework to fast-track applications.
Targets include three days to approve home renovation permits, three weeks to approve single-family home and townhouse permits, three months to approve permits for professionally designed multi-family and mid-rise projects where existing zoning is in place and one year to approve permits for a high-rise or large-scale project.
“As you know, this is a big organization and it takes a little bit of time,” Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim said on Thursday.
“What I can tell you is we have amazing people and they have been working diligently, so we have a lot of anecdotal evidence of our permitting process being sped up.”
Sim said while there is more work to do, the program has been successful.
Chan said he understands his house is 100 years old but his experience has been far from successful.
“I wish I was given a list of things that we need to comply and do,” he said. “And when we were given that list, it could be given to us in one request rather than piecemeal.”
Chan said it does not stop his family’s desire to move to Vancouver.
“However, when we bought the house at the end of 2021, our plan was to move the family back in 2023,” he said.
“And now we’re sitting here in 2024. We hope that our kids can attend a school year in 2025. I don’t think that’s happening now because we haven’t even started the renovation of the house.”
Chan said he wanted to speak out about the situation to inform and not to criticize.
“I think this is the opportunity to really look at the system,” he said.
“It’s broken. And then I think we just need to amend it.”