The new Vancouver Special, now with more awkwardness

"When it comes to city planning and design itself, I do believe we are world-class," stated City of Vancouver planning director Brent Toderian in a recent article.

If true, how to explain the Mohawk?

That's what some are calling the latest Vancouver housing form, an evolution of the Vancouver Special that is rapidly peppering neighbourhoods all over East Vancouver (much like its predecessor had done in the 70s and 80s).

Although most don't know the Mohawk by name, you will find them along major Eastside arterials or bikeways -- Knight, Nanaimo, Renfrew, Rupert. They are very hard to miss: a two-storey box with a half-sized strip of "hair" on top.

Having heard all types of remarks by dumbfounded observers as to what they were all about (my favorite being a couple who thought it may have been the newest style of the avant-garde), the unfortunate truth is that it is largely created by the City of Vancouver's own planning regulations.

More specifically, the Mohawk is a result of the peculiar interaction between allowable floor area, the two-and-a-half storey height restriction, and a sneaky requirement that states that any air space above 12ft in height counts towards one's floor area (discouraging open mezzanines along with the large roofs of local heritage homes that give these endearing homes their human scale).

Although it may be considered more physically attractive than the Special, its awkward and unforgiving interior layout -- bisected by stairs and load-bearing walls – makes this home exceedingly difficult to change in accordance to the dynamic needs of its inhabitants.

The delusions that seem to have resulted from the many books and articles that have been written describing Vancouver's urban achievements are becoming increasingly dangerous. Have we done good things in the fields of urbanism and planning? Definitely. Should we be proud of how far the city has come to date? Undisputedly. But the neighbourhoods in which most Vancouverites live, work, and play -- far from the heavily touristed million-dollar towers of the downtown core -- leave much to be desired in terms of both planning and design.

As the proliferation of the Mohawk demonstrates, these areas are home to some of the worst city planning decisions yet. Ones that promise to be around for a while to come because discussion of how to make these places better has been overshadowed by a few extraordinary examples.