Clayton

When I was growing up the farmland northeast of Cloverdale was called Clayton. this would be an approximate area between 184th and 192nd Streets, north of the Fraser Highway, down to about 80th Avenue.

I used to ride my horse down 184th, up 72nd Avenue to 192 Street and down to 76th Avenue to visit my friend Ivy whose family had a small cow farm. This was back in the days when traffic was lighter and people respected horses, cyclists, and pedestrians on the road.

These days the area is now known as Clayton Heights. The hobby farms have been replaced by condos and houses built on small lots. These impossibly small houses are generally the same footprint. They are 3 stories high with the owner and family living on the main floor and upper floor. The basement is a one or two bedroom suite that is rented out. In the back is the garage and above it is a one bedroom suite, commonly known as a carriage house. The streets are bumper to bumper parking because these houses are now 3 family dwellings. There is usually one parking spot beside the garage for the carriage house tenant. Nobody parks in the garage because they use it for storage. So the owners and the renters all park on the street. Total nightmare trying to drive down some of these streets as both sides of the road are clogged with parked cars and there is only one lane available for traffic moving in both directions.

We saw a house in the area approximately 68th Avenue and 192nd Street. The owner is living upstairs and has a 2 bedroom suite downstairs. However he'd like one of those downstairs bedrooms for his part of the house and needs to have a door installed in the downstairs hallway to separate the 2 living quarters. Due to time contraints, we're not able to do this and recommended someone else.

But I took a look at the suite while we were there. We've worked on several houses in this area and this is the first one I've seen with a full laundry room in the basement. A very nice laundry room, huge, lots of space to set up clothes lines and a laundry tub, and cupboards. Most of these houses have a closet sized laundry room on the upper floor for the owner's family to use and the basement tenant also has a closet where the washer/dryer is located. Similar situation with the carriage houses. Those suites also have a washer/dryer, generally stackables in a closet. I asked about that and the idea is to give the renters one day a week to use the laundry room and they'll unlock the door that they plan to put in to separate the basement renters from the upstairs.

I checked out the one remaining bedroom. It is dark. Its below ground to start with and the window is high up. One of those egress things that they're required by law to put in so the person can escape in the event of a fire. But the front porch is right on top of it blocking out any sunlight. Its dark and anyone needing to exit this window would have to crawl under the porch. Come to think of it I never checked the porch to see if its open or has trellis or anything blocking the space.

The basement suite has a nice kitchen. New appliances, nice counter and lots of cupboards. But from where the kitchen counter ends to where the sliding glass doors entry way to the suite, is only about five feet. That makes it a very small living room.

I mean, really, who would rent this. Badly designed. Really only appropriate if the same family was living in the entire house and had the run of the whole house. But the owners plan to rent it. Granted, everything is brand new, but people can't be expected to live in small, dark holes.

As these houses get finished there is now a glut in the market for rentals in the Clayton Heights area. Just check the ads on Craigslist. And people want an arm and a leg for them. Mortgage helpers. These houses cost just over half a million on average. They have small living areas, no storage, no parking, no yard. This is what people want, believe it or not.

From farm land to congested land. Goodbye Clayton. Hello Clayton Heights.