Jeff Shields RE/MAX Anchor Realty serving Qualicum Beach, Parksville, French Creek, Coombs of the Oceanside area on Vancouver Island British Columbia

Jeffery Shields - REALTOR

RE/MAX Anchor Realty
(Independently Owned and Operated)
113 West 2nd Avenue, PO Box 1890
Qualicum Beach, BC V9K 1T5 Canada
Cell: 250-240-5021
Bus: 250-752-2466
Fax: 250-752-2433
Toll Free: 800-668-3622

Kitsilano

Location

Kitsilano Map

Located on Vancouver's West Side, Kitsilano (usually referred to as "Kits") is immediately east of Point Grey, bordered by English Bay to the north, 16th Ave. to the south, Alma Rd. to the west and Burrard St. to the east. Please see the Panoramic Map of Vancouver showing its location in the Lower Mainland.

Population

In 2001, Statistic Canada reported the population of Kits at 39,386.

Housing

Kits has mostly rental and condominium dwellings back to about Broadway (9th Ave.) where it becomes predominantly single family homes and duplexes.

Concentrations of Craftsman-style houses can be found in the area bounded by Macdonald, Stephens, 5th and 6th Avenues. A virtually intact row of "California Bungalows" can be seen on the south side of 5th Avenue between Bayswater and Balaclava.

Sunset over dock There have been many physical changes in the Kitsilano area over the past three decades. The most dramatic have occurred in the apartment area, where most original houses have been replaced by new apartment buildings. In the duplex/conversion areas of Kits however, residents have been working hard to restore and preserve the character homes which make the community so distinctive.

West Broadway continues to reflect increasing densities, with the appearance of many new retail/commercial/residential complexes. Broadway traverses the city from UBC in the west to the Burnaby boundary and the start of the Lougheed Hwy. in the east.

History

At the turn of the last century, the area from Burrard to Alma Streets was a dense, wild-life-filled forest, in spite of earlier logging. A salmon canning factory at the foot of Macdonald Street was once unable to cope with the "hundreds of thousands of salmon" caught in 1900.

Kits Beach During the summer, dozens of vacationing tent campers — many from the city's fashionable West End — lined Kits Beach, then called Greer's Beach after one of the area's earliest settlers. East of the beach area was the Kitsilano Indian Reserve, on the site of today's Vanier Park. The Coast Salish village of Snauq was located on the shore of False Creek, slightly to the east of the Museum-Planetarium Complex.

The CPR (which owned most of the land east of Trafalgar), the B.C. Electric Railway's streetcar line along 4th Avenue to Alma, and the Burrard Bridge built in 1932, all played a role in opening up Kitsilano. However, Kitsilano was not fully developed south to 16th Avenue until the late 1940s. During World War II, most of the old estates and many single-family homes along the slope above Kitsilano Beach were converted into rooming houses. They remained that way until the 1960s, by which time the area had become popular with university students and young people from throughout North America.

Parks & Recreation

16 Parks including Kits Beach and Pool.

For more information on Kitsilano, please visit the City of Vancouver - Kitsilano Web Pages.

Source: City of Vancouver; and Statistics Canada