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On Forbes magazine’s “China Rich List” for 2018, Zheng was number 364, with a known net worth of US$925 million (about $1.2 billion Cdn).

The Belmont Avenue property is an extreme example of how real estate prices have gone up in recent decades. It sold for $600,000 in 1986, $2.53 million in 1992, $4.08 million in 1997, and $24.5 million in 2015. It is currently assessed at $26.789 million.

Belmont Avenue is known for its giant lots, and 4749 Belmont is no exception, with nearly 1.2 acres of land. It also has a water view. The building permit is for a two-storey house that will cost $8 million.

The former house at the site was built in 1937 for Bert Hoffmeister, a famed general in the Second World War who later became president of forestry giant MacMillan Bloedel.

The 4,700-sq.-ft. home was designed by prominent local architect C.B.K. Van Norman, and probably cost about $10,000 to build. When Hoffmeister went off to war, he rented it to Group of Seven painter Lawren Harris, who had moved to Vancouver from New Mexico because it was hard to transfer money out of Canada to the U.S. during the war.

Hoffmeister moved back into the house after the war. According to a 2014 story in the National Post, the house was last occupied in 1997. After it was sold to 739734 Alberta Inc., it was boarded up.

Vancouver Sun

Heritage activists call this “demolition through neglect.”

“Any building that’s left vacant is threatened, essentially,” said heritage expert Don Luxton. “Because you don’t know when the roof is leaking, you don’t know if somebody breaks in. If it isn’t being heated or the plumbing breaks or it freezes, then the challenge to the building can be catastrophic.