These Metro Vancouver houses have a new home in Haida Gwaii
Three Metro Vancouver houses recently docked in Haida Gwaii.
On Oct. 2, the three mid-century homes finished a multi-day journey via barge up the B.C. coast to the archipelago. Now, the Old Masset Village Council will convert each of them into a triplex, which will be used to provide subsidized housing.
“We have some families that have 10, 11, 12 people living in one small house, so we’re trying to come up with a quicker and faster way to move people into homes, and this seemed like it was a nice, fast, easy way,” said Donald Edgar, the chief councillor for the Old Masset Village Council, in an interview with Daily Hive Urbanized.
These houses were previously plots of land in Coquitlam, slated to be torn down to make space for a higher-density development.
Edgar said originally he had been concerned about the age of the Metro Vancouver houses, and how much life they had left in them. But he said he went to Coquitlam to see them, and realized they were still in good shape.
“We’re taking something that was going to get brought to the landfill and reusing it — because it’s how our people are,” he said.
Glyn Lewis, the CEO of Renewal Development, the company that facilitated the process of shipping these homes, said he started his business six years ago because of all the waste he saw.
Lewis said that each year about 2,700 single-family homes are demolished across Metro Vancouver to make space for higher-density development, and he estimates that about 700 are still in good condition and could be relocated and repurposed.
“This just struck me as incredibly wasteful,” Lewis told Daily Hive.
He said it was wasteful from a heritage and character perspective, from a material perspective, an embodied carbon perspective, and a financial perspective.
“Some of these homes have been well maintained and well renovated, and they’re worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. And yet real estate developers are paying 30, 40, $50,000 to tear them down. And that just didn’t make sense to me.”
How did the Metro Vancouver homes get to Haida Gwaii?
Renewal Development
Lewis said that two of the houses came from a land assembly on Appian Way, where Anthem Properties needed to tear down eleven homes to build a new development.
Their first task was visiting and assessing the houses, examining components like the roof and the windows. If it still has good value, then it is worth relocating and repurposing.
Next, they assessed whether they could actually move the home, measuring its height, width, and the route checks — where the route starts and ends.
“And if those two things align, if the condition of the building is good, if the building is movable, then it’s a good candidate to be relocated and repurposed.”
Renewal Development provided Anthem with a demolition service for the remaining nine homes that weren’t suitable for reuse, as they either weren’t in good enough shape or too big to ship.
Lewis said this process saves the developer a little bit of money, as most companies wouldn’t deal with the demolition of the remaining nine homes.
The third house came from another Coquilam real estate development site on Madore Avenue.
Before these Metro Vancouver houses were sent to Haida Gwaii, they still needed some work. The Old Massett Village Council didn’t want the original stucco siding or asphalt roofs due to the weather they experience, so they upgraded them with metal roofs and hardy siding.
“The reason why we did that is that it’s way more costly to try to do that work up in Haida Gwaii or in any of these coastal communities,” said Lewis, pointing out they don’t have construction stores like Home Depot.
They then shipped the homes from Coquitlam down the Fraser River to a barge site, loaded them onto a barge, secured the homes with steel beams, and a tug took it for the three-day journey up to Haida Gwaii.
And now that the houses are in Haida Gwaii, Chief Edgars said they will build the foundation and the two lower units before placing the repurposed homes on top. They plan to try these three rescued houses out first and see if their people like them, before potentially bringing up 17 more units.
Edgars said it is incredibly expensive to build homes at Haida Gwaii, and the rescued homes give them the opportunity to provide “homes for more of our people at a lower cost.”
“Cost is also a big thing here,” he said. “The price of rent is actually going up quite a bit too, and if we can subsidize the rent for some of these houses that we’re purchasing, it’s better for our people in the end.”
Lewis said they estimate that it is about 20 to 40 per cent cheaper to bring the rescued homes to Haida Gwaii, compared to building new or bringing in modular housing.