Attending Delta’s public information meetings on the proposed Official Community Plan update was certainly an interesting and informative experience.
I was very curious, and made the point to speak with builders, city officials, homeowners and potential homeowners and I learned far more than I was expecting to. Living and aging in place was a common theme.
Aging in place is a lofty, but rarely achieved goal for many people. Could that change?
New provincial housing guidelines will likely beneficially alter the housing landscape as we have known it for a very long time.
The possibility of building four homes on a current single-family zoned lot offers a blank palette of living possibilities to ponder that have been unworthy of consideration in the past.
This choice can only be good for existing and potential homeowners, and it has the promise of providing very real financial benefit to both owners and buyers.
A variety of building, design, and living scenarios could assist in at least partially addressing the housing dilemma while affording opportunity for generations of family to live closer together - should that be a desired outcome. This new choice will become a reality for some and is poised to be a game changer indeed.
Brandon Smith, CEO of local builder and Georgie Award winning New Vision Projects attended the information sessions. His aptly named business has been diligently investigating innovative scenarios in which new housing guidelines could offer mortgage relief for owners, and new buying considerations for first time buyers.
If situations presented themselves in which aging family members, or children, could live on the same property to save money and perhaps assist with mortgage payments for the landowner (s), mutually beneficial and practical financial and family living possibilities could unfold, mirroring many global cultural housing conditions not generally typical of urban North America.
New Vision and companies like them, see possibilities that lay people like you, and I don’t’. if you are curious, it is probably worthwhile to have a conversation with these folks to at least explore new possibilities in the quickly changing housing frontier.
