B.C.’s Housing and Social Development minister Rich Coleman told Business in Vancouver September 8 that he believes one of the greatest Olympic legacies was the way the province was able to convert Whistler’s athletes’ village into social housing for seniors and people who have mental disabilities.
The experiment has been such a success that the province is significantly boosting its purchase of modular homes in a Phase 2.
The B.C. government spent $20 million to convert 320 units, which were part of the former athletes’ village, into 156 permanent homes in communities such as Sechelt, Chilliwack, Enderby, Saanich, Chetwynd and Surrey.
Had Victoria built that housing from scratch Coleman said it might have cost more than $30 million.
Additional savings came because each of the municipal governments in recipient communities gave the province land upon which to put the modular homes.
“We ended up getting these things for about $0.50 on the dollar,” Coleman said.
Success with the Olympic housing project is prompting the government to favour modular housing in other projects.
Victoria is spending $124 million to build another 1,308 housing units to enable seniors to stay in small communities such as McBride or Valemount. Coleman said about half of those units will be modular.
“I’m a big fan of modular housing,” said Coleman, who worked at a modular home factory in Penticton decades ago when he was fresh out of high school. He has since owned two modular homes through the years.
“I would defy anybody to tell me which [of the 1,308 new social housing units] are modular and which ones were stick-built. They’re absolutely spectacular.”