(by Rik Jespersen)
Pamela Robertson has a big dream for tiny houses on the Sunshine Coast.
Robertson and a group of supporters are hoping to raise $1 million to make the dream a reality. They have their eye on an 11-acre property just off Port Mellon Highway, and envision buying the acreage to accommodate as many as “46 tiny houses, recreational vehicles, or a combination of both.”
The property is located on Twin Creeks Road very near the Port Mellon Highway in West Howe Sound. It is four kilometres north of the ferry terminal, and south of the Langdale RV Park.
The lot size is 11.4 acres (4.6 hectares). The zoning is RU-2 which allows for 10 campsites per hectare. On this 4.6-hectare lot, that means 46 campsites. Robertson’s group is hoping that, given the housing crisis, they will be permitted to make that 46 RV or tiny-house lots.
“It is undeniable that we have a housing crisis on the Sunshine Coast,” the group says on its GoFundMe.com page called Tiny Homes for the Homeless.
While “crisis” might sound melodramatic, it’s not. Other experts in local housing, including Matt Thomson of the Sunshine Coast Affordable Housing Society, have used just that word to describe the situation.
In a series of local presentations over the past two years, Thomson has said that the Sunshine Coast has its share of chronically homeless people, but there is also a growing number of working families who cannot find adequate housing—and some face the shocking prospect of eventual homelessness themselves. Landlords typically get more than 50 calls regarding any accommodation that becomes vacant, Thomson told Gibsons council in December 2015.
Robertson is hearing it, too.
“I have a lot of people in my life—and I meet more and more every day—who are struggling to find a home,” she said in an interview. “People with kids are couch-surfing, trying to get to work, trying to get school lunches made. I know people who are living in a one-bedroom with three children.”
Robertson, not to be confused with Pamela Robertson of the Gibsons Public Market, is an occupational health and safety consultant in Gibsons. She and her mother Janet Robertson built their own tiny house a few years ago. That tiny home has now been sold, but it helped spawn bigger ideas.
Robertson said she has been inspired by successful tiny house communities and collectives elsewhere. She cites projects like Dignity Village near Portland, a former tent city which is now a tiny-home park with accommodation for 60 people.
Some key players in the community are already stepping up in response to the Go Fund Me campaign, including local engineer John Enevoldson.
“He was the first person to respond,” Robertson said. “He has agreed to donate all the civil, structural and septic design.”
She said she’s also been contacted by a tiny homes manufacturer in North Vancouver willing to help to make sure the homes are constructed properly.
“Our plans are to build certified, code-compliant tiny homes that are completely insurable,” she added.
The Go Fund Me campaign has generated moral support but not much cash so far—just $300 as of May 29. Robertson and her mother have put their one-acre lot in Gibsons up for sale to help fuel the drive. She’s confident that if the group can pull together close to $200,000, they can finance the West Howe Sound property (currently listed at $589,000) through the Sunshine Coast Credit Union.
Their tentative budget also foresees $200,000 for clearing the property and installing infrastructure such as utilities and septic. A further $300,000 would go “to purchase building supplies, a metal building to build the tiny houses [in], and to purchase some RVs to help the [housing] situation right away.”
Robertson has not yet reached out to the Affordable Housing Society and has no current plan to approach the Sunshine Coast Regional District which has yet to approve similar proposals under its jurisdiction elsewhere on the Coast. That could be shifting. As writer Joanna Piros reported in The Coast Clarion last week, SCRD staff will present a report at the Planning Committee meeting on June 8 concerning “housing density strategy options and possible amendments to official community plans.”
Robertson, her mother, and close associate Kelly Riggin want to tap into the momentum of the project soon.
“We’re going to have a meeting within the next few weeks with those who have expressed interest and want to know more,” she said. “We’re absolutely open to people and their expertise and their advice and their ideas.”
While the long-term plan is for a 46-home site, Robertson also wants to launch an interim stage more quickly.
“In the short term, we’re thinking of clearing this property, throw some RVs on there, if that’s where we have to go, and have some affordable living for people while they are waiting for housing that doesn’t exist yet.”
Anyone who’d like to join the effort with suggestions or donations should contact the group at SunshineCoastHousingCrisis@gmail.com.
I like the intent, but the idea of putting all the poor folk in one corner is not a good one. This idea needs a rethink. Little houses, fine, but spread them around so people have role models other than other poor and troubled folks.
We’ve been doing this in Canada since the 50s, and when you put all the low income housing in one place all your really do is create a low income ghetto.