A common challenge for folk seeking a life in the valley is to find housing, and find it at an affordable rate at that.
A common challenge for folk seeking a life in the valley is to find housing, and find it at an affordable rate at that.
With a draft for Canmore's Municipal Development Plan (MDP) being considered, an untouched aspect of affordable housing may open new doors for developers and interested homebuyers: micro homes.
When Ben Johnson found himself stuck in an apartment bind, he dove head first into something he had only previously read about. And he's glad he took the leap.
After two and a half years of living inside his micro home, Johnson is seeing the “huge benefits” of his adopted lifestyle.
“It's perfect,” he said about living in his 16 by 8- foot micro home. “It has good light with so many windows. I felt more claustrophobic when I was renting a basement suite in Edmonton.”
The micro home doubles as Johnson's office space for his entrepreneurial business Mountain Madness Tours - summer cycling tours through Jasper, Banff and Waterton national parks. He gives the home a lot of credit.
“It completely enabled me to follow my passion and run tours for four to five months and retire for the winter,” Johnson said.
Johnson details how he is able to “retire for the winter” with a career that only lasts for four or five months out of the year. He says since he moved into the micro home full-time, his living expenses are about $10,000 per year. The home itself cost him $30,000 when he bought it, with an additional $6,000-$8,000 in upgrades and minor tweaking.
“No one has anything bad to say or has ever pulled me over, except to have a house tour,” Johnson said.
Inside his home is a small kitchen with a fridge, oven, sink and cabinet space; a washroom with a shower and toilet; office space with room for a retractable table and couch, and up top is where his queen mattress is.
During summer, Johnson parks his home on land he rents outside Edmonton with plumbing connections. In winter, he retreats to Fernie, B.C. where friend Ted Allsopp, the owner of Hummingbird Micro Homes, resides. Allsopp constructed Johnson's home and has been in the micro home business full-time for a year and a half.
A variety of buyers of mixed age and locations with specific needs have come looking for a micro home, said Allsopp. People buy property and then downsize their home to it.
Allsopp owns 30 acres of land in Terrace, B.C. where he says vacancy is an issue, much like in the Bow Valley's mountain towns. So with the unused land, Allsopp created Canada's first micro home village, which is helping offset low vacancy rates and affordability costs for people looking to live in the community.
“There is a total of 55 homes going in to rent or buy,” he said. “This would be exciting in Canada.
“We're finding people all over the place are doing it. It takes about six weeks to build, have it designed and completed.”
According to the Hummingbird Micro Homes' website, existing micro home owners can rent land for $400 a month, while rental starts from $750 monthly.
A critical factor is that Allsopp had the land to develop the pint-sized community on. However, with land at a premium in the Bow Valley, the issue isn't the micro homes themselves, but finding land to be able to build something innovative like a micro home village.
Patrick Sorfleet, a Canmore development planner, says there is a challenge with finding land at an appropriate price to develop on.
In Canmore's draft MDP under affordable housing, which includes a number of proposed initiatives, the document says the Town should work with and encourage developers to construct affordable housing developments, with alternate designs such as micro homes.
Sorfleet says there has been interest in micro homes, but to date there have been no developers with plans to build such a community in town.
On the mobility side of things, Canmore's parking bylaw states recreational vehicles and trailers aren't permitted on the street between midnight and 8 a.m. unless parked on the street of an adjoining owner or operators place of residence, in which case it has a maximum amount of 36 hours.
