January 21, 2025 • 40 mins
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EPISODE DESCRIPTION
Episode 88: Matt and Taylor are joined by Graham Allison & Aaron Whalen for a 2-part episode on Kelowna's "Fast-Track" program for infill housing. Graham is a Planner II with the City of Kelowna, with a focus on infill and housing policy, who is passionate about creating vibrant, sustainable communities. Aaron, the Co-Founder of SNDBOX that specializes in missing middle housing, is one of the winners of the City of Kelowna Infill Design Challenge 2.0, and his design has been developed and approved for the Fast-Track program.
Graham & Aaron are here to discuss: → Details of Kelowna's Fast-Track program, how it saves time and money, and the cost to build Aaron's design. → Kelowna zoning changes, which lots qualify, and if there is variance or exceptions allowed. → The opportunities available now and in the near future for the Fast-Track program with changing regulations, and the future development of the Fast-Track program and designs.
City of Kelowna Infill Website: www.kelowna.ca/infill
Graham Allison's Email: GAllison@kelowna.ca
SNDBOX Website: www.sndbox.ca
Aaron Whalen's Email: aaron@sndbox.ca
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome back to the Kelowna RealEstate Podcast.
(00:01):
I'm your mortgage broker host,Taylor Atkinson.
And I'm your real estate agenthost, Matt Glen.
What's happening today, Taylor?Good show today, man.
We double dipped.
That's a twofer.
Yeah.
Graham Allison from City of
Kelowna, come on.
Talk about all things owning.
We obviously saw some massivechanges provincially and in our
own municipality.
Basically, just talking about
changing from the RU to the MF,what that means, what directions
(00:23):
the city's going, and provinciallykind of what's happening.
The fast track and...
Fast Track competition?
Yeah.
And then part two to this show, we
brought on Aaron Whalen, who wasone of the winners for the Fast
Track program.
So if you haven't heard about
that, basically City of Kelownaput on a competition to help
promote infill.
And it's like a $15 ,000.
You purchase this product, has therenderings, has the architectural
(00:49):
approval, the city approval.
You still have to do a survey, but
it is like, hey.
Here's your BPDP.
Go build what's already approved.
So really cool program with a lot
of evolution behind it.
So kudos to the city of Kelowna.
Yeah, it's kind of the way theepisode is.
First half, talking to the city.
(01:09):
Second half, talking with the
designer.
It's pretty cool.
It's very interesting for theinfill in our city, like not just
downtown where traditionally it'sbeen downtown kind of.
Martin Stockwell, that area.
And then the other side, which is
around the hospital, basically theentire flat area of Kelowna.
So like Springfield Small,Rutland, Rutland North, Rutland
South.
It's exciting.
Big emphasis on properties todevelop that don't have lane
access, which for the last fewyears has been like a major, you
(01:33):
can just tell right away when youwalk up to a property, if it has a
lane access or not, if it's goingto be developable or not.
But city really wants to make theones with no lane access
accessible.
And they talk about that with both
people.
today?
Yeah, for me, some of thetakeaway, like you said, we're not
just talking about lane accessnow.
And you can build as many or aslittle units as you want, really.
And we can finance both of themwith two very creative products
(01:54):
that are insured mortgages.
So minimum down payment, you go
with the MLI, you can stretch itout to 50 -year amortization.
Now, me putting on my investorhat.
analyzing these, they still don'tmake a huge amount of sense in
terms of return on investment.
However, it's not to say that
that's not going to happen soon.
Interest rates come down a little
bit.
Cool programs from the city of
(02:17):
Kelowna, like waiving propertytaxes for the next 10 years if
they're purpose -built rentals.
So they are getting this stuff
aligned.
It's just as soon as the stars
aligned, you want to be prepared.
So I think it's good education.
And yeah, reach out to the city'sgreat.
Awesome resource.
And Aaron as well.
Give the guy a call.
Oh my God.
They're both are.
Yeah.
It's funny.
Just thinking out loud here when
(02:38):
you were talking there, like, sobasically the interest rates are
almost the only thing that cancome down because land prices.
are likely not coming down or notcoming down significantly enough
to make a real difference, right?We were just talking off air about
the difference on these projects.
If you buy a land for 1 .1, or
even if you take 300K off of that,which is not going to happen, but
(02:59):
even if you did, like that's only300 ,000 off a four plus million
dollar project at the end.
That helps, not everything.
Inflation's like under controlnow, but prices aren't back down.
We're just up and there's notgoing up as fast anymore, right?
So like once prices are a certainway, they don't come back down.
So how does this get moreaffordable?
It seems to me like the interestrates are the only real lever.
Yeah, the interest rates, thelonger amortization with the MLS
Select, amortization with the MLSSelect, I think little incentives
(03:21):
like waiving the property tax oreven, I know this isn't going to
happen.
I spoke with the city about this,
but maybe in the long, longfuture, potentially like waiving
DCC fees.
during the build application and
incorporating it at time ofoccupancy permit or something like
that.
There's got to be some more
creative things in the pipelinethat make it more affordable to at
least get the unit there and thenconsolidate that in the financing.
(03:42):
So I think the direction the cityand the province are going, there
will be opportunities.
Can't really say exactly what they
are now.
But yeah, if you're looking at
just, hey, I want a cash flow, Idon't think these work in today's
market.
they're not far off now.
And also they might not cashflowtoday, they might not cashflow
today, but my God, would it benice to have a sixplex going to
(04:05):
Kelowna for the next 20, 30 years?Like, I don't think you're going
wrong with that at all.
Okay.
So really cool thing that Aaronhighlighted is his mindset when he
was doing the design.
thing that Aaron highlighted is
his mindset when he was doing thedesign.
And again, like his designs werebeautiful is like generational
type family living.
So this allows you to maybe have.
one or two units of rental income.
And then, you know, you split it
with a brother, a mother orwhatever kind of setup you want.
But if you have a current singlefamily house and you want to
(04:27):
convert it and have, you know,generational type family with some
rental income, that's a prettygood approach.
You know, it doesn't all have tocashflow.
If you're like, Hey, I want tolive in this area and provide
housing for my family and providesome rental income.
Here's an option.
So yeah, I think you guys are
going to love the show.
Reach out to those guys at any
(04:48):
point.
those guys at any point.
And remember, it's two halves, sokind of 15 minutes and then 20
minutes.
So they're awesome.
Yeah, yeah.
This show, like every show,
sponsored by Century 21 AssuranceRealty, the best brokerage in
town, the biggest brokerage intown, and my brokerage.
If you're an agent looking for achange or you want to go for
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So is Max Dean at our office.
And if you're a buyer or seller
looking for an agent, Century 21,place to go.
(05:10):
Or you can just call me.
All right.
Enjoy the show, guys.
Graham Allison from the city of
Kelowna, thanks for joining us,man.
How are you?Thanks for having me on, guys.
Yeah, I'm doing well.
Good.
Well, we want to dive straightinto the information that you guys
have been working on.
I mean, I would imagine your
department has been just buried inpolicy changes and just evolution
of city planning over the lastlittle bit.
I think Matt's probably more up tospeed with all this knowledge,
(05:35):
being kind of boots on the ground.
But for myself and general
public...
Can you let us know what has
happened over the last 6 to 12months for planning, infill, fast
track, and where are we going?And we'll just go from there.
Sure thing.
Yeah.
So it has been a very busy coupleof months for us in the housing
policy department.
There's been some big major zoning
(05:55):
changes, which were dictated bythe provincial planning
legislation, which came intoeffect at the beginning of 2024.
Two major changes to zoning wouldbe the SSMUH, or the small scale
multi -unit housing reforms, whichbasically ordered cities over 5
,000 people to establish apermanent growth boundary and then
do basically blanket.
rezonings or prezonings of all.
single -family residential lotswithin that boundary to allow four
(06:15):
to six units.
So how that looks in the city of
Kelowna and how it's beenimplemented is within the core
area, all single -family lots havebeen rezoned to MF1, which is the
multifamily one housing zone.
The MF1 zone allows for up to six
units within three stories as ageneral rule.
(06:35):
Outside of the core area, in thesuburban neighborhoods, so we're
talking the Mission, some parts ofRotland, the RU1 zone has
essentially been changed to allowfour housing units.
So and that would be like twostory, four unit townhome, similar
to what sort of the existinginfill sort of around the hospital
in downtown looks like now.
The other change is the transit
-oriented areas, kind of areasaround major transit exchanges,
(06:57):
such as the Rutland Exchange,around the Pandosi Urban Center,
and around Orchard Mall have beenrezoned to allow up to 10 stories,
and those don't have any parkingminimums.
But, you know, as it affectsinfill housing, the small -scale
multi -unit is sort of the majorchange for the majority of single
-family laws within the city.
For the parking variance, or like
no parking, is that a city orprovince -wide thing?
(07:20):
I know in Vancouver, they'veestablished it, but.
Yeah, so it's a provincialmandate.
So essentially what it says isthat the city can't enforce a
minimum parking requirement ondevelopments within that area.
It doesn't mean that no parking isgoing to get built.
Obviously, developers are stillgoing to build units that they
think they can sell.
In a city like Kelowna, those
usually will include a parkingstall.
(07:41):
But, you know, general kind ofplanning scholarship over the last
kind of. 20 years has found thatthe way that cities determine
these parking minimums aren'tnecessarily the most scientific.
So by not enforcing a strictminimum, it's more about letting
the market decide how much parkingcan be allotted to these units
while still making themfinancially feasible to build.
Okay.
And then in terms of like, you
know, for future planning, whatdoes the city want to see?
(08:03):
Like, what is your ideal kind ofland development info?
Obviously you've, you guys havecome out with a fast track, which
is like an amazing.
concept and it's being utilized
right now.
Is that the direction like the
city wants to go is essentiallyfast, efficient building of
density?Yeah, the way that the city's laid
out our official community plan isto get the most density around our
urban centers or our largestemployment centers and also try to
(08:26):
channel more of that density insort of the six story typology
along transit supportivecorridors.
So this is to get that kind ofcritical mass around places where
then we can begin to expand ourtransit options and our mass
transit.
Everything else around there,
since we don't have space tocontinue greenfield developments
in new single family housing, isto build what we call missing
middle, which is essentiallymultifamily housing that still
falls under that single familyhousing part of the building code.
(08:48):
It's part nine in the BC buildingcode.
So generally, if you were to builda single family house, you don't
need to go through a form ofcharacter, you know, a development
permit process to just build asingle family house.
Generally for four plexes, threeplexes and up, we require a form
and character development permit.
So the intent of the fast track
process is to make it so that wecan still meet those form and
(09:10):
character guidelines that areestablished by our official
community plan, but withoutneeding to have a three to four
month kind of turnaround to do arezoning in the development
permit.
So the FastTrack essentially takes
pre -approved designs that staffhave approved that meet all of our
OCP guidelines, as well as ourbuilding and permitting
guidelines.
And so when an application comes
(09:30):
through, we can issue thatdevelopment permit and building
permit in the same timeframe.
So make it so that an application
for a fourplex or a sixplexfollows a similar timeline to what
a single family house buildingpermit application would follow.
Yeah, it's wild that this wasn'tdone earlier.
Like now that you guys have...
executed it, it's like, wow, this
is a pretty good idea, right?Well, yeah.
And interestingly, the cityactually did introduce a fast
(09:52):
track process.
I believe it was... between 2015
and 2022.
It's for a lot smaller area, sort
of the area between downtown andthe hospital on those lots that
are kind of lane loaded where youstarted to see more and more
fourplexes.
There were two designs that won a
competition back in those daysthat were fast track eligible.
And we ended up getting, you know,dozens of those lots developed
(10:14):
into those fast track houses.
So you can kind of see them if you
go through those neighborhoods.
And they sort of helped catalyze
the development of other infillhousing within that neighborhood
as they gave people.
kind of an idea of what those site
plans and parking layouts couldlook like.
So that program ended a couple ofyears ago, partly because people
were just starting to complainabout the fact that we had only
(10:37):
two designs that were sort ofgetting repeatedly built in that
small area.
So the new Fast Track de -applied
throughout the entire core area.
We started with four designs.
And then those designs have somedifferent variations within them.
And now we're working on addingmore and more designs and lot
types to that fast track so we canget more diversity throughout the
city, unlock new lots, and try toexpand that infill housing to
(10:59):
other population centers likeRutland and Glenmore, et cetera.
Do you guys just take like newpermits that come in, like a new
style fourplex that gets approvedand then be like, wow, let's add
this to our fast track program.
It was beautiful.
We're not at that point yet.
It's possible that we could get
there in the future.
The way that we did it for this
phase is we had a designcompetition for architects a
(11:20):
couple of years back called theinfill challenge, which was
targeted at unlocking lots thataren't accessed by a lane.
So front loaded lots to get somedesign ideas for that.
We then took those and adaptedthem to the new zoning changes
when that small scale multi -unithousing legislation was adopted.
Nice.
to roll it out with these zoning
changes.
But moving forward, we want to add
more and more lots that wouldn'tnecessarily come to that
(11:41):
architecture style competition.
So it is possible that we'll have
something like that in the future,but not at this point.
Nice.
Yeah, I guess when you move into
areas like Rutland, where thereisn't like downtown and lower
admission, Kelowna Celtic aroundthe hospital, they all have lanes,
but I guess in Rutland, lessprevalent, eh?
Yeah, it's less prevalent and itcan be a lot trickier to fit that
parking, landscaping and kind ofgarbage facilities all within
those lots.
So that is one of the benefits of
(12:02):
having a competition is you canhave designers kind of try to meet
that challenge.
But one of the things that's been
really successful about thatoriginal infill area is that it
was lane access.
So you could really easily just
fit that garage coming right offthe lane.
So figuring out parking isdefinitely one of the barriers to
all housing, but to infill housingespecially.
Yeah, interesting.
I know a guy that's building a
(12:23):
fourplex.
I think the lot can have six or
five, but he's doing a fourplexand then parking and then...
Putting a fifth unit above theparking.
Yeah.
Outside the box.
Way to think about it.
Oh, definitely.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So what about like with OCP, isthere any room for like applying
for variants or like anything likethat?
One comes to mind.
I have a listing down and by the
hospital that's just shy of thesize needed for six stories.
(12:44):
I think it's.
1 ,400 meters, you need 1 ,400
square meters, is that right?It's like 1 ,370 or something.
Is that just off the table or isthere room for an application for
a variance there?Not that I know.
that I know.
I'm not one of the development
planners, so I couldn't answer ona project by project whether or
not they'd support a variance.
But with single stair egress being
(13:06):
allowed by the BC Building Codeand being adopted in the near
future, there could be a change inhow we approach those sort of
lots.
But for me, I'd say that I'm not
sure, really.
That's what I've been telling
people too.
Yeah.
Personally, I would try to avoidgetting like individual variance
questions as part of this justbecause.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
It wasn't specifically about that.
I was more just in general, right?
Do people like, is this the rulesand that's the way it is?
(13:30):
Or is there room for like kind ofsmudging the edges is what I was
wondering.
Yeah.
the Yeah.
I mean, variances can happen on a
site -by -site basis ifdevelopment staff determine that,
you know, the benefits outweighthe risks.
And with the new building codeupdates, that could be more likely
on smaller lots for multi -storydevelopments above just MF1.
But, you know, know, it alldepends on where the lot is.
I think this is why you guys cameout with, you know, similar like
(13:50):
fast track program though, right?Is to stop going to like public
hearings to stop kind of wasting alot of time reviewing and debating
all of that stuff where it's like,here's a black and white.
This is what's going to beapproved and this is what's not.
Especially for infill, that was amulti -year process.
The first step was getting rid ofthat rezoning.
And really the biggest step forinfill housing is getting rid of
the need to individually have torezone a lot.
(14:12):
It adds so much time.
It adds a ton of costs and a lot
of uncertainty where now we havebasically any lot in the city.
If you wanted to take it and buildfour to six units, you can.
So that alone increases thetimeline.
And we just tried to take as manysteps to say, if the building code
classifies this as a single familyhouse, then how can we make it so
that we can get these built asquickly as we can with single
(14:35):
family homes so we can get thatsupply and we can cover that
deficit of housing.
Yeah.
I know like when you go fartherout of town, like talking about
areas like Crawford and McKinley,like they have septic systems
everywhere.
Is there any plan for that?
Or is those kind of just beingsitting there where they are for
now until a sewer comes throughor?
Yeah.
If they're not serviced by sewer.
The zoning changes don't impactthem.
(14:55):
So they are still sitting in aplace where they're more almost
considered, you know, countryresidential or it's not in this
core area where we want to focusthe majority of our housing
development.
Part of this is making sure that
we can upgrade existing servicingand get our infrastructure to a
place where it can support thatmultifamily in the established
areas of the city rather thanexpanding kind of our sewage
service outside of that.
I mean, obviously, those are
important projects for the future.
(15:16):
But, you know, the majority of our
housing changes.
The last few years have been
focused on the establishedneighborhoods rather than... I
guess it's easier to getinfrastructure and servicing
traffic and all that.
guess it's easier to get
infrastructure and servicingtraffic and all that.
Yeah, and the long -term goal isto have the infrastructure that we
can maintain more easily, whichworks better in a more dense city.
Yeah, no doubt.
We're going to record with Aaron
(15:36):
right after this and get into thefast track, how he's developed his
drawings and renderings.
Before we do that, can you just
briefly summarize the changebetween the RU and the MF?
What is the major differencebetween those two designations?
I mean, RU is basically gone now,right?
RU essentially was our singlefamily housing typology, whereas
MF is a multifamily housingtypology.
essentially was our single familyhousing typology, whereas MF is a
multifamily housing typology.
For the majority of Kelowna's
(15:58):
existence, the majority of ourhousing was single family.
And so that RE7 zone kind ofrepresented a really gentle
transition from that single familyhousing to more of a multifamily
typology.
Now that we've started to grow
even more in the last couple ofyears, shifting that multifamily
into the core area and keepingkind of a higher density.
single family out in the suburbshas become more of the shift since
we can't keep building singlefamily outward.
So essentially like moving from RUkind of smaller scale single
(16:20):
family infill typology to a moreintense one around our urban
centers and within our core areais just kind of the best way that
we can keep diverse housingtypologies while still having sort
of a smaller scale neighborhoodfeel, you know, within the core
area.
and then shifting downward as we
go towards the outskirts of thecity.
Yeah, I love it.
I love it too.
it too.
Yeah.
Okay, man.
Well, yeah, I know that was pretty
jam -packed for information, butyeah, we appreciate you coming on
(16:41):
and sharing that.
And I mean, I guess really the
next step for people, if they'relooking at buying an infill lot or
they have an existing one, let'sjust go to the city, right?
Like contact you guys.
Don't you have like an AI chat now
as well?Like a lot of this stuff is
online.
Yeah.
If you're looking for infilleligibility, we have a chat bot on
(17:02):
our website, colonna ca slash infill.
You can get all the info you needon infill housing there, on the
fast track program, what lots areeligible.
And then our planning departmentis happy to answer any questions.
Planning info at colonna .ca.
We always have planners monitoring
that phone line and inbox andanswering questions to the best of
our ability.
Yeah.
You guys are awesome.
(17:24):
You guys are awesome.
Like very good.
Yeah.
You guys are putting on eventswith middle housing, middle class,
like just a lot of.
good information that i feel was
kind of smoking mirrors 10 yearsago you know so also yeah and then
when you send an email it getsanswered so yeah i can't say
enough about that's been awesomegood to get good reviews yeah no
(17:46):
we need a lot of housing and we'rereally trying to meet that demand
yeah awesome well appreciate yourtime yeah thanks for having me on
guys yeah and then when you sendan email it gets answered so yeah
i can't say enough about that'sbeen awesome to get good reviews
yeah no we need a lot of housingand we're really trying to meet
that demand yeah awesome wellappreciate your time yeah thanks
for having me on guys Okay, guys,part two here.
(18:08):
We're going to jump on with Aaronfrom Sandbox, S -N -D -B -O -X.
Super cool guy.
I think you guys are going to love
this part of the show.
Great energy and yeah, just a good
dude to connect with.
And both of these people that we
just talked to are open foremails.
So if you are curious aboutsomething or you want to get more
information, like fire them anemail.
They both answer and they're bothawesome.
Yeah, Aaron's not really on socialmedia because he works, unlike
(18:30):
Matt and I. Yeah.
That's like the trope of an agent
is the more they post on socialmedia, usually the less sales are
doing for the end of work times.
I was going to say, man, you're
posting a lot right now.
Yeah.
That works for everybody exceptfor me, Taylor.
Come on.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Enjoy part two, guys.
Okay, welcome to the show, Aaron
Whalen.
How are you, man?
(18:51):
Good, thank you.
Yeah, thanks for coming.
So I met you, or watched yourpresentation at a middle housing
event put on by City of Kelowna,and I thought your presentation
was incredibly awesome.
Renderings were super cool and
just valuable information that wecould take that and inform our
listener.
Do you want to give us kind of a
real high -level summary of whoyou are, what you're doing, and go
from there?Yeah, my name is Aaron Whalen.
Ontario and went to school inToronto for architecture.
I started designing custom homesin the Muskoka area, some pretty
high -end stuff early on in mycareer.
And then eventually that moved meout west to pursue more of an
active lifestyle.
I started working for larger
firms, doing everything fromapartment housing to hospitals,
(19:12):
airports, everything in themiddle.
And I've spent the last 10 years.
In Kelowna, getting to know the
city, getting to know theprovince, I've kind of taken all
that experience and synthesized itinto this so far one -man studio
sandbox, just focusing on kind ofmiddle housing.
So everything in between theapartment housing and the custom
family homes, try to provide a bitof an answer to the housing crisis
in Kelowna and the province thatwe're facing right now.
And hopefully that'll be more likeexplorative, innovative forms of
(19:33):
housing.
But so far, it's only about a year
into the... journey.
So yeah, lots of changes, lots of
new stuff.
Yeah.
How did you know that that was theniche, like the middle housing
infill?Did you just see that opportunity?
Or I mean, we can talk about thisright away too, is the fast track
system in Kelowna, which is...
(19:54):
essentially what this podcast is
based around.
You were one of the winners of
that program.
So is that what was the catalyst
for you to start this?It's a great question.
Yes, it was an offspring of thecompetition back in 2021.
I did follow the originalcompetition, which would have been
1 .0.
The one that I was part of was the
2 .0 put on by the city ofKelowna.
(20:15):
But I watched very closely whathappened to the first one and all
of the infill development thathappened.
in the city as a result of that itwas crazy it just caught like
wildfire there's infills poppingup everywhere like very close to
where i live downtown and you knowsome of them are great some of
them maybe not so much like ithink there was some room for
(20:39):
improvement and yeah i reallywanted to give the competition a
solid go just to see if i couldthrow something in the mix that
was a little bit different camesecond place which is great
Something about that middlehousing scale that's very
intimate, but you can also make alarge impact on the community
through it.
(21:00):
It's not just an apartment
building or a tower that takes twoplus years to build.
These things are designed andbuilt within a year.
So you can make an impact veryquickly.
And I think that's where I reallyenjoy architecture is being able
to make community impact.
So it's been a good go as a result
of the competition.
That's awesome.
So what did you design for thecompetition?
Did you design a fourplex?Yeah.
(21:21):
So the original competition wasusing the original zoning bylaw.
Like we just recently went througha kind of a provincial change of
bylaws and densities.
Yeah.
So it really shook things up quitea bit.
That was post competition, right?So city of Kelowna was trying to
be, and they were veryprogressive, you know, putting on
the competition.
And I think it was extremely
successful.
And the province almost threw a
wrench in the whole thing by, youknow, increasing the density and
(21:43):
kind of maybe relaxing some of thesetbacks.
But yeah, originally it was a fourunit infill and it was mainly
around, you know, trying to creatediversity and resilience, you
know, with a bit of anenvironmental flavor behind it,
all with affordability on mine.
Right.
So I approached it in a way where.
Instead of doing like replicable
units, I would have four differentsizes catering to a different
(22:04):
audience to try to bring togetherlike multi -generational living.
That was kind of the premise of itall.
And, you know, we won thecompetition, but then we're like
tasked to redesign it to takeadvantage of some of those
provincial mandates.
So we tried to keep the theme the
same, but, you know, maybe bumpsome of the density.
And yeah, now there's a five unitversion too.
as a result of that yeah theoriginal contest was this is the
(22:27):
lot size you guys go for it likethat was essentially the parameter
yeah more or less they gave uslike you know setbacks max
coverage parking you knowrequirements kind of the normal
stuff that you would need todesign an infill you know with a
bit of relaxation but more or lessyou know follow these rules and
(22:48):
try to create somethinginteresting what's the size of the
lot you guys used the originalcontest was this is the lot size
you guys go for it like that wasessentially the parameter more or
less they gave us like you knowsetbacks max coverage parking you
know requirements kind of thenormal stuff that you would need
to design an infill you know witha bit of relaxation but more or
(23:10):
less you know follow these rulesand try to create something
interesting the size of the lotyou guys used Yeah, it was a 21
meter wide by 38 meter deepparcel, flat, you know, non
laneway loaded.
So, you know, vehicular access has
to come from the street.
And that was basically covering
off the majority of lots inKelowna that the first
competition, you know, didn'tcover.
That was all specific to lanewaylots in that kind of downtown core
(23:34):
areas.
This was just, you know, more of
those suburban.
Rutland lots and even in Lower
Mission, Glenmore, there's tens ofthousands of lots.
Can you give a brief summary ofthe fast track as well in terms of
like, you give a brief summary ofthe fast track as well in terms of
like, if somebody's listening tothis and they're like, hey, that's
(23:57):
my lot.
I want to do some infill.
What do they do?Now essentially there's these
designs that you and some otherarchitects have provided to the
city and the city's put theirstamp of approval on it and says
anyone can come in and essentiallydo a BP, DP and rock and roll.
incredibly fast but they have touse your specific approved design
right yeah that's right so thereare four designs or four different
(24:20):
designers as part of this which isis really interesting because
after you know we found out we hadwon and it was moving forward to
this fast track program i hadactually reached out to the other
designers to create a bit of aconversation around like hey let's
work together let's not try tothat's right so there are four
designs or four differentdesigners as part of this which is
(24:42):
is really interesting becauseafter you know we found out we had
won and it was moving forward tothis fast track program i had
actually reached out to the otherdesigners to create a bit of a
conversation around like hey let'swork together let's not try to
compete against each other let'stry to do this together so during
that process we became pretty goodfriends and there was a lot of
learning there and we kind ofhelped tailor that fast track
program at least from the designerside as best we could so
essentially we tried to price themall the same and we tried to have
the same amount of information ineach package so somebody from the
public could you know choose itbased on the design and not, you
know, what's included in thatpackage or, you know, what's
(25:04):
cheaper or et cetera.
So essentially you would come to
any of the designers and there's apre -approved development permit
and building permit ready to go.
And that includes like structural
design, energy modeling,landscape, all of the requirements
that you would need that usuallytake months of work.
It's kind of ready to go.
The only thing we would have to do
is get a survey of the lot, adaptthe site plan to it, and then just
kind of put our seal of approvalon it for the city.
(25:26):
They already trust us and thepackage is ready to go.
Awesome.
So do you know, has anyone used
your design yet?Do you know?
They haven't.
I've had a lot of phone calls.
It was a bit slow.
I think, you know, the industry as
a whole has been a bit rattledwith interest rates and land
prices are just so high, right?Part of the success in the first
(25:49):
go around was just the land priceswere low and interest rates were
low, right?Yeah.
I think now we're getting a lot ofcalls and a lot of interested
people, but yeah, no one's reallylike 100 % jumped on.
I think it's cool that you guyscollectively have kind of...
almost worked yourself out of ajob just in terms of like future
so it's not like people need tonow pay geotopo architect
engineers over and over and overagain to do essentially the same
thing right like that fee isbundled up in one application and
that's paid to mostly the city ofcolonna now like that's why they
put on this contest is that kindof right like is it about a 15 000
application or something or yeahall of the four unit designs are
think it's cool that you guyscollectively have kind of...
(26:11):
almost worked yourself out of ajob just in terms of like future
so it's not like people need tonow pay geotopo architect
engineers over and over and overagain to do essentially the same
thing right like that fee isbundled up in one application and
that's paid to mostly the city ofcolonna now like that's why they
put on this contest is that kindof right like is it about a 15 000
(26:33):
application or something or all ofthe four unit designs are priced
at 15 ,000, which includes all ofthe consulting work and everything
kind of needed to make thatapplication.
I would have to contact energymodeling and structural just to
get people updated addresses.
And I have to do the site plan,
but yeah, you're saving quite abit of money.
(26:54):
Like the soft costs alone areusually probably 50 plus thousand
dollars for all of that.
And you're saving a considerable
amount of money and you're gettingit quick.
Right.
So I think, you know, Generally,
the response we've gotten so faris that everyone loves the
rendering, loves the imagery.
Most people who aren't developers
and are doing this for themselveswant to make floor plan tweaks and
kind of cater it for their ownuse, which is, I guess, not
(27:15):
surprising.
But it's challenging when you're
trying to maintain the fast trackturnaround time, but also adding
extra units.
Do you ever just want to be a
smart ass and be like, yeah, no,absolutely.
So if you just use a slow trackprogram, we can start from square
one.
Yeah, that's pretty funny.
If anyone hasn't seen therenderings, they're beautiful.
You guys have done a pretty cooljob.
pretty job.
(27:36):
As a realtor, how do I know what
lot would apply for?Just any lot that's...
Would you say 21 by 38 meters?Yeah, this is a really good
question because most of thepeople who ask me have a lot that
doesn't conform.
And we're finding that depth is a
really big one.
And that 38 meters deep, at least
for mosaic, which would besandbox, it's pretty like pivotal.
(27:56):
And I also represent Miguel out ofMexico.
who was the first place winner, isProject Maple Terraces.
And he and I have a bit of anarrangement so I can facilitate
some of the phone calls andinterest here locally.
Nice.
But, you know, between his and two
by two architectures design on thecoast, I think they have a bit
more flexibility with lot size,whereas I really pigeonholed
myself into a 21 by 38 meter size.
But yeah, so.
I've had real estate agents ask,and I've given them a bit of a cut
sheet just of, you know, this isthe size.
These are the things to watch outfor.
So you want to try to getsomething that's relatively flat,
that doesn't have any easementsthrough it.
Hydro lines are usually a big one,making sure that hydro lines
aren't encroaching the property.
Will it work on a corner lot?
Yes, it will work on a corner lot.
Whether the city of Kelowna will
see it as a fast track approveddesign is yet to be determined,
(28:17):
but I am quite confident thatMosaic would be a great.
corner lot candidate.
Typically the corner lots are a
little bit narrower, but you don'thave to provide that like drive
aisle off the street for garageaccess.
You can just use the side streetand be perfect.
use side street be perfect.
Yeah.
Interesting.
I'm just wondering, so like, would
you be okay if a realtor like justadvertise your design as the
(28:39):
potential to go here?Would the city be okay with that
or?Absolutely.
I think that's kind of what it'sfor.
that's kind of what it's for.
It's, you know, it's to show
potential and if it helps sell aproject going that it works like.
Why not?Like that's the whole point of
this.
I'd love to see as many of them as
(29:01):
I can in Kelowna.
It's awesome because like I myself
have a few of these listingscurrently and also coming up and
I'm like, man, you know, like youtake the drone photos to advertise
and then like, I don't want to gopay a developer or go to pay a
(29:23):
designer.
I always want you to do a design
that nobody's going to use.
But if you have one of these
already ready to go, that helpsyou too.
I feel like that would beextraordinarily helpful for me and
also all the other agents working.
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
Is it in the GIS or like where
city of Kelowna like flags thoseautomatically now?
(29:44):
Like, Hey, this is fast trackapplicable.
They have an internal databasewith those.
I'm not sure if it's publicknowledge of which lots qualify,
but I think they're kind of chatbot filters them out for you.
So if you punch in your address,it'll give you a yes or no. Okay.
I do feel like the chat bot is abit misleading.
(30:05):
Like AI, I'll do that.
Yeah, well, I think it
generalizes, right?It's not as smart as they would
hope it would be.
Because I think you can adapt
these designs to lots that aremaybe just outside the norm.
And I think it's really up to thedesigner to work with the city of
Kelowna to affirm that the designcomplies.
It's not a problem with thebuilding code.
(30:26):
It should be accelerated, right?Yeah.
does like the design that maybegets a no from the chatbot to
still contact the designer becauseit still might work.
because it still might work.
So for myself and any agents
listening or any people that arecurious about their own house,
what's the best way to find outlike the chatbot or like what
about firing you an email?You're going to get absolutely
inundated with all of ourlisteners.
(30:47):
I'm thinking thousands.
You'll have to hire an assistant
just to reply to these emails.
Create my own chatbot.
Yeah.
Sandbot.
Please send me an email.
I love like the early.
phase of you know exploring likewill it work you know that's kind
of exciting time and it doesn'ttake long like it might be five
minutes out of my day which is nota lot but the chatbot on the city
(31:11):
of Kelowna is also very effectiveand I think they've got some
talented engineers behind that soit's a very instantaneous yes or
no I can just see Matt having likea three hour long conversation
with the chatbot just back andforth what about this lot no what
about this I'd really appreciateit if we could meet for coffee
yeah yeah that's can just see Matthaving like a three hour long
conversation with the chatbot justback and forth about this lot no
what about this I'd reallyappreciate it if we could meet for
(31:33):
coffee yeah yeah What do you meanthe files are in the computer?
What are the next steps forFastTrack?
Is there going to be a FastTrack 3.0?
What's next?What's on the horizon?
I don't know.
How much did the city guys tell
you?They're going to try to expand
this FastTrack library.
I don't think that's private news.
The idea is to create a robustlibrary so it's not just for
designs.
20, 30, 50, these designs could be
applied to Kelowna, hopefullyother municipalities, Vernon,
Penticton, stuff like that wouldbe great.
(31:54):
But yeah, I think that is comingpretty soon.
I think the city of Kelowna isactively trying to sort out what
the next wave will look like.
Maybe they're after like different
size lots.
Maybe they're opening it up to,
you know, whatever design,whatever shape a lot.
If it's a great design that theyfeel comfortable with, then maybe
they just offer it.
Wave is a perfect description for
it.
I do feel like this is the next
(32:16):
big thing for our city to densifyas well as just grow and become
like a more beautiful place tolive in because some of these
designs are awesome, but it's sucha daunting task for, you know.
Us common folk to walk up to a lotand be like, huh, what are we
going to do here?And yeah, you're right.
The soft costs are likeextraordinarily high to even get
(32:39):
to the point to see if it's worthgoing after.
One cool connection.
So we interviewed Steven Jagger
off of Addy probably about 15episodes ago.
And, you know, speaking with him.
They're actually like testing out
the fast track and buying it andfunding it from Addy.
So not only is it like the fasttrack program, but it's funded
from their platform.
So I could see like that just like
catching on fire, right?If these buildings going up and
(33:00):
being financed, if it works, Ithink the other thing to point out
that we haven't spoke about, whichcould be a great opportunity is
like, if these are purpose builtrentals over, you know.
five units and above, like MLISelect is a perfect fit for this.
So, you know, we're going toactually speak about that in a
couple episodes, but up to 50-year amortizations, really good
(33:21):
rates.
So you said five units and above.
rates.
So you said five units and above.
Is there a design for five unitsand above or are they all just
four units?Yeah.
So when we were given the optionto redesign it for the new
provincial mandates, we made surethat there was a five -unit option
to take advantage of MLI Select.
which is very strategic.
I do know Steven and I know theAddy platform quite well.
We've got a project going up,hopefully shortly in the new year
here.
And it's through the Addy
platform.
It's on Ethel Street.
It's actually already gone throughthe first kind of phase of the
Addy investment.
So that project should be going up
(33:42):
soon.
And I love what they're doing.
It's a great way to get realestate and projects going.
Yeah, absolutely.
So just to linger on this, because
I know a lot of lots now are zonedfor six units in Kelowna.
Is there going to be a six unit?Can you see Fast Track 3 .0
(34:04):
including a six unit?Can yours go to six, sir?
Yeah, well, I'm hoping that whenthe city opens up this next wave,
actually I already have a six unitready to go.
Nice.
It's very different.
I think with Sandbox, I'm tryingto push the boundaries a little
bit.
designs maybe a bit more
(34:24):
adventurous.
And I think, you know, some people
love it, some people might not somuch, but I do think that six
units is very challenging.
The livability of it is tricky,
right?And if you want to really follow
the zoning and have six parkingstalls with six units, you know,
that's a lot of cars.
Yeah, it must be like mostly road
on the lot.
I know, it's very challenging.
So we have to think of like newcreative ways of tackling the
(34:48):
vehicle.
troubles, right?
right?And try to make it, you know,
livable and not just a parkinglot, like you say.
Yeah, yeah.
I feel like you guys are really
ahead of the curve on this.
You guys being Sandbox and City of
Kelowna, because yeah, MLISelect's been around for a long
time, but as well as, you know,there's insured mortgage up to 90
% loan to value on exactly whatyou guys are doing is like infill
(35:09):
up to four units.
So there wasn't that a month ago.
Really, these are... much moreattractive financing terms and
people are able to take advantageof that.
It's already set up.
You have the design, financing's
there.
It's just about, you know, pulling
the trigger on it.
So kudos to you and City of
Kelowna for evolutionary state ofmind.
Yeah, thank you.
mind.
Yeah, thank you.
Yeah, trying our best.
I think, you know, if you kind oflook beyond Kelowna, like what the
(35:32):
provincial, you know,standardization designs look like,
I think there's a lot ofchallenges there.
I don't think those designs, likeas beautiful as they are, I don't
think they work.
I think what Kelowna is doing is
something really amazing where allthe projects that they're
marketing, they all work.
So it's pretty cool.
Yeah, How can we support you orhow can people get in contact?
Do you follow you, Instagram,whatever?
Like if people are interested inyour business and fast track
(35:53):
program and your designs, how canwe find out more about you?
I'm pretty quiet on social mediaand LinkedIn and all the platforms
because I'm usually producingwork, pretty quiet on social media
and LinkedIn and all the platformsbecause I'm usually producing
work, but...
Wait, what are you saying?
You're saying Matt and I don'twork?
You're absolutely right.
These things, there's so much work
that goes into like hundreds andhundreds of hours of just me
(36:14):
clicking buttons.
So I'm really hoping to like have
a bit of, you know, social mediapresence eventually.
But I do have an Instagramaccount, Sandbox, S -N -D -B -O
-X.
Yeah, you can find my website,
which will hopefully have morethan one project on it soon.
Email Aaron at Sandbox, S -N -D -B-O -X dot C -A.
Awesome.
It's probably the easiest way.
probably the easiest way.
You can find the contact on the
(36:36):
City of Kelowna website too, underthe Kelowna
ca slash info.
Cool.
One other question before we letyou go.
Cost to build, high level, likeper square foot.
What are people looking at foryour design?
We've done some cost estimating.
done some cost estimating.
I think like a pretty baselinespec, meaning like, you know,
hardy board siding and...
Vinyl flooring, nothing crazy.
You're probably looking at $280,$285 a square foot.
(36:56):
Obviously, if you start wanting tobump those finishes, you're
probably in the lowest threes,like $315, $325 a square foot bill
costs.
So I think it's very reasonable
and competitive, and it's not thatscary.
And the units aren't so large thatthat number doesn't balloon,
right?It's very strategic to try to keep
the unit sizes small enough so thecost per square footage cost
doesn't blow the mortgage out ofthe water for first -time
(37:18):
homebuyers and people looking todownsize.
Yeah.
Cool, man.
Well, yeah.
That's awesome.
Really appreciate everythingyou're doing in the city, and
thanks for your time coming on theshow.
Yeah.
Thanks so much for reaching out.
It's always fun to chat aboutthis.
And I will be firing you an emailabout this kind of thing.
Oh, please do.
Your drawing is going to be posted
on like nine of Matt's listingsnow, whether it's applicable or
not.
or not.
(37:39):
You're not on social media now,but you will be in about a week or
so.
Better hire that chatbot soon.
All right, Aaron, have a greatday, man.
Thanks a lot.
Thanks, guys.
Welcome back to the Kelowna RealEstate Podcast.
(00:01):
I'm your mortgage broker host,Taylor Atkinson.
And I'm your real estate agenthost, Matt Glen.
What's happening today, Taylor?Good show today, man.
We double dipped.
That's a twofer.
Yeah.
Graham Allison from City of
Kelowna, come on.
Talk about all things owning.
We obviously saw some massivechanges provincially and in our
own municipality.
Basically, just talking about
changing from the RU to the MF,what that means, what directions
(00:23):
the city's going, and provinciallykind of what's happening.
The fast track and...
Fast Track competition?
Yeah.
And then part two to this show, we
brought on Aaron Whalen, who wasone of the winners for the Fast
Track program.
So if you haven't heard about
that, basically City of Kelownaput on a competition to help
promote infill.
And it's like a $15 ,000.
You purchase this product, has therenderings, has the architectural
(00:49):
approval, the city approval.
You still have to do a survey, but
it is like, hey.
Here's your BPDP.
Go build what's already approved.
So really cool program with a lot
of evolution behind it.
So kudos to the city of Kelowna.
Yeah, it's kind of the way theepisode is.
First half, talking to the city.
(01:09):
Second half, talking with the
designer.
It's pretty cool.
It's very interesting for theinfill in our city, like not just
downtown where traditionally it'sbeen downtown kind of.
Martin Stockwell, that area.
And then the other side, which is
around the hospital, basically theentire flat area of Kelowna.
So like Springfield Small,Rutland, Rutland North, Rutland
South.
It's exciting.
Big emphasis on properties todevelop that don't have lane
access, which for the last fewyears has been like a major, you
(01:33):
can just tell right away when youwalk up to a property, if it has a
lane access or not, if it's goingto be developable or not.
But city really wants to make theones with no lane access
accessible.
And they talk about that with both
people.
today?
Yeah, for me, some of thetakeaway, like you said, we're not
just talking about lane accessnow.
And you can build as many or aslittle units as you want, really.
And we can finance both of themwith two very creative products
(01:54):
that are insured mortgages.
So minimum down payment, you go
with the MLI, you can stretch itout to 50 -year amortization.
Now, me putting on my investorhat.
analyzing these, they still don'tmake a huge amount of sense in
terms of return on investment.
However, it's not to say that
that's not going to happen soon.
Interest rates come down a little
bit.
Cool programs from the city of
(02:17):
Kelowna, like waiving propertytaxes for the next 10 years if
they're purpose -built rentals.
So they are getting this stuff
aligned.
It's just as soon as the stars
aligned, you want to be prepared.
So I think it's good education.
And yeah, reach out to the city'sgreat.
Awesome resource.
And Aaron as well.
Give the guy a call.
Oh my God.
They're both are.
Yeah.
It's funny.
Just thinking out loud here when
(02:38):
you were talking there, like, sobasically the interest rates are
almost the only thing that cancome down because land prices.
are likely not coming down or notcoming down significantly enough
to make a real difference, right?We were just talking off air about
the difference on these projects.
If you buy a land for 1 .1, or
even if you take 300K off of that,which is not going to happen, but
(02:59):
even if you did, like that's only300 ,000 off a four plus million
dollar project at the end.
That helps, not everything.
Inflation's like under controlnow, but prices aren't back down.
We're just up and there's notgoing up as fast anymore, right?
So like once prices are a certainway, they don't come back down.
So how does this get moreaffordable?
It seems to me like the interestrates are the only real lever.
Yeah, the interest rates, thelonger amortization with the MLS
Select, amortization with the MLSSelect, I think little incentives
(03:21):
like waiving the property tax oreven, I know this isn't going to
happen.
I spoke with the city about this,
but maybe in the long, longfuture, potentially like waiving
DCC fees.
during the build application and
incorporating it at time ofoccupancy permit or something like
that.
There's got to be some more
creative things in the pipelinethat make it more affordable to at
least get the unit there and thenconsolidate that in the financing.
(03:42):
So I think the direction the cityand the province are going, there
will be opportunities.
Can't really say exactly what they
are now.
But yeah, if you're looking at
just, hey, I want a cash flow, Idon't think these work in today's
market.
they're not far off now.
And also they might not cashflowtoday, they might not cashflow
today, but my God, would it benice to have a sixplex going to
(04:05):
Kelowna for the next 20, 30 years?Like, I don't think you're going
wrong with that at all.
Okay.
So really cool thing that Aaronhighlighted is his mindset when he
was doing the design.
thing that Aaron highlighted is
his mindset when he was doing thedesign.
And again, like his designs werebeautiful is like generational
type family living.
So this allows you to maybe have.
one or two units of rental income.
And then, you know, you split it
with a brother, a mother orwhatever kind of setup you want.
But if you have a current singlefamily house and you want to
(04:27):
convert it and have, you know,generational type family with some
rental income, that's a prettygood approach.
You know, it doesn't all have tocashflow.
If you're like, Hey, I want tolive in this area and provide
housing for my family and providesome rental income.
Here's an option.
So yeah, I think you guys are
going to love the show.
Reach out to those guys at any
(04:48):
point.
those guys at any point.
And remember, it's two halves, sokind of 15 minutes and then 20
minutes.
So they're awesome.
Yeah, yeah.
This show, like every show,
sponsored by Century 21 AssuranceRealty, the best brokerage in
town, the biggest brokerage intown, and my brokerage.
If you're an agent looking for achange or you want to go for
coffee and talk about it, I'malways open.
So is Max Dean at our office.
And if you're a buyer or seller
looking for an agent, Century 21,place to go.
(05:10):
Or you can just call me.
All right.
Enjoy the show, guys.
Graham Allison from the city of
Kelowna, thanks for joining us,man.
How are you?Thanks for having me on, guys.
Yeah, I'm doing well.
Good.
Well, we want to dive straightinto the information that you guys
have been working on.
I mean, I would imagine your
department has been just buried inpolicy changes and just evolution
of city planning over the lastlittle bit.
I think Matt's probably more up tospeed with all this knowledge,
(05:35):
being kind of boots on the ground.
But for myself and general
public...
Can you let us know what has
happened over the last 6 to 12months for planning, infill, fast
track, and where are we going?And we'll just go from there.
Sure thing.
Yeah.
So it has been a very busy coupleof months for us in the housing
policy department.
There's been some big major zoning
(05:55):
changes, which were dictated bythe provincial planning
legislation, which came intoeffect at the beginning of 2024.
Two major changes to zoning wouldbe the SSMUH, or the small scale
multi -unit housing reforms, whichbasically ordered cities over 5
,000 people to establish apermanent growth boundary and then
do basically blanket.
rezonings or prezonings of all.
single -family residential lotswithin that boundary to allow four
(06:15):
to six units.
So how that looks in the city of
Kelowna and how it's beenimplemented is within the core
area, all single -family lots havebeen rezoned to MF1, which is the
multifamily one housing zone.
The MF1 zone allows for up to six
units within three stories as ageneral rule.
(06:35):
Outside of the core area, in thesuburban neighborhoods, so we're
talking the Mission, some parts ofRotland, the RU1 zone has
essentially been changed to allowfour housing units.
So and that would be like twostory, four unit townhome, similar
to what sort of the existinginfill sort of around the hospital
in downtown looks like now.
The other change is the transit
-oriented areas, kind of areasaround major transit exchanges,
(06:57):
such as the Rutland Exchange,around the Pandosi Urban Center,
and around Orchard Mall have beenrezoned to allow up to 10 stories,
and those don't have any parkingminimums.
But, you know, as it affectsinfill housing, the small -scale
multi -unit is sort of the majorchange for the majority of single
-family laws within the city.
For the parking variance, or like
no parking, is that a city orprovince -wide thing?
(07:20):
I know in Vancouver, they'veestablished it, but.
Yeah, so it's a provincialmandate.
So essentially what it says isthat the city can't enforce a
minimum parking requirement ondevelopments within that area.
It doesn't mean that no parking isgoing to get built.
Obviously, developers are stillgoing to build units that they
think they can sell.
In a city like Kelowna, those
usually will include a parkingstall.
(07:41):
But, you know, general kind ofplanning scholarship over the last
kind of. 20 years has found thatthe way that cities determine
these parking minimums aren'tnecessarily the most scientific.
So by not enforcing a strictminimum, it's more about letting
the market decide how much parkingcan be allotted to these units
while still making themfinancially feasible to build.
Okay.
And then in terms of like, you
know, for future planning, whatdoes the city want to see?
(08:03):
Like, what is your ideal kind ofland development info?
Obviously you've, you guys havecome out with a fast track, which
is like an amazing.
concept and it's being utilized
right now.
Is that the direction like the
city wants to go is essentiallyfast, efficient building of
density?Yeah, the way that the city's laid
out our official community plan isto get the most density around our
urban centers or our largestemployment centers and also try to
(08:26):
channel more of that density insort of the six story typology
along transit supportivecorridors.
So this is to get that kind ofcritical mass around places where
then we can begin to expand ourtransit options and our mass
transit.
Everything else around there,
since we don't have space tocontinue greenfield developments
in new single family housing, isto build what we call missing
middle, which is essentiallymultifamily housing that still
falls under that single familyhousing part of the building code.
(08:48):
It's part nine in the BC buildingcode.
So generally, if you were to builda single family house, you don't
need to go through a form ofcharacter, you know, a development
permit process to just build asingle family house.
Generally for four plexes, threeplexes and up, we require a form
and character development permit.
So the intent of the fast track
process is to make it so that wecan still meet those form and
(09:10):
character guidelines that areestablished by our official
community plan, but withoutneeding to have a three to four
month kind of turnaround to do arezoning in the development
permit.
So the FastTrack essentially takes
pre -approved designs that staffhave approved that meet all of our
OCP guidelines, as well as ourbuilding and permitting
guidelines.
And so when an application comes
(09:30):
through, we can issue thatdevelopment permit and building
permit in the same timeframe.
So make it so that an application
for a fourplex or a sixplexfollows a similar timeline to what
a single family house buildingpermit application would follow.
Yeah, it's wild that this wasn'tdone earlier.
Like now that you guys have...
executed it, it's like, wow, this
is a pretty good idea, right?Well, yeah.
And interestingly, the cityactually did introduce a fast
(09:52):
track process.
I believe it was... between 2015
and 2022.
It's for a lot smaller area, sort
of the area between downtown andthe hospital on those lots that
are kind of lane loaded where youstarted to see more and more
fourplexes.
There were two designs that won a
competition back in those daysthat were fast track eligible.
And we ended up getting, you know,dozens of those lots developed
(10:14):
into those fast track houses.
So you can kind of see them if you
go through those neighborhoods.
And they sort of helped catalyze
the development of other infillhousing within that neighborhood
as they gave people.
kind of an idea of what those site
plans and parking layouts couldlook like.
So that program ended a couple ofyears ago, partly because people
were just starting to complainabout the fact that we had only
(10:37):
two designs that were sort ofgetting repeatedly built in that
small area.
So the new Fast Track de -applied
throughout the entire core area.
We started with four designs.
And then those designs have somedifferent variations within them.
And now we're working on addingmore and more designs and lot
types to that fast track so we canget more diversity throughout the
city, unlock new lots, and try toexpand that infill housing to
(10:59):
other population centers likeRutland and Glenmore, et cetera.
Do you guys just take like newpermits that come in, like a new
style fourplex that gets approvedand then be like, wow, let's add
this to our fast track program.
It was beautiful.
We're not at that point yet.
It's possible that we could get
there in the future.
The way that we did it for this
phase is we had a designcompetition for architects a
(11:20):
couple of years back called theinfill challenge, which was
targeted at unlocking lots thataren't accessed by a lane.
So front loaded lots to get somedesign ideas for that.
We then took those and adaptedthem to the new zoning changes
when that small scale multi -unithousing legislation was adopted.
Nice.
to roll it out with these zoning
changes.
But moving forward, we want to add
more and more lots that wouldn'tnecessarily come to that
(11:41):
architecture style competition.
So it is possible that we'll have
something like that in the future,but not at this point.
Nice.
Yeah, I guess when you move into
areas like Rutland, where thereisn't like downtown and lower
admission, Kelowna Celtic aroundthe hospital, they all have lanes,
but I guess in Rutland, lessprevalent, eh?
Yeah, it's less prevalent and itcan be a lot trickier to fit that
parking, landscaping and kind ofgarbage facilities all within
those lots.
So that is one of the benefits of
(12:02):
having a competition is you canhave designers kind of try to meet
that challenge.
But one of the things that's been
really successful about thatoriginal infill area is that it
was lane access.
So you could really easily just
fit that garage coming right offthe lane.
So figuring out parking isdefinitely one of the barriers to
all housing, but to infill housingespecially.
Yeah, interesting.
I know a guy that's building a
(12:23):
fourplex.
I think the lot can have six or
five, but he's doing a fourplexand then parking and then...
Putting a fifth unit above theparking.
Yeah.
Outside the box.
Way to think about it.
Oh, definitely.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So what about like with OCP, isthere any room for like applying
for variants or like anything likethat?
One comes to mind.
I have a listing down and by the
hospital that's just shy of thesize needed for six stories.
(12:44):
I think it's.
1 ,400 meters, you need 1 ,400
square meters, is that right?It's like 1 ,370 or something.
Is that just off the table or isthere room for an application for
a variance there?Not that I know.
that I know.
I'm not one of the development
planners, so I couldn't answer ona project by project whether or
not they'd support a variance.
But with single stair egress being
(13:06):
allowed by the BC Building Codeand being adopted in the near
future, there could be a change inhow we approach those sort of
lots.
But for me, I'd say that I'm not
sure, really.
That's what I've been telling
people too.
Yeah.
Personally, I would try to avoidgetting like individual variance
questions as part of this justbecause.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
It wasn't specifically about that.
I was more just in general, right?
Do people like, is this the rulesand that's the way it is?
(13:30):
Or is there room for like kind ofsmudging the edges is what I was
wondering.
Yeah.
the Yeah.
I mean, variances can happen on a
site -by -site basis ifdevelopment staff determine that,
you know, the benefits outweighthe risks.
And with the new building codeupdates, that could be more likely
on smaller lots for multi -storydevelopments above just MF1.
But, you know, know, it alldepends on where the lot is.
I think this is why you guys cameout with, you know, similar like
(13:50):
fast track program though, right?Is to stop going to like public
hearings to stop kind of wasting alot of time reviewing and debating
all of that stuff where it's like,here's a black and white.
This is what's going to beapproved and this is what's not.
Especially for infill, that was amulti -year process.
The first step was getting rid ofthat rezoning.
And really the biggest step forinfill housing is getting rid of
the need to individually have torezone a lot.
(14:12):
It adds so much time.
It adds a ton of costs and a lot
of uncertainty where now we havebasically any lot in the city.
If you wanted to take it and buildfour to six units, you can.
So that alone increases thetimeline.
And we just tried to take as manysteps to say, if the building code
classifies this as a single familyhouse, then how can we make it so
that we can get these built asquickly as we can with single
(14:35):
family homes so we can get thatsupply and we can cover that
deficit of housing.
Yeah.
I know like when you go fartherout of town, like talking about
areas like Crawford and McKinley,like they have septic systems
everywhere.
Is there any plan for that?
Or is those kind of just beingsitting there where they are for
now until a sewer comes throughor?
Yeah.
If they're not serviced by sewer.
The zoning changes don't impactthem.
(14:55):
So they are still sitting in aplace where they're more almost
considered, you know, countryresidential or it's not in this
core area where we want to focusthe majority of our housing
development.
Part of this is making sure that
we can upgrade existing servicingand get our infrastructure to a
place where it can support thatmultifamily in the established
areas of the city rather thanexpanding kind of our sewage
service outside of that.
I mean, obviously, those are
important projects for the future.
(15:16):
But, you know, the majority of our
housing changes.
The last few years have been
focused on the establishedneighborhoods rather than... I
guess it's easier to getinfrastructure and servicing
traffic and all that.
guess it's easier to get
infrastructure and servicingtraffic and all that.
Yeah, and the long -term goal isto have the infrastructure that we
can maintain more easily, whichworks better in a more dense city.
Yeah, no doubt.
We're going to record with Aaron
(15:36):
right after this and get into thefast track, how he's developed his
drawings and renderings.
Before we do that, can you just
briefly summarize the changebetween the RU and the MF?
What is the major differencebetween those two designations?
I mean, RU is basically gone now,right?
RU essentially was our singlefamily housing typology, whereas
MF is a multifamily housingtypology.
essentially was our single familyhousing typology, whereas MF is a
multifamily housing typology.
For the majority of Kelowna's
(15:58):
existence, the majority of ourhousing was single family.
And so that RE7 zone kind ofrepresented a really gentle
transition from that single familyhousing to more of a multifamily
typology.
Now that we've started to grow
even more in the last couple ofyears, shifting that multifamily
into the core area and keepingkind of a higher density.
single family out in the suburbshas become more of the shift since
we can't keep building singlefamily outward.
So essentially like moving from RUkind of smaller scale single
(16:20):
family infill typology to a moreintense one around our urban
centers and within our core areais just kind of the best way that
we can keep diverse housingtypologies while still having sort
of a smaller scale neighborhoodfeel, you know, within the core
area.
and then shifting downward as we
go towards the outskirts of thecity.
Yeah, I love it.
I love it too.
it too.
Yeah.
Okay, man.
Well, yeah, I know that was pretty
jam -packed for information, butyeah, we appreciate you coming on
(16:41):
and sharing that.
And I mean, I guess really the
next step for people, if they'relooking at buying an infill lot or
they have an existing one, let'sjust go to the city, right?
Like contact you guys.
Don't you have like an AI chat now
as well?Like a lot of this stuff is
online.
Yeah.
If you're looking for infilleligibility, we have a chat bot on
(17:02):
our website, colonna ca slash infill.
You can get all the info you needon infill housing there, on the
fast track program, what lots areeligible.
And then our planning departmentis happy to answer any questions.
Planning info at colonna .ca.
We always have planners monitoring
that phone line and inbox andanswering questions to the best of
our ability.
Yeah.
You guys are awesome.
(17:24):
You guys are awesome.
Like very good.
Yeah.
You guys are putting on eventswith middle housing, middle class,
like just a lot of.
good information that i feel was
kind of smoking mirrors 10 yearsago you know so also yeah and then
when you send an email it getsanswered so yeah i can't say
enough about that's been awesomegood to get good reviews yeah no
(17:46):
we need a lot of housing and we'rereally trying to meet that demand
yeah awesome well appreciate yourtime yeah thanks for having me on
guys yeah and then when you sendan email it gets answered so yeah
i can't say enough about that'sbeen awesome to get good reviews
yeah no we need a lot of housingand we're really trying to meet
that demand yeah awesome wellappreciate your time yeah thanks
for having me on guys Okay, guys,part two here.
(18:08):
We're going to jump on with Aaronfrom Sandbox, S -N -D -B -O -X.
Super cool guy.
I think you guys are going to love
this part of the show.
Great energy and yeah, just a good
dude to connect with.
And both of these people that we
just talked to are open foremails.
So if you are curious aboutsomething or you want to get more
information, like fire them anemail.
They both answer and they're bothawesome.
Yeah, Aaron's not really on socialmedia because he works, unlike
(18:30):
Matt and I. Yeah.
That's like the trope of an agent
is the more they post on socialmedia, usually the less sales are
doing for the end of work times.
I was going to say, man, you're
posting a lot right now.
Yeah.
That works for everybody exceptfor me, Taylor.
Come on.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Enjoy part two, guys.
Okay, welcome to the show, Aaron
Whalen.
How are you, man?
(18:51):
Good, thank you.
Yeah, thanks for coming.
So I met you, or watched yourpresentation at a middle housing
event put on by City of Kelowna,and I thought your presentation
was incredibly awesome.
Renderings were super cool and
just valuable information that wecould take that and inform our
listener.
Do you want to give us kind of a
real high -level summary of whoyou are, what you're doing, and go
from there?Yeah, my name is Aaron Whalen.
Ontario and went to school inToronto for architecture.
I started designing custom homesin the Muskoka area, some pretty
high -end stuff early on in mycareer.
And then eventually that moved meout west to pursue more of an
active lifestyle.
I started working for larger
firms, doing everything fromapartment housing to hospitals,
(19:12):
airports, everything in themiddle.
And I've spent the last 10 years.
In Kelowna, getting to know the
city, getting to know theprovince, I've kind of taken all
that experience and synthesized itinto this so far one -man studio
sandbox, just focusing on kind ofmiddle housing.
So everything in between theapartment housing and the custom
family homes, try to provide a bitof an answer to the housing crisis
in Kelowna and the province thatwe're facing right now.
And hopefully that'll be more likeexplorative, innovative forms of
(19:33):
housing.
But so far, it's only about a year
into the... journey.
So yeah, lots of changes, lots of
new stuff.
Yeah.
How did you know that that was theniche, like the middle housing
infill?Did you just see that opportunity?
Or I mean, we can talk about thisright away too, is the fast track
system in Kelowna, which is...
(19:54):
essentially what this podcast is
based around.
You were one of the winners of
that program.
So is that what was the catalyst
for you to start this?It's a great question.
Yes, it was an offspring of thecompetition back in 2021.
I did follow the originalcompetition, which would have been
1 .0.
The one that I was part of was the
2 .0 put on by the city ofKelowna.
(20:15):
But I watched very closely whathappened to the first one and all
of the infill development thathappened.
in the city as a result of that itwas crazy it just caught like
wildfire there's infills poppingup everywhere like very close to
where i live downtown and you knowsome of them are great some of
them maybe not so much like ithink there was some room for
(20:39):
improvement and yeah i reallywanted to give the competition a
solid go just to see if i couldthrow something in the mix that
was a little bit different camesecond place which is great
Something about that middlehousing scale that's very
intimate, but you can also make alarge impact on the community
through it.
(21:00):
It's not just an apartment
building or a tower that takes twoplus years to build.
These things are designed andbuilt within a year.
So you can make an impact veryquickly.
And I think that's where I reallyenjoy architecture is being able
to make community impact.
So it's been a good go as a result
of the competition.
That's awesome.
So what did you design for thecompetition?
Did you design a fourplex?Yeah.
(21:21):
So the original competition wasusing the original zoning bylaw.
Like we just recently went througha kind of a provincial change of
bylaws and densities.
Yeah.
So it really shook things up quitea bit.
That was post competition, right?So city of Kelowna was trying to
be, and they were veryprogressive, you know, putting on
the competition.
And I think it was extremely
successful.
And the province almost threw a
wrench in the whole thing by, youknow, increasing the density and
(21:43):
kind of maybe relaxing some of thesetbacks.
But yeah, originally it was a fourunit infill and it was mainly
around, you know, trying to creatediversity and resilience, you
know, with a bit of anenvironmental flavor behind it,
all with affordability on mine.
Right.
So I approached it in a way where.
Instead of doing like replicable
units, I would have four differentsizes catering to a different
(22:04):
audience to try to bring togetherlike multi -generational living.
That was kind of the premise of itall.
And, you know, we won thecompetition, but then we're like
tasked to redesign it to takeadvantage of some of those
provincial mandates.
So we tried to keep the theme the
same, but, you know, maybe bumpsome of the density.
And yeah, now there's a five unitversion too.
as a result of that yeah theoriginal contest was this is the
(22:27):
lot size you guys go for it likethat was essentially the parameter
yeah more or less they gave uslike you know setbacks max
coverage parking you knowrequirements kind of the normal
stuff that you would need todesign an infill you know with a
bit of relaxation but more or lessyou know follow these rules and
(22:48):
try to create somethinginteresting what's the size of the
lot you guys used the originalcontest was this is the lot size
you guys go for it like that wasessentially the parameter more or
less they gave us like you knowsetbacks max coverage parking you
know requirements kind of thenormal stuff that you would need
to design an infill you know witha bit of relaxation but more or
(23:10):
less you know follow these rulesand try to create something
interesting the size of the lotyou guys used Yeah, it was a 21
meter wide by 38 meter deepparcel, flat, you know, non
laneway loaded.
So, you know, vehicular access has
to come from the street.
And that was basically covering
off the majority of lots inKelowna that the first
competition, you know, didn'tcover.
That was all specific to lanewaylots in that kind of downtown core
(23:34):
areas.
This was just, you know, more of
those suburban.
Rutland lots and even in Lower
Mission, Glenmore, there's tens ofthousands of lots.
Can you give a brief summary ofthe fast track as well in terms of
like, you give a brief summary ofthe fast track as well in terms of
like, if somebody's listening tothis and they're like, hey, that's
(23:57):
my lot.
I want to do some infill.
What do they do?Now essentially there's these
designs that you and some otherarchitects have provided to the
city and the city's put theirstamp of approval on it and says
anyone can come in and essentiallydo a BP, DP and rock and roll.
incredibly fast but they have touse your specific approved design
right yeah that's right so thereare four designs or four different
(24:20):
designers as part of this which isis really interesting because
after you know we found out we hadwon and it was moving forward to
this fast track program i hadactually reached out to the other
designers to create a bit of aconversation around like hey let's
work together let's not try tothat's right so there are four
designs or four differentdesigners as part of this which is
(24:42):
is really interesting becauseafter you know we found out we had
won and it was moving forward tothis fast track program i had
actually reached out to the otherdesigners to create a bit of a
conversation around like hey let'swork together let's not try to
compete against each other let'stry to do this together so during
that process we became pretty goodfriends and there was a lot of
learning there and we kind ofhelped tailor that fast track
program at least from the designerside as best we could so
essentially we tried to price themall the same and we tried to have
the same amount of information ineach package so somebody from the
public could you know choose itbased on the design and not, you
know, what's included in thatpackage or, you know, what's
(25:04):
cheaper or et cetera.
So essentially you would come to
any of the designers and there's apre -approved development permit
and building permit ready to go.
And that includes like structural
design, energy modeling,landscape, all of the requirements
that you would need that usuallytake months of work.
It's kind of ready to go.
The only thing we would have to do
is get a survey of the lot, adaptthe site plan to it, and then just
kind of put our seal of approvalon it for the city.
(25:26):
They already trust us and thepackage is ready to go.
Awesome.
So do you know, has anyone used
your design yet?Do you know?
They haven't.
I've had a lot of phone calls.
It was a bit slow.
I think, you know, the industry as
a whole has been a bit rattledwith interest rates and land
prices are just so high, right?Part of the success in the first
(25:49):
go around was just the land priceswere low and interest rates were
low, right?Yeah.
I think now we're getting a lot ofcalls and a lot of interested
people, but yeah, no one's reallylike 100 % jumped on.
I think it's cool that you guyscollectively have kind of...
almost worked yourself out of ajob just in terms of like future
so it's not like people need tonow pay geotopo architect
engineers over and over and overagain to do essentially the same
thing right like that fee isbundled up in one application and
that's paid to mostly the city ofcolonna now like that's why they
put on this contest is that kindof right like is it about a 15 000
application or something or yeahall of the four unit designs are
think it's cool that you guyscollectively have kind of...
(26:11):
almost worked yourself out of ajob just in terms of like future
so it's not like people need tonow pay geotopo architect
engineers over and over and overagain to do essentially the same
thing right like that fee isbundled up in one application and
that's paid to mostly the city ofcolonna now like that's why they
put on this contest is that kindof right like is it about a 15 000
(26:33):
application or something or all ofthe four unit designs are priced
at 15 ,000, which includes all ofthe consulting work and everything
kind of needed to make thatapplication.
I would have to contact energymodeling and structural just to
get people updated addresses.
And I have to do the site plan,
but yeah, you're saving quite abit of money.
(26:54):
Like the soft costs alone areusually probably 50 plus thousand
dollars for all of that.
And you're saving a considerable
amount of money and you're gettingit quick.
Right.
So I think, you know, Generally,
the response we've gotten so faris that everyone loves the
rendering, loves the imagery.
Most people who aren't developers
and are doing this for themselveswant to make floor plan tweaks and
kind of cater it for their ownuse, which is, I guess, not
(27:15):
surprising.
But it's challenging when you're
trying to maintain the fast trackturnaround time, but also adding
extra units.
Do you ever just want to be a
smart ass and be like, yeah, no,absolutely.
So if you just use a slow trackprogram, we can start from square
one.
Yeah, that's pretty funny.
If anyone hasn't seen therenderings, they're beautiful.
You guys have done a pretty cooljob.
pretty job.
(27:36):
As a realtor, how do I know what
lot would apply for?Just any lot that's...
Would you say 21 by 38 meters?Yeah, this is a really good
question because most of thepeople who ask me have a lot that
doesn't conform.
And we're finding that depth is a
really big one.
And that 38 meters deep, at least
for mosaic, which would besandbox, it's pretty like pivotal.
(27:56):
And I also represent Miguel out ofMexico.
who was the first place winner, isProject Maple Terraces.
And he and I have a bit of anarrangement so I can facilitate
some of the phone calls andinterest here locally.
Nice.
But, you know, between his and two
by two architectures design on thecoast, I think they have a bit
more flexibility with lot size,whereas I really pigeonholed
myself into a 21 by 38 meter size.
But yeah, so.
I've had real estate agents ask,and I've given them a bit of a cut
sheet just of, you know, this isthe size.
These are the things to watch outfor.
So you want to try to getsomething that's relatively flat,
that doesn't have any easementsthrough it.
Hydro lines are usually a big one,making sure that hydro lines
aren't encroaching the property.
Will it work on a corner lot?
Yes, it will work on a corner lot.
Whether the city of Kelowna will
see it as a fast track approveddesign is yet to be determined,
(28:17):
but I am quite confident thatMosaic would be a great.
corner lot candidate.
Typically the corner lots are a
little bit narrower, but you don'thave to provide that like drive
aisle off the street for garageaccess.
You can just use the side streetand be perfect.
use side street be perfect.
Yeah.
Interesting.
I'm just wondering, so like, would
you be okay if a realtor like justadvertise your design as the
(28:39):
potential to go here?Would the city be okay with that
or?Absolutely.
I think that's kind of what it'sfor.
that's kind of what it's for.
It's, you know, it's to show
potential and if it helps sell aproject going that it works like.
Why not?Like that's the whole point of
this.
I'd love to see as many of them as
(29:01):
I can in Kelowna.
It's awesome because like I myself
have a few of these listingscurrently and also coming up and
I'm like, man, you know, like youtake the drone photos to advertise
and then like, I don't want to gopay a developer or go to pay a
(29:23):
designer.
I always want you to do a design
that nobody's going to use.
But if you have one of these
already ready to go, that helpsyou too.
I feel like that would beextraordinarily helpful for me and
also all the other agents working.
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
Is it in the GIS or like where
city of Kelowna like flags thoseautomatically now?
(29:44):
Like, Hey, this is fast trackapplicable.
They have an internal databasewith those.
I'm not sure if it's publicknowledge of which lots qualify,
but I think they're kind of chatbot filters them out for you.
So if you punch in your address,it'll give you a yes or no. Okay.
I do feel like the chat bot is abit misleading.
(30:05):
Like AI, I'll do that.
Yeah, well, I think it
generalizes, right?It's not as smart as they would
hope it would be.
Because I think you can adapt
these designs to lots that aremaybe just outside the norm.
And I think it's really up to thedesigner to work with the city of
Kelowna to affirm that the designcomplies.
It's not a problem with thebuilding code.
(30:26):
It should be accelerated, right?Yeah.
does like the design that maybegets a no from the chatbot to
still contact the designer becauseit still might work.
because it still might work.
So for myself and any agents
listening or any people that arecurious about their own house,
what's the best way to find outlike the chatbot or like what
about firing you an email?You're going to get absolutely
inundated with all of ourlisteners.
(30:47):
I'm thinking thousands.
You'll have to hire an assistant
just to reply to these emails.
Create my own chatbot.
Yeah.
Sandbot.
Please send me an email.
I love like the early.
phase of you know exploring likewill it work you know that's kind
of exciting time and it doesn'ttake long like it might be five
minutes out of my day which is nota lot but the chatbot on the city
(31:11):
of Kelowna is also very effectiveand I think they've got some
talented engineers behind that soit's a very instantaneous yes or
no I can just see Matt having likea three hour long conversation
with the chatbot just back andforth what about this lot no what
about this I'd really appreciateit if we could meet for coffee
yeah yeah that's can just see Matthaving like a three hour long
conversation with the chatbot justback and forth about this lot no
what about this I'd reallyappreciate it if we could meet for
(31:33):
coffee yeah yeah What do you meanthe files are in the computer?
What are the next steps forFastTrack?
Is there going to be a FastTrack 3.0?
What's next?What's on the horizon?
I don't know.
How much did the city guys tell
you?They're going to try to expand
this FastTrack library.
I don't think that's private news.
The idea is to create a robustlibrary so it's not just for
designs.
20, 30, 50, these designs could be
applied to Kelowna, hopefullyother municipalities, Vernon,
Penticton, stuff like that wouldbe great.
(31:54):
But yeah, I think that is comingpretty soon.
I think the city of Kelowna isactively trying to sort out what
the next wave will look like.
Maybe they're after like different
size lots.
Maybe they're opening it up to,
you know, whatever design,whatever shape a lot.
If it's a great design that theyfeel comfortable with, then maybe
they just offer it.
Wave is a perfect description for
it.
I do feel like this is the next
(32:16):
big thing for our city to densifyas well as just grow and become
like a more beautiful place tolive in because some of these
designs are awesome, but it's sucha daunting task for, you know.
Us common folk to walk up to a lotand be like, huh, what are we
going to do here?And yeah, you're right.
The soft costs are likeextraordinarily high to even get
(32:39):
to the point to see if it's worthgoing after.
One cool connection.
So we interviewed Steven Jagger
off of Addy probably about 15episodes ago.
And, you know, speaking with him.
They're actually like testing out
the fast track and buying it andfunding it from Addy.
So not only is it like the fasttrack program, but it's funded
from their platform.
So I could see like that just like
catching on fire, right?If these buildings going up and
(33:00):
being financed, if it works, Ithink the other thing to point out
that we haven't spoke about, whichcould be a great opportunity is
like, if these are purpose builtrentals over, you know.
five units and above, like MLISelect is a perfect fit for this.
So, you know, we're going toactually speak about that in a
couple episodes, but up to 50-year amortizations, really good
(33:21):
rates.
So you said five units and above.
rates.
So you said five units and above.
Is there a design for five unitsand above or are they all just
four units?Yeah.
So when we were given the optionto redesign it for the new
provincial mandates, we made surethat there was a five -unit option
to take advantage of MLI Select.
which is very strategic.
I do know Steven and I know theAddy platform quite well.
We've got a project going up,hopefully shortly in the new year
here.
And it's through the Addy
platform.
It's on Ethel Street.
It's actually already gone throughthe first kind of phase of the
Addy investment.
So that project should be going up
(33:42):
soon.
And I love what they're doing.
It's a great way to get realestate and projects going.
Yeah, absolutely.
So just to linger on this, because
I know a lot of lots now are zonedfor six units in Kelowna.
Is there going to be a six unit?Can you see Fast Track 3 .0
(34:04):
including a six unit?Can yours go to six, sir?
Yeah, well, I'm hoping that whenthe city opens up this next wave,
actually I already have a six unitready to go.
Nice.
It's very different.
I think with Sandbox, I'm tryingto push the boundaries a little
bit.
designs maybe a bit more
(34:24):
adventurous.
And I think, you know, some people
love it, some people might not somuch, but I do think that six
units is very challenging.
The livability of it is tricky,
right?And if you want to really follow
the zoning and have six parkingstalls with six units, you know,
that's a lot of cars.
Yeah, it must be like mostly road
on the lot.
I know, it's very challenging.
So we have to think of like newcreative ways of tackling the
(34:48):
vehicle.
troubles, right?
right?And try to make it, you know,
livable and not just a parkinglot, like you say.
Yeah, yeah.
I feel like you guys are really
ahead of the curve on this.
You guys being Sandbox and City of
Kelowna, because yeah, MLISelect's been around for a long
time, but as well as, you know,there's insured mortgage up to 90
% loan to value on exactly whatyou guys are doing is like infill
(35:09):
up to four units.
So there wasn't that a month ago.
Really, these are... much moreattractive financing terms and
people are able to take advantageof that.
It's already set up.
You have the design, financing's
there.
It's just about, you know, pulling
the trigger on it.
So kudos to you and City of
Kelowna for evolutionary state ofmind.
Yeah, thank you.
mind.
Yeah, thank you.
Yeah, trying our best.
I think, you know, if you kind oflook beyond Kelowna, like what the
(35:32):
provincial, you know,standardization designs look like,
I think there's a lot ofchallenges there.
I don't think those designs, likeas beautiful as they are, I don't
think they work.
I think what Kelowna is doing is
something really amazing where allthe projects that they're
marketing, they all work.
So it's pretty cool.
Yeah, How can we support you orhow can people get in contact?
Do you follow you, Instagram,whatever?
Like if people are interested inyour business and fast track
(35:53):
program and your designs, how canwe find out more about you?
I'm pretty quiet on social mediaand LinkedIn and all the platforms
because I'm usually producingwork, pretty quiet on social media
and LinkedIn and all the platformsbecause I'm usually producing
work, but...
Wait, what are you saying?
You're saying Matt and I don'twork?
You're absolutely right.
These things, there's so much work
that goes into like hundreds andhundreds of hours of just me
(36:14):
clicking buttons.
So I'm really hoping to like have
a bit of, you know, social mediapresence eventually.
But I do have an Instagramaccount, Sandbox, S -N -D -B -O
-X.
Yeah, you can find my website,
which will hopefully have morethan one project on it soon.
Email Aaron at Sandbox, S -N -D -B-O -X dot C -A.
Awesome.
It's probably the easiest way.
probably the easiest way.
You can find the contact on the
(36:36):
City of Kelowna website too, underthe Kelowna
ca slash info.
Cool.
One other question before we letyou go.
Cost to build, high level, likeper square foot.
What are people looking at foryour design?
We've done some cost estimating.
done some cost estimating.
I think like a pretty baselinespec, meaning like, you know,
hardy board siding and...
Vinyl flooring, nothing crazy.
You're probably looking at $280,$285 a square foot.
(36:56):
Obviously, if you start wanting tobump those finishes, you're
probably in the lowest threes,like $315, $325 a square foot bill
costs.
So I think it's very reasonable
and competitive, and it's not thatscary.
And the units aren't so large thatthat number doesn't balloon,
right?It's very strategic to try to keep
the unit sizes small enough so thecost per square footage cost
doesn't blow the mortgage out ofthe water for first -time
(37:18):
homebuyers and people looking todownsize.
Yeah.
Cool, man.
Well, yeah.
That's awesome.
Really appreciate everythingyou're doing in the city, and
thanks for your time coming on theshow.
Yeah.
Thanks so much for reaching out.
It's always fun to chat aboutthis.
And I will be firing you an emailabout this kind of thing.
Oh, please do.
Your drawing is going to be posted
on like nine of Matt's listingsnow, whether it's applicable or
not.
or not.
(37:39):
You're not on social media now,but you will be in about a week or
so.
Better hire that chatbot soon.
All right, Aaron, have a greatday, man.
Thanks a lot.
Thanks, guys.
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