City Permits
Co-housing is a new concept for the City of Victoria. Therefore, we have spent a great deal of time educating city planners and politicians as to the benefits of cohousing. Also, we have been careful to assure our neighbours that ‘cohousers’ are normal people who simply choose to live in a designed community setting.
It is important to know that approval by City Council is necessary for us to proceed. A date for a public hearing determining whether we get a rezoning and development permit has not been set yet. We expect a date will be set early in 2012. Given the city staff support, and the current forward thinking behind Victoria’s new community plan, we anticipate that the city’s decision will be in our favour.
Schedule
Given a development permit has been approved, our architect will prepare detailed construction drawings and apply for a building permit. The required architectural plans and engineering reports will take several months to prepare. At the same time, we will be in the process of arranging construction financing. It is normal for a financial institution to insist that at least half of the units in any residential development be ’pre-sold’, before agreeing to construction financing.
Once we have our rezoning our members will be asked if they intend to select a unit for purchase. Given an accepted agreement on a unit, the member/purchaser will be asked to put a deposit for the chosen unit in a lawyers trust account. Financial institutions are not able to give us exact terms at this point, but they will likely require a deposit of 15% to 20% of the purchase price. This deposit will be held in trust until the Village has been built and an occupancy permit has been issued. At this point the trust deposit is released and the transfer of title to the member takes place.
Because ongoing decisions made by members affects our timeline and building costs, it is difficult to predict our date of commencement, or an exact pricing for the homes.We could be breaking ground in the fall of 2012 and moving into our new homes by the following spring. Members will be kept up to date by e-mail.
We are excited to be part of an innovative community within a city that is one of the most liveable on the planet.