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The pot of gold that will keep people here

What does it cost to live in Whistler? This is, of course, a completely different question than “What is the cost of living in Whistler?” The answer(s) to that question probably gets way too bogged down in philosophy and morality and at least touches
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What does it cost to live in Whistler?

This is, of course, a completely different question than “What is the cost of living in Whistler?” The answer(s) to that question probably gets way too bogged down in philosophy and morality and at least touches on the economic concept of opportunity cost. I don’t know how anyone could possibly even contemplate that question without a stiff drink.

But someone’s already totted up what it costs to live here. If you’re a single person, and so many of you are, you’d better hustle up somewhere in the neighbourhood of $26,000 this year to keep body and soul together. Married? Two kids? Hustle harder. About 60 Gs worth, maybe more if only one of you is working. Personally, I’d put the kids to work.

I don’t know what all is included in the Whistler single person’s basket of goods but one of its underpinnings is accommodation — rent — at just under $600 a month. It also includes things that definitely aren’t in Winnipeg’s basket of goods, things embracing the recreational opportunities so abundant here. On the other hand, I’m certain there’s a budget line in Winnipeg’s basket for a fair bit more mosquito repellant than we generally need… in a lifetime. High-priced mountain bike versus DEET? Fair trade.

For all the instant locals arriving in town from the Old Country — Ontario — who won’t be living in staff housing this winter, here’s a tip: don’t spend a lot of time searching for that $600 place to live. Take the first place you can get your hands on. Add roommates as necessary. Get used to the idea of calling home to ask for money. Your parents will be disappointed if you don’t.

The option, not finding a place to live, is both bleak and all too common. Not finding a place to live in Whistler is almost as old as Whistler itself. People had trouble finding a place to live here 10 years ago. And 20 years ago. And 30 years ago. And a decade before that. Prior to that, Whistler pretty well didn’t exist but I’m certain anyone crazy enough to want to live in Alta Lake, B.C., had a hard time finding a place to live.

Not finding a place to live means you go home. Going home, wherever that is, is definitely not the reason you came here to begin with.

There are a number of questions that relate, tangentially perhaps, to the issue of what it costs to live here. One is: Why did you come here in the first place?

I’ve been asking a lot of people that question recently. The answer is almost always the same. If they arrived before the late 1980s, skiing lured them here. If they arrived after that, their answer is often the fuzzier “lifestyle”, suggesting there was no real style to life back in the day when skiing was reason enough to come here. Pressed on the point, many will admit it was really the skiing that got them here; whatever else constitutes lifestyle was what they discovered after they’d satisfied their skiing jones.

But when asked what keeps them in Whistler, everyone answers lifestyle. Pressed to define that most indefinable of terms, answers range from fresh air, clean water, a caring community, small town sensibility with bigger city amenities, the Valley Trail, all the unpaved trails around town, nearby wilderness, bears in your backyard, the buzz of living in a tourist town, and, not surprisingly, the skiing and boarding.

So the next question — they do get harder — is, naturally, what’s that lifestyle worth to you? Put another way, how much are you willing to pay to live here?

Higher housing costs? Check. Higher food prices? Check. Lower earnings? Cheque. Substandard housing or insecure housing? Not for long.

And that’s why the municipality and the Whistler Housing Authority can’t even begin to think of taking a breather when it comes to facilitating the creation of non-market housing. It’s also why the most significant legacy to come out of the Olympics will be the 300 acres the province deeded to Whistler. That land — coupled with the political will to build restricted housing, the economics to build it at a price service industry workers smitten with the local lifestyle are willing to consider affordable, and the builders/developers capable of building it — constitutes the future of this town.

The days are long gone when the people who work for a living in this town, no matter how penurious they are or how frugally they’re willing to live, can afford market housing. When Mayor Ken decides to cash in his chips and leave Dodge there is one absolute certainty — it won’t be a ski patroller/stonemason who buys his house. Hell, it won’t even be the mayor of this town; that job doesn’t pay enough to afford market housing. It’ll be an outlander, a second homeowner or, if we’re lucky, someone cashing out of some place else to retire in Whistler… for the lifestyle.

What that means is if Whistler stands by its commitment of housing a significant percentage of employees in town, instead of up or down valley, it has to continue to bring projects on stream and, more importantly, get them built.

Restricted housing isn’t some form of welfare. It isn’t a handout. Done correctly, it not only doesn’t cost the municipality anything, it is the cornerstone effort that creates the social infrastructure to keep this community a vibrant place where people actually live, instead of a ghost town of dark, empty houses. The people buying WHA housing aren’t making a particularly astute financial investment. They are, in a very real sense, making a lifestyle investment. They are also assuring — assuming we’ve finally got the resale formula right — the people who come after them, the skiers and boarders who move here for the mountains and stay for the lifestyle, will be able to afford housing that can’t be snatched out from under them at the whim of their landlord. It’s a win-win in the true sense of that overused and highly abused cliché.

And it makes what’s going on at Rainbow all the more unconscionable. It’s time for the developers, and I use the word loosely, to come clean. Are you going to start building or are you, as the rumours persist, going to sell? Quite frankly, I don’t care which. But doing neither and throwing up these bullshit excuses for why nothing’s happening out there isn’t fair to the people eagerly awaiting the housing you’ve promised, nor is it fair to the future of this town.