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In defense of Rainbow

As first phase sells well, a councillor and a project partner stand up for the neighbourhood

Good news from the Rainbow Development: All of the single-family units in the first phase of the Rainbow development have been sold, along with eight of the 24 duplexes.

“The surprising thing is that the more expensive homes have been the most popular,” said Rod Nadeau, a partner in the Rainbow Joint Venture.

“Actually the one we did as a price point house with no garage, no one wanted it… People coming to buy them are picking the nicer ones, which has been a very pleasant surprise.”

This latest update comes one week after Councillor Gord McKeever defended the Rainbow project in a prepared speech last week right before council adopted the Rainbow housing agreement with a 5-2 vote.

In his talk, McKeever pointed out that if you compare the “true” cost of delivering a home at the Cheakamus Crossing development to the Rainbow development, the Rainbow units are reasonably priced given the current market conditions.

Specifically, if Cheakamus Crossing did not have the benefit of having a not-for-profit-model, free land, and significant cash subsidies, explained McKeever, a 2,000 square foot town house would have come in at closer to $700,000.

“In a way, it was defending the Rainbow project, because I have seen obviously a lot of disappointment expressed in the cost, and we share that disappointment,” explained McKeever after the meeting.

“But the cost, as I tried to point out, was about 20 per cent higher than we expected it to be three years ago, which is at least what the cost of construction escalation has been in that time. The escalation, while it is really stretching the definition of affordable by a long way, is actually reflective of the current conditions of the construction market.”

McKeever said his talk was spurred, in large part, because of the criticism the project has received from both the public and the media.

Many stakeholders in the project have pointed to similar criticism since the initial price estimates were announced on June 10 this summer. In fact, Ann Chiasson, another partner in the Rainbow Joint Venture, declined to comment this week on the latest status of the Rainbow project because of alleged negative spin.

Added Nadeau: “I wish more people could focus on making it (the Rainbow development) a success rather than micro-manage or nit pick the details that, at the end of the day, are not important.

“If people actually took a step back and took a look at the neighbourhood, you would find that it will probably be the nicest neighbourhood in Whistler in two or three years…. Everyone seems to lose sight of the fact that we are building a great neighbourhood and gets bogged down in the micro-managing, minute details.”

The Rainbow Development has been running down a bumpy road for some time, highlighted in June when council called an emergency meeting to pass third reading on the housing agreement.

The meeting was called because council was worried a clause in the agreement might lead to a large portion of homes not going to people on the Whistler Housing Authority (WHA) waitlist, even though the Rainbow development is intended to provide affordable housing in Whistler.

Several people in Whistler have also expressed concern that the prices at Rainbow were higher than they had anticipated.

While no final prices have been announced, the prices for the 80 duplexes, built by developer Glacier Contracting Ltd., are estimated to come in between upper $300,000 and upper $400,000. And prices for the first 13 single-family homes, built by Vision Pacific Contracting Ltd., range from $525,000 to $625,000.

Regardless of these price concerns, by the June 30 th deadline, 360 people on the WHA waitlist had signed up for the 150 Rainbow units.

During his talk at council last week, McKeever also discussed the future of housing in the resort municipality — a future where everyone that lives in Whistler, other than a very small number of people in suites in market homes, will be living in resident-restricted housing.

For example, a carpenter who has lived in Whistler for 25 years might have the luxury of owning a market home. When he sells that home today, however, the property will probably not go to someone who is a local carpenter.

“We are still going to need that carpenter, and we are going to have to find a home for that carpenter to live in, if we are going to fulfill that mandate in the community plan to house at least 75 per cent of our workforce in the community,” said McKeever.

“In order to do that, and have a nice balance in the community — so we have homes for dishwashers, we have homes for bank managers, we have homes for everybody else — we are going to want a full spectrum of housing.

“That means we will need both affordable studio suites to rent like the WHA is building in the athletes’ village, as well as single family homes to buy, and everything in between,” he said.