Eight small cottages that arrived on Salt Spring last week may be available to residents as affordable housing in the not-so-distant future thanks to forward thinking by Fields Holding Company.
Fields CEO Jason McDougall told the Driftwood there are no firm plans for the units just yet, although the company has loaned two of them to Windsor Plywood for their office use following their devastating fire of June 1.
“We know there’s a need for affordable housing on the island, and we want to see if we can be helpful,” McDougall said, adding the homes could potentially be used by Fields employees.
The eight one-bedroom, one-bathroom homes were part of an affordable housing development called Moose Village operated by the Life Cycle Housing Society in Powell River. The society has been approved to increase density to take advantage of BC Housing funding and will be building a 24-unit building on that site. They were unable to find anyone locally who could make use of the houses and didn’t want to see them demolished, so they partnered with house recycling and moving company Nickel Bros.
The company listed the homes at a base price of $47,000 each if purchased separately. Moving and installation but not barging costs were included in the price.
Delta-based Fields corporation took advantage of the opportunity to purchase the entire set of units. They left Powell River by barge on May 31 and arrived in Ganges Harbour at around 10 p.m. that night. All eight cottages were delivered by Nickel Bros. to the new Fields retail store location currently under renovation at 804 Fulford-Ganges Rd.
Fields will now be looking for appropriate property where the homes can be permanently moved, including the two that went to Windsor Plywood’s Rainbow Road location following the devastating June 1 fire at that site.
“We hadn’t planned on that, obviously, but Windsor is an important part of the community,” McDougall said. “We reached out and asked them if there was anything we could do to help get them back on their feet. We’re going to help them out any way we can, even if that means lending them some space. That’s what community does.”
McDougall said that offer includes the Fields store site. The company had been working toward a potential opening date of July 1, but McDougall said there is no set date at this point.