B.C. family’s unique living arrangement gets international exposure

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A small, multi-family housing development in North Delta is attracting international attention, and it could be a model for others who don’t want to live in towers, experts say.

Four generations of the same family share a four-home compound that they carved out of a single-family lot.

“We wanted to start a housing revolution,” said Kathleen Higgins, 70.

The idea came to Kathleen and John Higgins in 2007 when they were mulling over how to help their kids break into the housing market. The project of taking their paid-off cul-de-sac rancher, dividing it into four titled lots and building four separate small homes involved years of work, and dreaming up solutions to significant zoning and design barriers.

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“We couldn’t be happier” said Higgins, “except that we’d like to see other people be able to do it a lot faster and cheaper than we were able to do it.”

The compound, which the family moved into five years ago, features two duplexes. Each has a front and back home, adjoined with a single common wall. Roofs are separate to avoid sharing maintenance expenses.

Kathleen and her husband John, 77, share a 1500-sq.-ft., three level home at the rear of one duplex. Their son James, his wife Caitlin and their two kids, Gabriel and Oliver, share a house at the rear of the other duplex.

The couple’s other son Patrick, a videographer and musician, owns one home at the front of the property. Although he had some concerns about living so close to his family, he was happy to have the opportunity to own his own home after six years in a Vancouver basement suite.

Their daughter owns the fourth home, but lives elsewhere. Her grandmother, Kathleen Toth, 94, lives there.

“She’s safe, she’s close and she’s happy,” said Kathleen Higgins.

“We wanted to downsize, stay in our own neighbourhood … We wanted our kids to have an opportunity at home ownership, and we didn’t want them to have to live in a box in the sky, with monthly maintenance fees,” said Higgins.

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Kirsten Dirksen, a San Francisco Bay area housing and sustainability expert and co-founder of faircompanies.com, recently visited the Higgins family to document their project and share it with the world through her YouTube channel. As of Thursday, the video had generated more than 900,000 views.

“Housing affordability is such a big problem universally, and this is the first we’ve seen like this,” Dirksen said.

Dirksen was amazed at just how functional the set up was.

“It works,” she said. “It’s not just a financial benefit the families have here, it’s also an intergenerational community to help raise the kids. It didn’t feel tight inside, there’s a lot of light and smart use of space.”

If at some point the families outgrow the houses, they’re free to sell and trade up to something bigger. That was the point of four separate titles, said Kathleen Higgins.

“We wanted everyone to have their own title so they could do what they wanted with the house,” she said.

Patrick Condon, an urban design professor at the University of B.C. and former city planner, said this kind of development could be a realistic solution for families across the Lower Mainland, where aging parents have homes on large lots.

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“In Vancouver, the big mistake is thinking the only way to get density is through land assembly and putting up random towers different in scale from the neighbourhood and higher in cost. They have missed the opportunity to do small land development,” said Condon.

“I think it makes a lot more sense to redevelop small parcels than to put up a whole tower, and it’s better for the neighbourhood and city.”

In 2023, the province announced a small-scale multi unit housing strategy, and new zoning rules to allow multiple homes on former single family zoned lots.

“Given the recent legislation I hope we will see more of these developments,” said Condon.

It’s not an easy process, said Condon, but the province’s recently introduced standardized housing design catalogue may make it easier for people building small-scale, multi unit housing to design and build new properties and navigate permitting.

As for how it’s worked out?

“We love it,” said Kathleen Higgins.

dryan@postmedia.com

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