Pandosy NIMBYs

[casey60]

I do think the Pandosy people have a case. It would have been more advantages for them to have reps from all areas of the city and not just their own. And you really think the CoK will listen? They have not in the past so why now.....?

[Urban Cowboy]

Where would a new boat launch on the Kelowna side work? From the bridge south all the way to the dog park, the water is extremely shallow. The already have to dredge the Cook Rd launch annually, and that's relatively deep compared to surrounding areas.

Do you think Sutherland Bay had a natural drop off or Eldorado.. .. I don't think so.
And the one we lost downtown for the Tourism FunClub, it started out from past the natural shoreline and was maybe dredged for the ferry.. depends on depth of fill. Our landscape will not provide natural boat launches, not beside flat areas.

Perhaps not but at least Sutherland bay doesn't have a river running into it, making yearly dredging necessary, plus as was mentioned it's not a swimming beach anyway so may as well put it to better use.

[Grandan]

you cannot prevent someone from buying a house and turning the lot into a fourplex or larger If that is the only path forward.
Like it or not there is a huge economic benefit to the community in terms of employment across a broad spectrum of the economy. I don't think residents are so naive as to think that their community will remain the same for decades.
Economic pressures drive development. People want a residence close to the lake, they don't want a yard, they want to walk to shopping and so on. Evidently they should be denied this and a willing seller should be no be allowed to sell their property for development?

nobody wants this. they are forced to settle for this. i would way rather have a yard than a tiny deck overlooking the alley with a view of the building beside me.its real rich coming from a boomer that the rest of us should just live in a box with no yard and walk everywhere when your generation had a detached home and huge yard for 95% of this city

Since there is no new land being created in Kelowna there are few other options available to newcomers to our fair city.
Infill is one of the options, extending the growth area to the distant hills is another. The first is considered by many to be the better option because it results in a more compact urban form with less reliance on motor vehicles.
If you do not like living in a "box" then don't, it's very simple, don't buy one. If all you can afford is a "box" then you are hooped.
Prices too high in Kelowna? Move to an affordable community or live in a less desirable community within Kelowna.
You do not know what my history is so it is pure speculation of what my circumstances are or have been over the past 4 decades.
When I moved to Kelowna in 1980 the price of housing and interest rates were rising. I bought a house in the Benvoulin - Orchard Park area in 1981. My wife cried at the thought of moving into such a shambles. My kids were packed 4 to a room using bunk beads. At the peak I was paying 20.5% interest rates or 10 times what is on offer today. I had a sizable down payment from the sale of our house in Prince George but we had to downsize from 2500 sq ft to less than half of that.
I got my butt in gear and developed the attic space and created two bedrooms for the kids. It was no picnic.
In the end it worked out for us as we were able to sell the property 15 years later for a great price and move the house to a large lot in yet another undesirable area where we have resided for the past 24 years.
Nobody "owes" anyone the perfect residence for their needs. Nobody is owed a yard or a view, you work your way up or if fortunate you inherit family property or assets.
We have owned our property outright for the last 10 years because that is what we worked hard for. we worked when others were taking vacations, we put up with and repaired our old vehicles when others were buying new ones. We bought virtually everything used. We stayed out of debt, apart from a mortgage.
We were not handed anything, we had to work for it and now we have all we need and more.
I am sorry that many have let their situation slip to the point they are relegated to a windowless room with no outdoor space but it is not because of anything I did.
I am thrilled to be free of our 1981 property with scoundrels walking off with our stuff and traffic that nearly drove us mad.
You can see for yourself how unsustainable that property is for residential the next time you drive by the Mr Lube across from the stupid store. Benvoulin Road is now cut off through that area.

[voice of reason]

Since there is no new land being created in Kelowna there are few other options available to newcomers to our fair city.
Infill is one of the options, extending the growth area to the distant hills is another. The first is considered by many to be the better option because it results in a more compact urban form with less reliance on motor vehicles.
If you do not like living in a "box" then don't, it's very simple, don't buy one. If all you can afford is a "box" then you are hooped.
Prices too high in Kelowna? Move to an affordable community or live in a less desirable community within Kelowna.
You do not know what my history is so it is pure speculation of what my circumstances are or have been over the past 4 decades.
When I moved to Kelowna in 1980 the price of housing and interest rates were rising. I bought a house in the Benvoulin - Orchard Park area in 1981. My wife cried at the thought of moving into such a shambles. My kids were packed 4 to a room using bunk beads. At the peak I was paying 20.5% interest rates or 10 times what is on offer today. I had a sizable down payment from the sale of our house in Prince George but we had to downsize from 2500 sq ft to less than half of that.
I got my butt in gear and developed the attic space and created two bedrooms for the kids. It was no picnic.
In the end it worked out for us as we were able to sell the property 15 years later for a great price and move the house to a large lot in yet another undesirable area where we have resided for the past 24 years.
Nobody "owes" anyone the perfect residence for their needs. Nobody is owed a yard or a view, you work your way up or if fortunate you inherit family property or assets.
We have owned our property outright for the last 10 years because that is what we worked hard for. we worked when others were taking vacations, we put up with and repaired our old vehicles when others were buying new ones. We bought virtually everything used. We stayed out of debt, apart from a mortgage.
We were not handed anything, we had to work for it and now we have all we need and more.
I am sorry that many have let their situation slip to the point they are relegated to a windowless room with no outdoor space but it is not because of anything I did.
I am thrilled to be free of our 1981 property with scoundrels walking off with our stuff and traffic that nearly drove us mad.
You can see for yourself how unsustainable that property is for residential the next time you drive by the Mr Lube across from the stupid store. Benvoulin Road is now cut off through that area.

see this is the problem with boomers. tell me more about the house you bought in 1980 for 75k and how it compares to the average 700k home in this town these days.you guys enjoyed the booms and the profits from the real estate and have left the rest of us in a mess but still come acrtoss with the smugness of well i bought a house in 1980 so i dont see what the problem with the kids these days is.

[strongarm242]

Since there is no new land being created in Kelowna there are few other options available to newcomers to our fair city.
Infill is one of the options, extending the growth area to the distant hills is another. The first is considered by many to be the better option because it results in a more compact urban form with less reliance on motor vehicles.
If you do not like living in a "box" then don't, it's very simple, don't buy one. If all you can afford is a "box" then you are hooped.
Prices too high in Kelowna? Move to an affordable community or live in a less desirable community within Kelowna.
You do not know what my history is so it is pure speculation of what my circumstances are or have been over the past 4 decades.
When I moved to Kelowna in 1980 the price of housing and interest rates were rising. I bought a house in the Benvoulin - Orchard Park area in 1981. My wife cried at the thought of moving into such a shambles. My kids were packed 4 to a room using bunk beads. At the peak I was paying 20.5% interest rates or 10 times what is on offer today. I had a sizable down payment from the sale of our house in Prince George but we had to downsize from 2500 sq ft to less than half of that.
I got my butt in gear and developed the attic space and created two bedrooms for the kids. It was no picnic.
In the end it worked out for us as we were able to sell the property 15 years later for a great price and move the house to a large lot in yet another undesirable area where we have resided for the past 24 years.
Nobody "owes" anyone the perfect residence for their needs. Nobody is owed a yard or a view, you work your way up or if fortunate you inherit family property or assets.
We have owned our property outright for the last 10 years because that is what we worked hard for. we worked when others were taking vacations, we put up with and repaired our old vehicles when others were buying new ones. We bought virtually everything used. We stayed out of debt, apart from a mortgage.
We were not handed anything, we had to work for it and now we have all we need and more.
I am sorry that many have let their situation slip to the point they are relegated to a windowless room with no outdoor space but it is not because of anything I did.
I am thrilled to be free of our 1981 property with scoundrels walking off with our stuff and traffic that nearly drove us mad.
You can see for yourself how unsustainable that property is for residential the next time you drive by the Mr Lube across from the stupid store. Benvoulin Road is now cut off through that area.

Sure the interest rates were much higher in the early 80s but that was for a fairly short time in the grand scheme of things. The bottom line is an average house back then probably cost around $50K compared to a average household income of around $20K/year, which equates to approximately 2.5 times your average salary. Now, the average income is around $60K/year compared to an average house price of $600K, for a whopping 10 times your average salary. This combined with all of the essentials (i.e. food, utilities, gasoline, insurance, etc.) costing far more now as a percentage of overall take home pay, young people coming up these days have it far worse than we did back then, regardless of how hard you worked. Not to mention back then there were plenty of good jobs to be had that didn't require a post secondary education, before the outsourcing and downsizing trend started to take off.

It's very simple and callous to say "if you don't like living in a box then don't buy one" when that's all that's being offered and you still can barely afford that. Hopefully we don't have droves of young people deciding to move to a more affordable community, otherwise who will stock your shelves at the grocery store, make your latte, wait your table, cut your grass, etc. etc.

[Rejigger]

It's very simple and callous to say "if you don't like living in a box then don't buy one" when that's all that's being offered and you still can barely afford that.

I wouldn't say it's at all callous, it's simply the truth. Unless you're offering up another practical suggestion?

Hopefully we don't have droves of young people deciding to move to a more affordable community, otherwise who will stock your shelves at the grocery store, make your latte, wait your table, cut your grass, etc. etc.

Every time this argument comes up, I pose the question, "How do they do it in NYC, for example?" Coffee shops and grocery stores still operate in cities where the cost of living is much higher than it is here. Increased wages, for one thing.

Personally, I got a job working evenings and weekends in a take-out restaurant when I was 14 and continued working menial jobs until two years after I graduated from OK College.

[60-YEARS-in-Ktown]

Geez Grandan, the whole time I thought that house was moved from Guishican... must be another one..

[Grandan]

Geez Grandan, the whole time I thought that house was moved from Guishican... must be another one..

It is actually two houses we joined together in the late 80's. The second house came from behind the school board office on Haynes Road. Both houses were built by the same brothers in the 30's. They were both single dwellings (farmhouse) which are now joined at the hip.
When we moved the house it was a big deal and took all night. We put the house on a new engineered foundation set well below the original ground and into firm ground and put a made a finished basement out of it.
There was a fair amount of house moving in the past but it has slowed down.
The houses once moved and located to Sexsmith fronting the RV place are now coming down one by one being replaced by RV parking lots. How times change.

[Grandan]

see this is the problem with boomers. tell me more about the house you bought in 1980 for 75k and how it compares to the average 700k home in this town these days.you guys enjoyed the booms and the profits from the real estate and have left the rest of us in a mess but still come acrtoss with the smugness of well i bought a house in 1980 so i dont see what the problem with the kids these days is.

The house I bought in 1981 was $90500 and was a 22ft x 28ft (616 sq ft) 2 bedroom 1 bath home with an unfinished attic and a 8 x 24 ft unheated porch. There was a part basement which housed the furnace and hot water tank. The lot was 3/8 of an acre. I Rode my bicycle to work to be able to afford the payments.
What I point out is the problem with kids today, they want the $700,000 home but can only afford a $250,000 home.
Someone I know bought a 1000 sq ft townhouse for $240,000 in Kelowna in July (September possession) and it is a far better house than we had on Benvoulin.
There are deals to be had and strategies to be used but kids today are not prepared to sacrifice and so have missed the boat.
Btw I bought my first house in 1975 for $21,000. I could not get a bank mortgage because it had no proper foundation so I got a mortgage from the vendor. We had three mortgages on the place. Oh, ya we had it easy alright.