The Victoria Residential Builders Association handed out 50 awards at its annual Construction Achievements and Renovations of Excellence (CARE) Awards night on the weekend.
While some lauded affordable building, it was the Lifetime Achievement award for developer Gordon Denford that really shone a light on the region’s affordable housing problem.
The 90-year-old founder of Denford Construction and Berwick Retirement Communities was honoured for managing to stay ahead of the curve in a career that has spanned six decades.
Denford saw an opportunity, in a room that was peppered with elected officials and planners, to fire a shot across the bow of the region’s municipalities by telling them they are a big part of the housing affordability crisis.
In an interview Tuesday, Denford said: “It’s a bit hypocritical to talk at council meetings about housing being unaffordable and about finding solutions, when [councils] are a big part of the problem. In fact, their contribution on unaffordability has been pretty significant over the years.
“Every time they do something [adding new rules or regulations], it’s like they forget that they’ve done it and we are adding on higher costs — as if costs won’t finally be borne by the final purchasers or users of the residence.”
In his speech, Denford compared building today with conditions that prevailed during his first development, an apartment building in James Bay in 1962. Back then, the City of Victoria didn’t have a planning department.
Denford told the audience that he approached the city’s engineering department at the time and showed them a rough sketch of a three-storey, walk-up apartment building. He was told it was a good idea and that it conformed with the zoning bylaw.
Denford said he was advised to return with plans and he would get a permit.
He secured financing and partnered with trades, and within a year, a 20-unit apartment building that cost $140,000 to build stood at the corner of Berwick and Boyd streets.
“The entire process took little more than one year, and two years later we sold it for $186,000,” he said, noting that this simplicity would be lost as governments at all levels reached in to tax and regulate the development industry.
Denford reeled off several examples of changes over the years that have driven up costs. He warned that the federal government’s proposed tax overhaul, coupled with provincial and municipal building-code changes, threaten affordability further.
“There is much discussion about the subject currently, particularly by municipalities, and I felt it important to use this opportunity to remind members of our industry of the significant role that governments have played in creating unaffordable housing,” he said.
Casey Edge, executive director of the Victoria Residential Builders Association, said there’s a lesson in there for a region that bemoans the lack of affordable housing.
“Gordon said during his speech that if you want affordable housing, do something about all the regulation, because it’s impeding affordability. Frankly, I think if they listened, they’d have a lot more housing,” he said.
Edge said that kind of understanding is part of the reason Denford was honoured.
“For one thing, he is a guy with vision,” Edge said. “He launched his retirement-community concept on Vancouver Island for aging baby boomers and proved he was way ahead of the pack in a lot of ways.”
Denford, who also has a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce, said he was caught by surprise by the award. He said it was a real honour given that it was specific to the housing industry.
Denford started building in Victoria in 1953, when he set up an electrical heating-distribution business that would become an electrical contracting company and, eventually, a development firm.
After the 1962 apartment building in James Bay, dozens of buildings followed in Victoria and well beyond the city’s borders, before he turned his hand to retirement living in 1989.
Berwick’s first retirement home opened in Gordon Head in 1989 with a vision of a residence that could comfort as well as house seniors.
Denford’s goal was to eliminate the retirement-home stigma by establishing residences with a sense of harmony, comfort and familiarity to allow seniors to make the transition from their own homes.
Since then there have been five more — in Royal Oak, Campbell River, Comox, Nanaimo and Kamloops — and construction will start on a seventh in Qualicum Beach in the spring.
- - -
CARE AWARD HONOUREES
Honourees at the Construction Achievements and Renovations of Excellence (CARE) Awards night included:
• Project of the Year winner Christopher Developments and KB Design for Madrona Adagio, which won another three Gold CARE Awards.
• Synergy by Falcon Heights Contracting captured five Gold Awards, including Green Builder of the Year in the small-volume category for their Built Green Platinum home.
• The People’s Choice Award went to Travino Square by Mike Geric Construction, which also received three Gold CARE Awards, including Green Builder of the Year in the large volume category.
• Other multiple Gold CARE Award winners were Coast Prestige Homes, Creative Spaciz, Jason Good Cabinets, Jenny Martin Design, Mari Kushino Design, Ryan Hoyt Designs, Story Construction, Seabrook Developments, Villamar Construction, and Thomas Phillips Woodworking.
• The award for Excellence in Housing Affordability went to B.C. Housing in partnership with Pacifica Housing for Wilson Walk.
The complete list of winners can be found online at: careawards.ca.
