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8/6/13 Shipping container homes ready for residents
Shipping container homes ready for residents
First occupants of unique-to-Canada social housing development
expected to move in next month
BY BRUCE CONSTANTINEAU, VANCOUVER SUN AUGUST 2, 2013
Atira Women's Resource Society's recycled shipping container social housing project on Alexander Street features 12 units of about 280-290 sq. ft each.
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8/6/13 Shipping container homes ready for residents
Photograph by: Ward Perrin, PNG, Vancouver Sun
The only telling signs that a new Downtown Eastside housing project at 502 Alexander St. is unusual
are the corrugated steel walls, painted navy blue and burnt orange.
The colourful walls are the exterior of 12 recycled shipping containers that form the base structure for
the unique three-level, 12-unit development for women.
"Once you put the containers on site and secure them, the construction is really similar to other forms
of housing," said Atira Women's Resource Society chief executive Janice Abbott, Thursday. "We
spray-foam insulated everything and put up drywall, and as you can see, it's not significantly different
than any other apartment you might see anywhere else in Vancouver."
Canada's first recycled shipping container social housing development features a dozen selfcontained
units ranging from 280 to 290 square feet in size. The first occupants are expected to move
in next month. The development meets all building codes, and indeed exceeds code requirements for
insulation and sound transference.
Abbott noted the hard construction costs were $82,500 per unit, compared with about $220,000 a unit
for a conventional concrete housing project Atira recently completed on Abbott Street, which features
320-square-foot homes.
The entire Alexander Street project - including a heritage restoration of the adjacent 16-unit Imouto
Housing for Young Women - cost $3.3 million, with Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. contributing
$2.6 million.
The City of Vancouver kicked in $92,000. Coun. Kerry Jang noted that the city normally would have
contributed $120,000, or $10,000 per unit. "But because their costs were so much lower than normal,
they didn't need it," he said.
City council first investigated the concept of shipping container housing about four years ago, as
similar projects had been built in Europe, but none had ever been developed in Canada.
Jang said one of the biggest challenges was overcoming the notion that the project would "stack up
poor people and warehouse them" in containers. "For us, the Number 1 thing is that it had to be
livable. When you look around, you can see they have really achieved that," he said.
Four of the 12 recycled containers were donated - two from BC Hydro and two from private citizens -
while eight were bought through a broker from Port Metro Vancouver.
Project development manager James Weldon said the containers, worth from $4,000 to $5,000 each,
contain steel that would normally be too expensive for this sort of development. "It's kind of ironic that
when it's recycled like this, it becomes very affordable," he said.
Weldon said the innovative project came with a "phenomenal" learning curve for everyone involved.
"It seems very simple and straightforward now, but at the time, it was challenging for everybody
because the industry isn't used to working with this kind of material," he said. "The next project like
this will be more efficient and economical because we learned so much from this pilot project."
Abbott said preliminary work has already begun on Atira's plan to develop "a more sophisticated"
shipping container housing development on a site at Hastings Street and Hawks Avenue. The society
hopes to gain city approval to build a seven-storey project that would require 42 recycled containers.
The Alexander Street development features two different levels of nonmarket housing: six units that
will cost occupants $375 a month, and six whose rents will be determined by the resident's annual
income. Renters of the income-related units can earn a maximum of $34,000 a year and pay a
maximum monthly rental of $850.
Abbott said applications from potential residents will be reviewed next week, and the society wants
women over the age of 50 to occupy the $375-a-month units. "We want those women to participate in
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8/6/13 Shipping container homes ready for residents
an inter-generational mentorship program with the young women who live next door (at the Imouto
development)," she said. "We're looking for women with roots in this community who want to give back
and support young women to perhaps take different paths than they did."
bconstantineau@vancouversun.com See video with this story at vancouversun.com
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