In short, it comes down to economies of scale. Most of our costs are fixed - that is, they are about the same (or change only moderately) regardless of the number of homes provided.

As an example, the property cost roughly $850,000 to buy. That's about $94,000 per home in our proposal. However, if we provided parking we would, at most, be able to provide 6 homes which would be roughly $142,000 per home – a 51% increase. Architecture fees, engineering fees, professional fees (arborist, surveyor, geotechnical, etc.), municipal fees (most), administrative costs, etc. – are all fixed costs. These costs change very little (or not at all) regardless of whether it's 6 or 9 homes. That makes an enormous difference.

We conservatively estimate that one of our 3-bedroom homes will be $50,000-$100,000 less than a comparable home with parking.

We’re also able to provide more trees, green space, and an overall better architectural design compared to a conventional townhome project - in a smaller building no less! Overall, without parking we can provide more value for less. That’s just good design.

How much will these homes actually cost? See below!

That’s a very difficult question to answer at the best of times but it’s especially difficult now. The challenge is how long the permitting process takes and how costs and prices fluctuate over time. Construction will be the largest project expense (naturally) and we’ve seen wild cost escalations over the last few years. We simply won’t know what our labour and material costs will be until we get to construction.

However, the market is at a turning point with sales falling, inventory growing, and prices softening and the Bank of Canada is expected to continue increasing interest rates. It is our sincerest hope that material costs, labour costs, and prices fall between now and when we sell these homes.

Not so much - it's only a 2 1/2 storey building (a 1/2 storey means one level of living is in the roof line). In fact, it's a fair bit shorter than most townhouses (usually a full 3 storeys) and only marginally taller than a typical single-family home. Our proposal is only 1.76m (5’ 9”) taller than the current zoning of the property allows. Also, the east townhouse stack is only 1 ½ storeys tall, less than what’s allowed under the current zoning and about the same height as the neighbouring home to the East.

Ultimately it comes down to a better use of space on the property. Without the need for car garages, we’re able to provide living space on the ground level and basement – that’s 4 of the 9 homes! Same space, just used for people, not cars.

We’ve also left lots of room for green space, including 17 trees (net increase of 11) and more than 330 plants in the landscape plan.

And remember, the only way to provide more affordable housing is by providing more homes on a site (see "You said car-free homes will be more affordable. How’s that work?").

Lots of people! Including me (Julian West).

It’s well established that in well-connected communities with strong transportation alternatives, car ownership and use falls. This is reflected in the 2020 CRD Housing and Transportation Cost Estimate Study and 2017 CRD Origin Destination Household Travel Survey. For instance, 20% of households in the City of Victoria are car-free. Modo has 77 car-share vehicles in Victoria and 80% of their local members are car-free*.

Also, there is a rapidly growing market for electric cargo bikes which are specifically designed to be car replacements. If you haven't already, you should check out our amazing local cargo bike shop Bishop's Family Cycles!

There are lots of reasons why people choose to not own a car. Some people do it to reduce their emissions, some to save money, others find driving uncomfortable and dangerous, and others just like the exercise from walking and cycling most places.

We currently have more than 60 families waitlisted to live in one of our homes - all through word of mouth.

The lifestyle isn't for everyone but it's the way some people want to live, which is great for the environment, making safer streets, creating connected and resilient communities, and many more good reasons. So, that's who we're building these homes for.

*Source: Modo HQ, January 2022.

The car-free lifestyle is a "lifestyle of short distances". Typically, you walk, bike and take transit for most trips and use a car-share vehicle on the occasions you need one - 1 or 2 trips a month is typical for Modo car-share members*.

It's important to note this lifestyle only works in amenity rich communities, like the “Saanich Panhandle”. We wouldn’t propose these homes in most areas of Saanich.

It's also important to understand that it's much more than "your life minus a car". It's a completely different lifestyle. You spend much more time within convenient walking and cycling distance and develop a rich connection and attachment to your local community. It's important to teach your kids independence early so they become self-sufficient teenagers. If you'd like to learn more, here are a few great books on the topic:

• Curbing Traffic by Chris Bruntlett and Melissa Bruntlett

• Happy City by Charles Montgomery

• Child in the City by Kristin N. Agnello

*Source: Modo HQ, January 2022.

First, it's important to recognize that car-free families simply aren’t competing for street parking (see "Seriously - who doesn't own a car?"). These are real people who need housing but not street parking.

To make sure only car-free families buy into these homes, we've developed a waitlist with more than 60 families registered. This helps us identify and screen for families who are the right fit, long before people will actually move into these homes.

When it comes to our transportation choices, convenience is king. So instead of car parking, we make the alternatives practical and convenient, including:

• Walkable/bikeable location close to the #14 transit route (service every 15 minutes or less, 7am-7pm, Monday-Friday) and the All-Ages-and-Abilities Cycling Network.

• Large bike garage with capacity for all families to have standard bikes, ebikes, cargo bikes and children's bikes. It will be accessible at-grade with an overhead garage door and remote fobs. The room will be spacious, well-lit, and packed with features (tool wall, repair station, electrical ports, etc.).

• Provide an on-street EV Modo car-share vehicle, including Modo memberships and driving credits for all households.

It's also important to recognize that the competition for street parking and the lack of oversight on-street parking is a municipal policy gap that will be resolved sometime in the near future. More than 200 cities across North America have removed parking requirements for new housing in certain areas or city-wide, which is usually coupled with some form of street parking management (typically an inexpensive but managed permit system). The District of Saanich is going this direction and plans to implement a street parking management system as part of its Climate Plan (see Mobility Strategy 2.8).

We have also agreed to work with Saanich to “explore mechanisms” to establish a car-free status for these homes which will help provide a scalable and repeatable model for Saanich.

It's increasingly clear to policy makers that parking requirements and unmanaged street parking is in direct conflict with our housing affordability and emission reduction goals. For more background on this, I highly recommend reading The High Price of Free Parking by Donald Shoup.

Finally, as part of our purchase agreement and to set clear expectations for everyone, we will require our buyers to sign a contract ensuring they won't park on the street within 500m of the property. This contract will be included in future sales of the property, passing down from buyer to buyer over a period of 10 years (from the date of occupancy, roughly 12 years from today). This allows ample time for the District of Saanich to implement it's new street parking management policies, and for society to adjust to all of the decarbonization changes required to meet our national and provincial goal of reducing emissions by 40% by 2030 (8 years from today).

Strata bylaws will also be implemented to help monitor and support compliance of the car-free contract. We'll also assist our buyers in future resales by pairing them with waitlisted families.

Finally, research shows that one Modo car-share vehicle should remove between 9-13 private cars from the road (both from households "shedding" excess vehicles and people "not purchasing" vehicles they otherwise would have). Recognizing that most of the usage for a car-share vehicle comes from the neighbourhood (not the project it was purchased for), all evidence suggest our proposal will reduce pressure on street parking, not increase it.

The same place as guests for every other home on the block - on the street. That’s a fair, equitable, and good use of publicly owned street parking. While our buyers will be car-free, we can't expect every visitor to be car-free.

The good news is, guests use much less parking than most people expect and we have street parking spaces in front of our property on Allenby. Here are the facts:

• On our Allenby frontage, we’re providing a loading zone (for deliveries, taxis, moving trucks, etc.), 1 car-share space, and 2 street parking spaces.

• The generally accepted visitor parking ratio is calculated at 0.1 stalls per home, to accommodate peak period demand.

• So, for a project of this size, 1 visitor parking space is sufficient (0.1 x 9 = 0.9 = ~1) and we’re providing 2 on-street.

• Additionally, there are approximately 37 on-street parking spaces on Allenby between Richmond and Dean serving 21 single-detached dwellings.

• A typical household in East Saanich has 1-2 vehicles (average 1.6) which can, in most cases, be accommodated by off-street parking for those households (garages, surface parking and driveways).

• These 37 on-street spaces provide more than enough capacity for overflow from the single-detached homes and any visitors on the street (3 expected during peak periods for the existing single-detached dwellings, 1 for our proposal).

• This is consistent will all observations we have made since we purchased the property nearly 2 years ago. At no point during this period have we observed street parking approaching full capacity.

This means that:

• Most of the time there will be no visitors parked on the street,

• Sometimes there will be 1,

• On occasion there will be 2, and

• Very rarely there will be more than 2.

Therefore, there is more than sufficient street parking on Allenby for visitors and our proposal will, at worst, have a negligible impact on-street parking capacity.

Furthermore, research shows that one Modo car-share vehicle should remove between 9-13 private cars from the road (both from households "shedding" excess vehicles and people "not purchasing" vehicles they otherwise would have). Recognizing that most of the usage for a car-share vehicle comes from the neighbourhood (not the project it was purchased for), all evidence suggests our proposal will reduce pressure on-street parking, not increase it.

For starters, we now have more than 60 families waitlisted who want to live in these homes and we don’t have any indication anyone is interested in purchasing one of these homes as a rental property.

In terms of short-term rentals like AirBnB, those simply aren't allowed in Saanich! You may find some suites in Saanich listed as short-term rentals but this typically happens with single-detached housing which are difficult to monitor. In a strata, this would be quickly discovered and addressed.

Saanich recently passed a bylaw that doesn’t actually allow rental restrictions (generally, they want to encourage more rental housing), so we couldn’t restrict rentals in our building even if we wanted to, but the economics of rentals and small projects like this (especially as interest rates rise) make it unlikely these will be viable “investment properties”. This is consistent with all past projects from our partner, Lapis Homes, which have been occupied by homeowners. Also, in the unlikely event that someone did purchase a home and rent it out to unrelated tenants, any potential issues would be effectively managed through strata bylaws. Stratas can issue fines for noise disturbances and other disruptions that impact other residents' personal enjoyment of their home.

In summary, AirBnB isn’t allowed, there’s no indication any of these homes will be purchased as rental properties, but in the unlikely event that one of them was rented out, any potential issues would be effectively managed through the strata.

Pet restrictions will be defined in the strata bylaws which will be written in about 18 months from now but generally we expect allowing up to 1 small dog or 1 cat per household.