Housing /hauzin/ n. 1. a dwelling-houses collectively. b. the provision of these. 2. shelter, lodging. That is the definition according to The Concise Oxford Dictionary.
What we have happening in Sooke presently is the germination of a new type of housing. One group is aiming to create a community for seniors who choose to live together although not under the same roof. It’s not a new concept but it is new to Sooke. They are banding together for a variety of reasons, some are financial but mostly for the comfort and security of a mutually beneficial support system.
Another group is bringing affordable housing into Sooke through a charitable organization. They want to provide accommodation to the less advantaged. This doesn’t mean down-and-outers but rather people on lower incomes, like your kids perhaps.
The third housing effort is another type altogether. It’s relatively high end and will be for those who don’t have housing ‘issues’ at all but want to live in our part of the country because of the beauty of it.
District of Sooke council, at Monday’s meeting, gave the green light to all of these developments. We need all of these types of housing and, as one person said, Sooke is poised on the brink of some major change to the number of housing units we can expect in the next 10 to 20 years. Sooke is one of those places which is not discovered by a drive through, it keeps its secrets under wraps and you only discover them if you choose to take a serious look around.
We need to ensure that any future development meets the needs of all of those who want to live here and we need to make it easy, especially for affordable and alternative housing. We need to go green and show the rest of the world what a little town can do.