Young Entrepreneurs’ Small Houses Make Green and Affordable An Option For Locals
Jul 13, 2010
(News Release) VICTORIA – With HST, Property Transfer Tax, and the highest home ownership costs in the country1, British Columbian’s are facing endless challenges in buying a home today. Westco Construction’s owners have taken this to heart and have evolved their concepts to offer efficiently designed buildings constructed in a manner to save material, land use and money for the consumer.
Westco Construction Ltd., incorporated in 2004, is owned by young entrepreneurs Dan Melville, 28 and Jeremy West, 28. Starting out as a small wood framing crew, the company and grew alongside Victoria’s building boom, boasting numerous projects including St. Andrew’s Walk and Pond’s Landing of Bear Mountain Village, to name a few. In 2009, the drastic economic slump pushed these young business owners to diversify their offerings to survive in a competitive industry.
Westco Construction Ltd. is proud to introduce a new line of affordable and sustainable buildings called EcoTec Homes. Using their industrial parcel located in the Sooke Business Park, Westco is pre-building smart homes to supply Vancouver Island, the Gulf Islands, and the Lower Mainland. The structures range from vacation cabins, to carriage houses to modest single family homes. These compact designs minimize the land footprint required, thus reducing their environmental impact.
Co-owner Dan Melville states: “In my experience as a builder, I am seeing the trend definitely moving towards a more compact way of living and making efforts to minimize our footprint on the environment. At the same time, the traditional perspective of wanting a solid and reliable piece of construction will never die. What we are trying to focus on is building housing that is modern in design and functionality, with solid bones and structure. My job as I see it is to make owning a well-made home realistic for people of my age group.”
After its production, which only takes about 6 to 8 weeks, the EcoTec Home can be directly delivered to location, turnkey and ready to use. Not to be confused with modular homes, these structures are attached to a permanent foundation and fully connected like a traditional home.
Westco is using environmentally conscious materials in the homes such as composite decking, made of bamboo and recycled plastic, as well as low-flow bathroom fixtures. The homes are built in a quality controlled facility reducing waste of resources, and are created locally, by locals. Any materials that can be, are sourced locally to support the nearby businesses. The final product is truly intended to suit today’s environmental and economic needs.
Westco’s custom pre-built design buildings come in various dimensions and configurations, ranging from 160 square ft up to 1,100 square ft. Prices plan to start as low as $24,000.
EcoTec Homes are:
- affordable
- timely to produce
- innovative in design
- fully assembled and turnkey
- compact, minimizing footprint
- built to reduce waste and environmental impact
Homes are currently being built by Westco Construction Ltd at their facility located in the Sooke Business Park at 3220 Otter Point Rd. They are currently available for preview on their site in Sooke, or as part of Oceanside Wild Coast Cottages development located in beautiful Port Renfrew, BC. (www.wildcoastcottages.com).