Renewal Developments, Saving Our Planet One Home at a Time

We’ve Got Issues host, Nancy Furness, talks to Johnathon Strebly, Director of Communications and Engagement for Renewal Development about the company’s goal to ‘save homes with good bones from being demolished’ by relocating them to properties where the need is greatest.

Johnathon says Renewal Development differs from other development companies by looking at the human connection to homes and by considering demolition as the last choice to avoid adding to our landfills and economic imprint. He says regionally at least 10,000 homes over the next five years will be redeveloped, and between 2800 – 3000 could be rescued and repurposed. He says remote areas where it is challenging and expensive to build new homes have the highest need.

Johnathon says Renewal Development reaches out to developers in response to land assemblies and demolition permit requests and that both developers and people are becoming aware that homes can be donated. He says this is a genuine attempt to address affordable housing by identifying needs and then sourcing the resources.

By avoiding demolition Johnathon says the imprint on the Earth is reduced, saving up to sixty trees and over 100 tons of landfill waste per 1500 square foot home. He says homes must be structurally sound, and solidly built.

Johnathon says providing homes is an important component of Reconciliation. Recently thirteen homes were identified in Coronation Park in Port Moody in conjunction with WesGroup. Three were logistically too big to move. Johnathon says the company is grateful to have partnered with Nickel Bros. who have decades of experience. Ten homes are going to Shíshálh Nation on the Sunshine Coast. Nine of the ten homes will be elevated upon arrival, making them duplexes and thereby increasing density.

For homes that cannot be moved or deconstructed, Johnathon says a minimalist approach to demolition is used. Other buildings are also moved, such as the Yellow Schoolhouse from Cornwall Ave in Vancouver. It was slated for demolition, instead, it went to Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish Nation) to be used as a language nest where for the first time in 90 years the language is being taught to Sḵwx̱wú7mesh children as their first language.