No new houses in Grimsby are small. There's a new development on Main Street East and the houses are monsters, according to my thinking. What do you see when you look at this? Probably 3,000 sq ft.
They seem to be a long time in the making. I wonder when everything will be completed. What I pass each day does not resemble this picture - all the houses are tight against each other and right up to the sidewalk. No gracious front lawns and gardens will appear.
Now let's head over to Fredericton, N.B. where a tiny home village has been in the news. There will be 99 tiny homes. This has been masterminded by Marcel Lebrun who has created a charity to develop the community.
Comparing the pictures, it looks like at least a 3 to 1 ratio in terms of lot usage.
I wonder what it is about Ontario builders and residents that we are not given to reducing our house size.
Can you imagine what it would take to start thinking in terms of tiny homes? There is one Ontario example of tiny home communities - it is in St. Thomas-Elgin. This is similar to New Brunswick's project. Both are charity-based projects building community services.
We drove to Welland yesterday for Gerry's cataract surgery. The Welland hospital does most of the eye surgery in Niagara. It has grown so efficient and effective at cataract surgery that what we entered was an assembly line set of activities.
Driving into Welland, I was shocked by what I saw. Little houses. Just ordinary little houses. Bungalows. No monster "Bungalofts" looming over everything around them. I was transported back to the 1960s. That was before the "big house" disease took hold. Well into the 1970s, houses were built to be lived in. How do I know this" My test is that back then, two bathrooms were being included and no longer a luxury. After that? How many bathrooms should be included to show your status? One for every bedroom started to become vital. Maybe it was a premonition that houses should be easily converted into Airbnbs.
Welland looked comfortable and homey, not the seeming reputation as the least attractive and most avoided town in Niagara. Residents are considered lower income than other parts of Niagara. The livability score has been low - 53/100. On the other hand, it ranked 15 in the top 25 communities to live and work remotely in 2021 - in the nation. So maybe these little houses turn out to be not so bad, and Welland starts to shine as a livable place with its parks and rivers. It is a bit far out - equal distance from Niagara Falls and St. Catharines and Port Colborne - in the middle of the peninsula. Looking at an article with "recently listed in Welland" houses - they had houses with prices between $300,00 and $500,000.
Welland, capital of eye surgery and inexpensive housing. A good combination.
I waited for Gerry and watched all the people exiting their cataract surgery with their plastic eye shield over one eye. It made me think of a science-fiction assembly line movie scene.
