Making connections
Seeking a stronger sense of community, 10 Vancouver families are working on plans for an ‘urban village’ project that will be much more than just another condo
James Chamberlain and his partner live in a perfectly nice triplex near Vancouver General Hospital, a home many people in Vancouver would aspire to.
But the lack of connections with anyone around him in the Fairview area had begun to bother him.
“Our neighbourhood has hollowed out over the years,” said Mr. Chamberlain, a fiftysomething elementary-school vice-principal.
So he decided to look for like-minded people who would want to live in a new development together, in a place that would foster a sense of community.
Three years later, 10 families have come together with plans to live in a new kind of multifamily project that is more than just another condo building but not as complex or elaborate as co-housing.
Called Tomo House, the proposed project is in central Vancouver, near 41st Avenue and Main Street, and just working its way through the city’s development process.