The Davis Bay street where a 99-lot strata subdivision is being built, with private roads inside it and District roads outside it.
Where Laurel Avenue sits, and the other places we attend
around Davis Bay. Every name on the map is a link.
Laurel Avenue, also written Laurel Road
The street is Laurel Avenue. District reports, land records, news coverage and real estate listings all use that form, although it is commonly written Laurel Road, and a handful of syndicated listings have printed Laurel Street in error. It runs up the Davis Bay hillside inside the District of Sechelt to the Havies Road junction at the Selma Park end. Documented civic addresses include 4709, 4730, 4759, 4902, 4946, 4987, and 5038. Three postal codes are in use along it: V0N 3A2, the old rural code, together with V7Z 0B4 and V7Z 0B7. A street carrying three codes was numbered in stages, and V7Z 0B4 is shared with the 4700 block of Fir Road, so the two streets adjoin. Alongside the new construction the street holds ordinary detached housing from the 1970s onward.
Ninety-nine houses are being built at 5038
The Havies, at 5038 Laurel Ave, is a development by Homei Properties of 99 single-family homes held as a strata of 99 units. The houses are three-level wood frame with minimum nine-foot ceilings, double-glazed windows, in-floor heating and gas fireplaces. Lots run from 500 to 900 square metres, which is about 5,400 to 9,700 square feet. The houses are offered in three, five, and six bedroom plans in craftsman and West Coast modern styles, staggered along the street frontage. Each one ships with a smart home package that includes door locks, video doorbells, security systems, thermostats, and water and gas monitors. The project broke ground in August 2022 and is still under construction. It is bounded by Nestman Road and Havies Road, with a five per cent park dedication, a multi-use pathway required on Laurel Avenue and sidewalks required on Havies Road.
Inside a strata of detached houses the roads are private
This matters more than it sounds. The internal roads of a bare-land style strata are not District of Sechelt roads. Snow clearing, drainage maintenance, and street lighting inside the boundary are the strata corporation's expense and the strata corporation's schedule. Laurel Avenue itself sits in the District's third and last snow clearing tier, behind the arterial routes, behind school bus and emergency access routes, and behind the collector streets. An owner who has never had to ask which body clears which metre of pavement usually finds out during the first week of snow after possession.
The permit was granted on 3 August
The application had been on file since 2016 and the original proposal was for 66 or 67 units. Three Development Permit Areas apply to the site, and the intensive residential area, DPA 8, required council approval. The District's development planning manager, Ian Holl, described it to council as one of the more extensive large-scale applications staff had dealt with. Council granted the permit on 3 August, with Councillor Alton Toth opposed. A director of the Davis Bay-Wilson Creek-Selma Park Community Association, Katie Clogg, told council the association found it alarming that planning department processes did not take community feedback into account. Havies Road was raised as too narrow during the hearing, and Nestman Road was designated the main access instead.
Monitors report to a phone, not to a person
A house full of sensors is not a house that is being watched. Water and gas monitors, video doorbells, and connected thermostats send an alert to whoever is holding the phone. In a subdivision where many buyers have not yet moved in, that phone is often in another city. Sechelt's own metering programme shows the scale of what goes unnoticed: 2,974 of 4,100 scheduled water meters had been installed by the end of October. In September six houses were found to be leaking the approximate equivalent of 500 homes' worth of water every day. Councillor Alton Toth presented that report and noted that the Church Road well field had provided approximately 20 per cent of Sechelt's water over the summer. Davis Bay, Selma Park and Wilson Creek were all in Phase 3 of the meter rollout.
What a check on Laurel Avenue covers
Doors, windows, garage doors and any unfinished opening on a new house that has never been occupied
The in-floor heating manifold, the boiler or heat source, and the floor around both
Gas fireplace pilot, shut-off valve and the smell test at the appliance
Water and gas monitors and the video doorbell confirmed as powered, online, and reporting
Appliances, fixtures, tools, and materials left in an empty new build, which are what construction site thieves take
Roof, flashing, gutters, and the ground where the downspouts discharge, on landscaping that has not settled
On older houses: crawlspace, hot water tank, and the driveway culvert feeding the ditch
Mail and parcels, and construction debris blown onto the lot from the neighbouring site
A dated photographic record of the whole list, sent the same day
Insurance wordings on an unoccupied dwelling set conditions for the heating season. The Insurance Bureau of Canada's advice is that most policies spell out how often a competent person must check the house so that the heat stays on. Shutting off the water and draining the system is the alternative in some wordings. New-build and strata policies are not always worded the same way as an old house policy. The one you hold names the gap, four days or less in some, and that is the gap we keep.
What it costs
A scheduled check at Laurel Avenue is
$55 a visit, plus
$10 travel. The travel charge is the same
everywhere between Gibsons and Egmont. There is no minimum term and no joining fee.
See the full price list.
Where these facts come from
Every figure, date, and quotation on this page was taken from one of these. They are
listed so you can read them yourself.
