Whistler's housing woes

When Josiane Briggs moved to Whistler last fall _ a recent high-school grad from Gatineau, Que., lured by the promise of living in a skiing mecca _ she knew she'd be looking for a new place to live when the Winter Olympics rolled around.Briggs's lease will end just before the Games, when her landlord plans to rent her room out at a steep markup, but the advanced warning hasn't made the 19-year-old's hunt for a place to live any easier.``This is a common story. I know a lot of people who are offering their couch to friends for a month, because no one has anywhere to go,'' says Briggs, who has been ``slightly desperately'' looking for a new apartment for nearly a month.``There's not enough for everyone who's been kicked out. I just feel like it was bad planning _ they knew there were going to be the people that work here, plus the volunteers and everything else.''The Olympics have been both a blessing and a curse in a mountain village where struggling to find an apartment has become a rite of passage for anyone calling Whistler home, whether for a few months or a lifetime.In the short-term, the Games have prompted some landlords to force their tenants out as they charge exorbitant rates to spectators, visiting media and workers who will be here for the international sporting event.But the Olympics will also leave behind a massive new development _ the athletes' village _ that will soon be home to hundreds of residents, representing another step forward in a community that a decade ago had a seemingly hopeless shortage of housing.``I think we've actually turned a major corner largely as a result of the Olympics,'' says Whistler's mayor, Ken Melamed.After the Olympics, the athletes' village development south of Whistler will become Cheakamus Crossing, a polished new neighbourhood with 221 condos sold to local workers at artificially low prices and another 50 rented out at about half the going market rate.The town hopes that will start a chain reaction as Cheakamus Crossing residents leave behind empty homes and apartments, opening up new space for other local workers, and on it will go.``I would say in successful resorts, resident housing is probably the No. 1 challenge,'' says Melamed. ``But we're feeling really comfortable.''Things weren't always so comfortable.As Whistler blossomed into a world-class resort in the '80s and '90s, housing for the thousands of workers needed to run the slopes, hotels, restaurants and shops became increasingly scarce.Some were forced to commute from other communities in the Sea-to-Sky region, such as Pemberton and Squamish, and others were living in cramped quarters with four or five people squished into a single room.In 1997, responding to what some called a housing crisis in the village, the municipality created the Whistler Housing Authority to help workers find places to live.Whistler set a goal to have 75 per cent of its workforce living in town, and the housing authority started buying up properties to sell or rent at below-market prices, with strict controls on who can live in them and how much they can be resold for.At the same time, many local businesses, from hotels and restaurants to the Whistler Blackcomb ski operation itself, built their own dorms for workers.Today, nearly 80 per cent of Whistler's workers live in town, and that's expected to continue to improve as the athletes' village and several other developments controlled, in part, by the housing authority are finished in the coming year.``We're a world-class resort served by a community of 10,000,'' says Marla Zucht, the Whistler Housing Authority's general manager.``Most people do want to be here, it adds so much to our community to have people living in town. I think we're really starting to feel like we're over the curb with those housing challenges.''The agency now controls about 5,500 units in Whistler, representing about a third of all local housing.And they're a relative bargain: Zucht says a 90-square-metre condo in Whistler might sell for about $800,000 on the open market, but a housing authority unit would sell for about $250,000. Likewise, a private landlord might rent out a one-bedroom apartment for $1,500 a month, compared with about $800 from the housing authority.Those units might not directly benefit short-term seasonal workers, who likely aren't looking for a mortgage or the housing authority's minimum one-year rental lease.However, they do free up space in the private rental market for the often young workers who flock to Whistler from all over the world to spend most of their time on the slopes.Ryan Wallace is another victim of the Olympic housing crunch, forced to find a new place to stay while his landlord looks to cash in from Games-time visitors. But he's handling the situation with surprising aplomb.The 21-year-old from Newcastle, Australia, was living in a house with two or three people to each room before he was sent packing, and he's expecting whatever place he finds to live in during and after the Olympics will be more of the same.``That's life in Whistler, I guess,'' says Wallace.``If you want to move here, it's part and parcel of it. I knew it was going to be like this, it's always like this in ski towns. You just deal with it.''