ECO: Laneway homes unveiled

Future house Tiny eco-friendly laneway home features two full stories and an electric-car-charging garage. A prototype tiny, perfect “laneway house” will demonstrate Vancouver’s “Greenest City” goals to 250,000 Olympic visitors to Vancouver House.

Mayor Gregor Robertson opened the 610-sq.-ft. house yesterday, with the help of Treasury Board president Stockwell Day, who noted the Western Economic Diversification fund contributed $347,000 to the “West House.”

Day and Robertson toured the house, which has a combined living/dining/kitchen area, bathroom and loft bedroom with a small balcony, plus a 226-sq.-ft. garage with an electric car charging outlet.

“Today we open the door to the future of eco-friendly construction and design,” said Robertson, noting that since the city approved laneway houses last year, 21 permits have been granted and 50 more applied for.

The city’s goal is to densify the estimated 66,000 mostly singlefamily lots with compact housing that has a smaller ecological footprint and greater energy-efficiency.

The little house, with free admission to the public, is located next to Vancouver House in Yaletown, as part of the LiveCity Yaletown site.

Simon Fraser University professor Lynn Bartram worked with city sustainable development manager David Ramslie to get West House built and ready for the Olympics.

Both proudly gave tours yesterday to the minister and mayor of their little house, which was built by Vancouver firm Smallworks.

Fitted with photovoltaic roofing, the house will share power with the electricity grid.

Its kitchen backsplash sparkles with lights that show how much energy the house is saving and a cool hallway “cockpit” allows a homeowner to control heat or lighting in the hall, or remotely from a smart phone.

It will be moved to a new site after the Games, with tentative plans to let someone live in it and blog about it for six months.

Day said he was “pumped” for the Olympics and praised “the people much smarter than me” who designed and built “this ecofriendly house.”

(prepared by Suzanne Fournier/Vancouver Province)