By Chad Klassen

BUILDING KAMLOOPS (Part 3): Dufferin expansion to push closer to Kenna Cartwright Park

Jun 28, 2018 | 5:34 PM

In the third instalment of our series Building Kamloops, we look at the Dufferin area. Dufferin is part of the projected 43 per cent growth in the southwest sector of Kamloops over the next 20 years, and while there isn’t as much land to develop as Aberdeen, there’s likely enough for another five years. Chad Klassen looks at where neighbourhoods can expand there.

Excavators and other heavy equipment are levelling ground on Prairie Rose Road, the primary land for expansion right now in Dufferin. Homes on Prairie Rose are already under construction with some nearing completion — the latest in a housing boom in that neighbourhood.

“It’s grown quite a lot over the last four years that we’ve been up there,” said owner of Right at Home Construction Graham Richardson. “Lot of people coming from the coast. A lot of people building different types of houses. We’re building a more modern style up here.”

Graham Richardson is a builder and currently working on three homes right now in the neighbourhood. The developer in Dufferin is Matt McCurrach – who is working to create more lots for the builders. 

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“We’re just wrapping up one single-family subdivision. We’ve got another 19 lots coming on stream later this summer,” said McCurrach. “We’re also wrapping up a multi-family project, townhome site, and we have a few more sites up here for multi-family that we’ll be developing in the future years.”

McCurrach’s company Homex Development Corporation owns most of the developable land in Dufferin. He says the expansion of the neighbourhood will move closer to Kenna Cartwright Park,. where it will come with more rocky terrain – which will drive prices up.

“It is more expensive to build up,” said McCurrach. “You’re dealing in the mountains. Quite often we’re dealing with rocks, so houses in general there are some added costs with retaining walls, with extra engineering with geotechnical engineers. So there is a slight added cost as we go up, but the cost of housing in general right now is going up.”  

They are the same challenges that homebuilders are going to run into here. 

“We deal with a lot of rock in this area, so there are definitely some challenges, not only for the developer putting in his servicing but also for us as builders,” said Richardson. “We got get in there and starting chipping rock out. We can’t blast once all the houses have gone in. But definitely the terrain we get up here is, it’s not like building down on the flats. It’s more sloping, hilly terrain. 

Richardson says he hopes to get in another few years of home construction in Dufferin before having to move on to the next neighbourhood in town. 

“Up in this area, we’ve got probably another good three years of expansion up behind us here,” he noted. “There are some other areas that are in the works that I know Matt from Homex has been working on getting going. That remains to be seen. There’s definitely a good couple three years that I can see ahead of us right now.”

McCurrach says the entire development of Dufferin could see a few hundred more units added to the city’s housing inventory. 

“The multi-families allows for higher density, so that will help with the housing crunch,” he said. “And the single-family stuff we really haven’t finalized. It’s going to depend on the size of lots that we decide on.”