Jim Church is blazing a trail for condo strata councils in the region.
“The wave is coming,” said the recently retired physician.
Church is the strata council vice president of his 29-unit Cordova Bay condo building. Over the past year, Church spearheaded his buildings’ EV infrastructure project, becoming the Capital Region’s first multi-family complex to go electric.
“I think it was really important for us to do what we could as far as environment, maintaining property value for our owners and taking advantage of the available incentives — government incentives and rebates,” said Church.
Church spent months speaking with various contractors and researching different government rebate programs. In the end, Church says the final bill worked out to $750 per unit to cover the infrastructure or $2300 for those who also installed their own charger. That total includes provincial and municipal rebates which covered approximately half of the original cost.
Church’s building went with level 2 chargers which he says can charge a vehicle from empty to full in approximately 6-8 hours. Despite only three of the 29 units currently own an electric vehicle, Church says residents in his building voiced their unanimous support for the project.
“We had 100 per cent approval of the project by owners,” said Church, adding with government mandates he believes it’s only a matter of time before society fully embraces EV technology. “If somebody drives up to your home that’s for sale and you don’t have that EV charging system and they’re driving an EV, they’re just going to say ‘goodbye’.”
One resident CHEK News spoke with says she purchased her first electric vehicle just weeks after the building’s infrastructure was in place.
“We love it,” said Karen Lee, who drives a Nissan Leaf. “In six months it cost us $92.16 to charge the car in electricity…It’s going to pay off in a year I figure, especially with gas prices now.”
According to District of Saanich senior sustainability manager Maggie Baynham, the CRD has the highest rate of new electric vehicle registrations on a percentage basis in Canada.
“In 2020, almost 13 per cent of new vehicles that were sold were electric,” said Baynham.
The District of Saanich recently installed 20 new EV charging stations and more are on the way in the region. Baynham says getting condo buildings to retrofit their buildings has its challenges.
“With stratas there’s a lot more people that are involved in the decision making process and, you know, beholden to the Strata Propery Act,” said Baynham.
In Saanich, all new multi-unit building applications are required to have EV-charging infrastructure in place.
After being up and running for over six months, Church is now sharing what he’s learned with strata council’s across the province. A recent article in the Times Colonist resulted in over forty strata councils across the province contacting Church for assistance.
Church has offered to answer questions and send information to any strata council’s beginning the EV infrastructure process. He can be reached at [email protected].
Information can also be found on the Vancouver Island Strata Owners Association website.
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Kevin Charach
