DCN Ache Ae ere | Commercial On Real Estate UBER 652-5171 NRS Peninsula Properties — Audited Circulation 12,968 A Victoria Weeklies Publication Wednesday February 13,1991 40¢ 1ae BUSINESS ADA CALENDAR A20 CLASSIFIEDS —_A26 COMMUNITY —Al2 GARDENING A117 OPINION AT SPORTS AI OUTDOORS BEYER AT GRENBY A24 HAMPSON Al4 LANG Al7 LENNOX Ad MUSGRAVE Al6 TOP OF THE PILE A7 WEIKLE AQ JOURNALIST EXCHANGE People in Zimbabwe offer their opinions in black and white Page A4 CEDAR WAXWINGS There’s plenty of them on the Peninsula Page Al4 MEN’S BONSPIEL Glen Meadows’ rinks win half the prizes Page A22 SPEECH CONTEST Only Stelly’s students can enter this one. Page A9 COURT BRIEFS Shopliffers ordered 10 do community service Page A34 SEWAGE PLANT Scientists say Greater Victona doesn’t really need Page Bl One WEEKLIES Review. office hours The Review office, at 9726-First St. in Sidney, is open from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. Monday. through Friday. Mail to Box 2070, Sidney, B:C. V8L 3S5. Second class mail registration number 0128. Sewage sludge to go on farmland by Mare Davis The Review Sewage sludge will be put on Central Saanich farmland this summer. A Capital Regional District- sponsored “pioneer project” to study the effects of sewage dis- posal on Woodwyn Farms was given the green light by Central Saanich council, Monday. Meeting as the sanitation and water committee, council endorsed the study into the effects of spread- ing dewatered sludge on farmland in Central Saanich. Council was told by the CRD’s chief engineer that Woodwyn Farms has agreed to the project and that it wouldn’t involve any cost to the municipality. Mike Williams said the dewat- ered sludge would be supplied by the Bazan Bay treatment plant and would be applied only to small portions of the farm. Ald. Jack Mar said he supports the idea of spreading 4.2 cubic meters or ‘half-a-dump-truck load” of sludge each week for a year on the farmland. But Mars suggestion that the sludge be injected into the soil was shot down by Williams as being 100 expensive. However, the proposal didn’t sit _well with Ald. Clarence Bolt who said the land shouldn’t be used as “4 guinea pig for tests that aren’t approvable”’ and could be environ- mentally harmful. Bolt is also concerned that Hagan Creek may be polluted as a result of toxic run-off resulting from spreading the sludge on farmland. : Continued on Page. AZ First-fime buyers face high prices Following is the third and final part of a three-part series about housing and accomodation on the Peninsula. by Mare Davis The Review Probably the hardest hit by the housing crunch on the Peninsula are first-time buyers, many who are forced to leave an area that’s always been home to them. Sophia Freigang, 28, and her husband Bruce Dcharme, 25, spent about five months looking for a house in the Greater Victoria area before finding a two-bedroom home on Fifth Street in Sidney for $109,000. With one 16-month-old child and another expected next month, the need to find a place to call home was getting “imperative,” Freigang said. They had hoped to find a house for under $100,000 but “all the ones we looked at were either shacks or in terrible neighbor- hoods,” she said. Having moved from Vancouver, the young couple still found house prices prohibitivety expensive on the Peninsula. Dcharme is a carpenter who works in Victoria and, on a modest income, was forced to take out a second mortgage to buy the cou- ple’s two-bedroom house in November. “With only one income, we had a really hard time putting money aside for a house,” Freigang said. The altemmative of staying in an apartment didn’t make sense because rental prices are so high coe that “its just money down the drain,” Freigang said. Some politicians are now con- sidering a Capital Regional Dis- trict recommendation that secon- dary suites be legalized to facili- tate more affordable housing. However, Sidney Ald. John Cal- der said legalizing basement apart- ments wouldn’t necessarily lead to a drop in rental prices. “You'll still get some landlords charging $650 to $700 per month for some basement suites,” he said. NRS Peninsula Properties presi- dent Ron Kubek disagrees and thinks that encouraging more peo- ple to turn parts of their homes into rental units will ease the housing shortage. In turn, this would lead to an abatement of the upward pressure on housing prices, Kubek said. “Council could solve the rental problem in Sidney for the next three to six years this way,” Kubek, a former Sidney alderman, said. In October (when figures were last compiled), the average monthly rent paid for a one- bedroom apartment in Sidney was $557, while a two-bedroom unit averaged 5630, a Canada Mort- gage and Housing Corporation spokesman said. Peggy Prill said high prices in the rental market are caused by low vacancy rates and by very high construction costs for apartment buildings. “It’s a very tight rental market in Sidney right now, with a 0.3 per cent vacancy rate in October of last year,” she said. “Also it’s more worthwhile for a developer to build condomin- iums than apartments. They don’t have a long-term tie-up of capital that way and there’s no short-term profit with rental units.” Freigang said young couples are caught between a rock and a hard place right now with high rental prices on one hand and costly mortgage payments on the other. “T think housing prices in gen- eral are steep in this area and its hard for young people trying to get by on one income,” she said. Kubek said a young family has to make about $44,000 per annum to be able to afford the mortgage on a modest $110,000 dwelling. “Unfortunately, people who grew up here and want to stay here can’t afford a place to rent and can’t afford house prices here either,” Kubek said. And a $110,000 price tag won’t buy anyone their ideal dream home, especially in North Saa- nich, where it won’t buy anything except a building lot, he said. Typically, on the Peninsula that sort of price tag can be found on two-bedroom condominiums and two-bedroom “‘fixer-uppers” in Sidney. Five years ago, the same figure would have bought a four- bedroom home with a garage and a finished basement anywhere on the Peninsula, Kubek said. And today’s prices will look modest in another five years ume, with prices currently appreciating Continued on Page A2