There might be a shortage of housing in Whitehorse, but there’s land available just outside city limits.
This week the Yukon land branch held a lottery for 30 rural lots in the Grizzly Valley subdivision north of the city, but not all of them were snapped up.
Nine of those lots went unsold.
It’s a far cry from the results of the city’s land lottery that took place only a few months ago where more than 400 people put in bids for only 19 lots in Porter Creek.
“You have to put in into perspective,” said Mike Racz, president of the Yukon Real Estate Association. “It’s ideal for people who like the country lifestyle, but for someone who’s got a couple of kids and needs to be in town, it doesn’t do them much good.
“There’s still a great demand for land inside the city.”
The lots in Grizzly Valley are also much more expensive than lots that were offered in town a few months ago.
They ranged in price from just over $124,000 for a 3.7-hectare parcel to more than $200,000 for 7.96-hectare lot.
“They were sold at development cost,” said Matt King, director of communications for the department of Community Services.
Building an entirely new subdivision is much more expensive than in-filling in an existing one, he said.
“There’s everything that goes into the planning and development,” said King. “The cost to undertake the planning, the consultation, putting in roads and building the multiple wildlife corridors that go underneath those roads.”
The lots have been surveyed, but other than that they are pretty basic.
Owners have to put in their own wells and septic systems. And while there are power and phone lines that run to the property line, the cost of hooking up those services has to be born by the owners as well.
In total there were 26 applicants for the 30 lots in Grizzly Valley. Twenty-one got their first choice for a lot.
There are five applicants on the waiting list for their first choice.
The successful applicants now have two weeks to decide if they want to actually purchase the lots.
There was also a lottery for five residential lots in Destruction Bay on Tuesday.
The lots in the Glacier Acres subdivision were on offer for a little more than $50,000.
Only two were applied for.
The remaining three lots in Glacier Acres and the nine unsold lots in Grizzly Valley are now for sale over the counter through the territorial land management branch.
Contact Josh Kerr at
joshk@yukon-news.com