South Nanaimo ticked off all of the boxes for husband and wife John Harris and Katherine Surridge, who settled into their Haliburton Street home from Vancouver just over a year ago.
“You can’t be outside without people saying hello and stopping to talk. It’s just great; we just love it and plus it’s close to downtown,” said Surridge.”We love the area and we like the fact we have a water view and we paid less than a cheap condo in Vancouver cost.”
The couple aren’t the only ones won over by south Nanaimo.
Haliburton Street, Chase River and Extension are part of an area that’s seen the largest population growth since 2011, according to map of neighborhood populations based on the 2016 census and compiled by the City of Nanaimo.
The population of the Harbour City has swelled by eight per cent to 90,504 people, the census shows, and south Nanaimo accounted for the largest proportion of that growth – more than any other neighbourhood.
There was an increase of 735 more people in the area, a change of 12.2 per cent between 2011 and 2016.
Ask Re/Max real estate agent Rob Grey about growth in the city’s south and he’ll point to affordability for interest in Haliburton Street, a change in the social setting because of programs by the RCMP, and work by the Downtown Nanaimo Business Improvement Association to draw attention to downtown. In Chase River, he says infill and large subdivisions are likely behind growth there.
Making Chase River a viable option is the price of single family or fully-detached duplexes, accessibility because of the parkway and convenience with retailers like Rona and Country Grocer, according to Grey.
Dale Lindsay, city director of community development, isn’t surprised by the growth in the south and says a lot of it will have been in Extension where there’s been significant subdivision development in the past five to 10 years.
But the city statistics are not all about new development. It can also signal a change in demographics.
Lindsay said when he moved to Brechin Hill, it was all original owners, primarily elderly people living by themselves and now some of those older neighbourhoods are seeing families move in, which impacts the population.
Overall, he said the numbers reaffirm what’s seen in building permit statistics, that growth in the community has been fairly evenly distributed. Every neighbourhood laid out in the city map has seen growth. Bowen Road north to Diver Lake saw its population increase by 11.8 per cent, or by 556 people, since 2011, while Woodgrove/Metral to the eastern boundary of Rutherford Road saw an increase of 651 people, or 7.1 per cent. Departure Bay grew by 3.5 per cent, or 186 people; the downtown core increased by 8.8 per cent; even Protection Island’s population edged up 0.5 per cent.
“If you went back to look at the early ’90s, you would see heavily favoured growth in the north end of the community and I think more recently we’re seeing it go back to balanced infill throughout the community,” Lindsay said, adding he believes it’s partly the realities of land availability as well as an approach in zoning to encourage infill development. “Where we may have seen the trend 10-15 years ago of large, maybe you might have a 50-60 lot subdivision, we are seeing more sort of three- [and] five-lot subdivisions now.”
