News and event information for Williams Lake, BC - as it happens.

By LeRae Haynes

Last week members of the business community, residents, and Mayor and Council were invited for an open house on the hillside behind the Laughing Loon, hosted by Joy Hennig from Remax.

Guests had the opportunity to tour a beautiful 2,100 sq ft townhouse and meet Lakepoint Development partners—father and son Eric and Tyler Boucher.

The already-completed homes and townhouses on the property, with a spectacular view of the lake and with warm, southern exposure, are only a fraction of what Lakepoint Development has planned for the area.

(Photo: Tyler, Makenna and Jill Boucher are enjoying getting to know the Williams Lake community as Tyler and his father, Eric Boucher help shape a hillside into a beautiful housing development with a view of the lake.)

They have built four houses with eight more to come. There are four townhouses completed, eight in construction and 28 more on the way, according to Tyler, who said that in the last few months sales have really taken off, and that it’s exciting to see the project taking shape.

A former professional hockey player, Tyler grew up around the building trade, with a father who quit his job teaching carpentry to build full time. “When I was 11 years old I started working for him packing roofing shingles,” he said. “Talk about great exercise---when I got older I used it for hockey training.”

Tyler said that was his summer job until he was in college and by the end of school he was running a framing crew for his dad. When he finished playing hockey about eight years ago he had invested some money in real estate in the US, and when he came back home he wanted to do something bigger.

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“I talked my dad into coming out of retirement and looking into a development project with me,” he said. “We found that on the coast the zoning process for development is daunting: it’s very expensive and takes a year and half to start the process. We knew what we wanted to do—we just needed to find a place to do it.”

He explained that a friend from Williams Lake told him that he should come and check out the area. “We took a day and drove up here. We looked at the golf course and we stopped at City Hall,” he continued. “Someone asked if we wanted to meet the mayor, who didn’t know anything about us but took the time to take us around. When we saw this piece of land, we said ‘sold.’”

Tyler said that everything they found with this project got better and better and they never looked back. “People thought it would be difficult to build on a slope, but we had built a lot of houses on far steeper hills than this---on mountain sides around Abbotsford,” he said. “The land was all trees—we cleared it and moved a lot of dirt around, and dedicated park land in one area for mountain bikers.

“Doing this project together is really important to my dad,” Tyler added. “He loves it, and is so glad he came out of retirement for this. If I ever need to find him, I just follow the sound of hammering: he’s usually up here working with the guys.”

He said that when Jill first walked through the townhouse she was totally impressed. “She was shocked and said that it is not what she pictured,” he explained. “It wouldn’t matter where these houses were built---they are beautiful. The great thing is that they’re here in this wonderful area and in this friendly community.”

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