Luxury living with panoramic lakeviews — that is what the Williams Lake Indian Band is selling at their new subdivision, Coyote Rock Estates.
“This is truly a collaborative effort between some of the best and most creative minds in Williams Lake. The (show home) offers 180-degree views of the lake and valley and it will be very much an Okanagan-style living experience. This subdivision will be like nothing the people of Williams Lake have seen before,” Sellars said Wednesday at the groundbreaking celebration.
WLIB and Coyote Rock Limited Partnership are embarking on the new housing project offering over 90 high-quality homes just above Highway 97, with a gorgeous view of Williams Lake, beside the golf course of the same name. The groundbreaking ceremony, opened with a prayer and traditional song led by WLIB Councillor Lennard Supernault, is the culmination of an eight-year-old dream of Chief Willie Sellars.
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Sellars was visibly excited as the excavator from Titan Built Construction, who are contracted to build the majority of the future subdivision, dug into the soil to form the foundation of the neighbourhood’s show home.
“We’ve named this show home the ‘Seklep Residence,’” Sellars said. “’Seklep’ means ‘coyote’ in the Shuswap language. The coyote is an important feature in Secwepemc lore, and this house will be befitting of his name. It’s not your typical Cariboo home. It was painstakingly designed by Phil Harrison of Harrison Designs, interior design will be overseen by Rena Johnson of the Rusty Bucket and our general contractor will be Titan Built Construction.”
The residential portion of the WLIB’s development plan, Sellars said it is the result of the last four years of work by WLIB staff.
“It’s a very exciting time for us, we started the planning portion seven years ago so to finally break ground on our first home, it’s a big day. The sun is shining, people are smiling and we had a good contingent of leadership to get us started in a good way,” Sellars remarked on site.
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Self-sustainability is the goal of every First Nations band, Sellar said, and he believes that this development will help the WLIB achieve that. The estates will build a tax base for the community and create jobs during the construction phase, which is all a positive step in that direction in his eyes.
Coyote Rock Estates will be a subdivision spanning 30 acres at the south end of Williams Lake selling both finished homes and ready to build fully serviced lots.
The CEO of Coyote Rock Limited Partnership, Kirk Dressler, said the goal of the subdivision’s development is to provide homeowners with as much flexibility and choice as possible.
They are currently selling 28 lots starting from 698 square meters for $70,000 to $90,000 as part of phase one of three for construction.
Access to the lots are off Highway 97 via the turnoff for the Chief Will-yum Gas bar, an access point directly on Highway 97 and via an underpass by the Lexington sub-division. In addition to the residential lots, there are also 10 commercial lots running along the new frontage road named Quigli Drive, in recognition of Secwepemc ‘pithouse’ habitations found throughout the Williams Lake area.
“We encourage everyone to come up and take a look, these lots are for the public (they’ve got) beautiful views, a beautiful area and we encourage anybody to (come out and) take a drive,” Sellars said. “(It’s) Okanagan living in the Cariboo.”
patrick.davies@wltribune.com
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