Winners of the HAVAN Awards 2024 | vancouver sun

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The Vancouver Home Builders Association (HAVANA) announced the winners of the HAVAN Housing Excellence Awards at the JW Marriott Parq Hotel on May 4. The annual event recognizes excellence in new home construction, renovation and design projects throughout Metro Vancouver. Forty-two winners were announced at the ceremony, with a record 455 nominations from 154 builders and designers competing for the 60 awards.

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Zenterra Developments was one of the big winners of the night, taking home four trophies. The Surrey builder received awards for Best Rowhome/Townhouse Unit: 1,500 SF and More; Best multi-family condo unit; Best Multifamily Production Development: Less than 7 Stories; and a Grand HAVAN for Multifamily Builder of the Year.

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The Grand HAVAN nomination is nothing new for the manufacturer. Zenterra has been nominated or won in the category 10 times in the last 11 years, said development and project manager Derek Fenton.

So what’s the builder’s secret sauce?

“Some of our core values ​​are paying attention to details every day, acting decisively and getting things done,” Fenton said.

“We have a full in-house team, so we control every level of the process, whether it’s procurement, development, sales, marketing, construction or home care. “This allows us to offer a high-quality product because we are not substituting things from another company.”

Zenterra won for Newbury, a complex of 84 townhomes in Langley’s Willoughby Heights, and for Camden in Langley Township.

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“Newbury was definitely unique in the sense that they are two-story townhouses,” Fenton said.

“This fills a gap in the market where there is a huge amount of products for three-story homes. But, with the depth and dimensions of the house, Newbury gives you a detached feel, with a full entertainment level and, upstairs, a living room and sleeping area that is very private.”

Located in Langley’s new West Village neighborhood, Camden is a 40-story, 115-condominium wood-frame residential building.

“We want to make sure the community does very well,” Fenton said. “It’s on one of the main thoroughfares in Langley, along 200 Street. “Every time we develop a project or design a community, we have to be proud of that community, and especially on such an important front.”

Alair Homes Vancouver won Best Multiplex Unit, one of two new categories this year, along with Best Multiplex Development. The categories reflect the shift towards housing solutions in the region.

Ron Rapp, CEO of HAVAN, stressed the importance of the newly introduced categories.

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“They are a response to some of the new provincial policies, as well as the push to provide more housing and effectively utilize an untapped resource in the single-family properties that make up the vast majority of land area in many of our urban areas. .”

Darkness and Light, Alair’s winning project, is a multi-generational duplex with a family of four on one side and grandparents on the other.

“We’re seeing a lot of intergenerational coexistence,” said David Babakaiff, regional partner at Alair.

“It is profitable because it shares the cost of the land and at the same time gives people the lifestyle of having grandparents around to help with the grandchildren. “There is much more interest in multigenerational housing now than there was 10 years ago.”

Each unit in the custom duplex is 1,900 square feet and has three bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms. The outdoor space is shared and has a living wall and two garages. Features include a central staircase that traverses all three floors and a bright third-floor living room that leads to a patio with city views. The façade is a striking black Hardie shingle façade with a black roof and meerschaum doors.

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“Now that they live there, the owners report that almost every day they see people driving who stop or slow down and take a moment to admire the house and point out different things,” Babakaiff said.

Expect to see many more multi-generational builds.

“It’s inevitable. In the city of Vancouver alone, there are more than 44,000 lots zoned for multiplex development if the owners so choose. What we’re seeing is people thinking of this as an opportunity for multigenerational living or as a method to create an income stream by renting out other units. It also opens up that category for investors to buy one of these 33 foot lots and build a fourplex. I think over the next decade there will be a steady stream of converting these older homes into multi-family units. ”.

Other winners of this year’s HAVAN Excellence in Housing Awards include Naikoon Contracting, with 11 nominations and four awards, including Grand HAVAN Custom Builder of the Year; Tavan Developments, with nine nominations and seven awards, including Grand HAVAN Residential Renovator of the Year; and SGDI Sarah Gallop Design Inc., with six nominations and four awards, including Grand HAVAN Interior Designer of the Year.

“It was a great showcase of the best product our members are producing,” Rapp said. “The awards represent a very wide and varied spectrum of homes and designs, from the modern and sophisticated to the traditional, which appeal to both consumers and the market as a whole.”

For a complete list of winners, visit havana.ca

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