A South Surrey neighbourhood is now home to a new, prefabricated carriage home based on a foldable building system.
News by: Tricia Leslie | Peace Arch News
Local company Rohe Homes delivered the pre-engineered, 1,220-square-foot, two-bedroom home over the course of one day at thee end of September, with the home roofed and fully enclosed by Day Two, shared Rohe Homes chief experience officer Salik Khan.
“It’s a two bed, two-and-a-half bath unit with an office. It’s broken up into a series of components,” Khan explained at the South Surrey site last week. “It’s about seven or eight different components … we have a top volume (and) the bottom volume — those sections actually collapse to a third of (the home’s) size when we ship it.”
The main floor houses the kitchen, main living area and a bathroom, while the upstairs features the bedrooms, bathrooms, and a laundry/utility room.
“Electrical, plumbing, mechanical rough-ins, insulation, and structural components are pre-built within the building before we ship,” he said. “So the entire space is able to be transported on a truck and it’s under-size, it’s underweight and it’s easy access to any environment … so we can take it into laneways.”
A young family is building the carriage home behind their parents’ home in the quiet neighbourhood, and it is expected to be finished by early December, Khan shared, noting the quick build time, as well as the prevention of months of site disruption, heavy trucks, and neighbourhood noise.
Rohe Homes, which was founded in 2018 by chief executive officer Rohan Kulkarni and Khan, uses their patented Lotus Building System to “unfold” the home and set it on its foundation in the one-day timespan, allowing multi-generational housing with minimal neighborhood disruption.
Ever since the provincial government introduced Bill 44 in 2023 — where local governments were required to update their bylaws by June 30, 2024 to accommodate small-scale, multi-unit housing requirements — it has meant more opportunity for such carriage homes, Khan said, adding each home is configurable each can be customized as well.
“With Bill 44, it’s basically allowing for now up to four, six or eight dwellings on a property,” he said, adding their company is building similar homes across the Lower Mainland and the province while also, helping to address Canada’s housing crisis. “We’ve delivered over a dozen homes across B.C., but there’s nothing quite like doing it in our own backyard. Surrey is where our roots are, so bringing this one home feels special.”
Leveraging the existing land and not having to pay for that as well as the home “really helps with the affordability,” he shared.
Design and permitting take up much of each project’s time prior to the delivery of the home, with finishing being among the final steps.
“The price point that we’re looking to offer these moving forward is around $500,000 for a standard spec build. That’s a two-storey 1,200-square-foot, two-bed. It could also be turned into a three bed, depending on what we need,” Khan said.
