CHARMING PERTH AIMS TO BROADEN ITS APPEAL TO YOUNGER NEWCOMERS
Active retirement community touts virtues
Attention, home-seeking millennials: The town of Perth thinks it has an offer you can't refuse.
In February, the town released a series of short videos to its Youtube channel touting the virtues of the community of 6,500, an hour southwest of Ottawa. They show a family canoeing on the Tay River, people mingling at a business function, neighbours laughing around a barbecue.
The goal? To increase Perth's population to as high as 10,500 by 2041.
“We have a really great, active retirement community,” says Cathy Mcnally, Perth's director of community services. “But we always get feedback, too, about ensuring that we have younger families and working professionals.” Perth hopes to bolster the labour pool for local employers like 3M, attract entrepreneurs, ensure lots of kids for local schools and expand the tax base.
The videos, created by Mainspring Media of nearby Carleton Place, profile several people who have already made the move. For instance, Erin and Dave Feiner moved to Perth from a bungalow in Ottawa's Glabar Park in 2017. Since Erin was a stay-at-home mom at the time and Dave works from home as a graphic designer, they could have chosen to live pretty much anywhere.
Erin Feiner's parents had moved to Perth a few years earlier. On a visit, the younger couple spotted a heritage home for sale — the type of home they'd dreamed of buying in Ottawa but couldn't afford. They bought it and made the leap. A few years later, they moved to a newer Perth house, partly to get a basement playroom and a large yard.
Their kids are enrolled in lots of after-school activities. Back in
Ottawa, most of the kids in those extracurriculars were strangers. In Perth, the preteens are hanging out with their buddies from school at dance class or hockey practice. “It's all the same community, and so it's easy to make friends,” says Erin.
A year after the Feiners moved to Perth, Melissa Baker-nguyen and her husband Duy Nguyen arrived. They were moving back to Canada after working overseas, and Nguyen had applied for a job in Perth. “We started to look at the town and we thought, oh, we'd really like to live in this town,” says Baker-nguyen.
Aften Nguyen got the job, they found an apartment in Perth. Two years later, they bought their current home, a 19th-century house on a downtown corner. One of its many attractions for the couple was a brightly lit room that now serves as a home studio for Baker-nguyen, a children's book illustrator and author.
For the one-car couple, the ability to live within walking distance of shops and restaurants was key. “It's still my break during the day, to wander downtown and go say hi to people,” says Baker-nguyen.
They've also found a warm welcome in Perth as volunteers. Nguyen teaches jiu-jitsu, while Baker-nguyen is involved with Studio Theatre. “We're very happy. If we get to stay here for the rest of our lives, we will be thrilled,” she says.
In the end, though, Perth's ability to attract newcomers hinges just as much on money as it does on the town's charms. People won't come if they can't find an affordable place to live.
According to real estate tracking site Zolo.com, average home prices in Perth are lower than in Ottawa. In February, average asking prices were $687,000 for a house and $850,000 for a townhome, versus $890,000 for a house and $1 million for a townhome in Ottawa.
If you have a budget somewhat under those averages, what might you buy?
A three-bedroom, two-bath bungalow on Wilson Street in Perth was listed in late February at $574,900. The property has a detached garage and fenced yard. It's across the street from the town's indoor pool, a five-minute walk from a grocery store and a 10-minute walk from downtown.
Listings like these may appeal to many buyers shut out of the housing market in bigger cities. However, increased demand could put pressure on prices, unless the number of available houses rises as well.
Mcnally is optimistic Perth can accommodate a steady stream of newcomers in the short term. She estimates that about 200 new housing units — including infill houses, triplexes and small apartment blocks — are in the pipeline.
A proposal to build a much larger housing development is currently one of Perth's hottest political footballs. Ottawa-based developer Caivan is proposing to build 640 detached homes and 299 townhomes on the Perth Golf Course. However, some residents are concerned about the potential impact on traffic, the environment and the hospital, and the town council has not approved Caivan's request to amend the site's zoning. Caivan has appealed to the Ontario Land Tribunal, which is scheduled to review the case later this year.