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Targeting plane spotters and privately licensed pilots alike, developers of Alberta’s residential airstrips hope to convince a niche market that home is where the hangar is

by Trevor Scott Howell

For sale: Palatial house in quiet neighbourhood, 20-minute commute to major city. Mountain view. Three-car garage; room for on-property, small aircraft hangar. Access to private airstrip. Airplane not included.

No, this is not from an episode of MTV’s Cribs or a rerun of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous – though one does half expect Robin Leach to pop out and peddle champagne wishes and caviar dreams at any moment.

This is the Okotoks Air Ranch, Canada’s first residential airpark, or fly-in, community. On the surface it does seem a bit extravagant. The OAR’s country estate theme sprawls across 240 acres on the highest point in Okotoks, 50 kilometres south of Calgary. Building upon this natural feature, its narrow streets and oversized lots (500 when all’s said and done) create a sense of space and plenty of elbow room between neighbours. Nearly 30 of the largest lots – each big enough to accommodate their own airplane hangar – line a grass taxiway that leads to a 3,100-foot private paved runway. At the heart of it all, Sky Wings Aviation Academy, one of more than 20 flight schools in the province, runs out of a small building adjacent to the runway, its three-plane fleet of Cessnas tied down next to a dozen small, resident-owned planes.

Yet beneath the silver-spoon veneer is an inclusive community composed of empty nesters, retirees and young working families. In amongst those mansions and three-car garages are decidedly more modest single-family homes – littered with bicycles and toys – and villa-style units. And at the development’s south end, a 10-acre wildlife sanctuary, frequented by deer, coyotes and waterfowl, sits nestled between a row of houses and a shorn parcel of land that is being prepped for a soccer field and baseball diamond.

In other words, it may be just the place for a growing portion of the 3,700 pilots currently licensed in Alberta (the fourth highest number in Canada, behind Ontario, Quebec and B.C.) to call home. At least that’s the idea on which Okotoks Air Ranch Inc. and its associated house builders are banking.

Now just as mired in the current real estate malaise as any other Alberta real estate development, OAR’s developers remain convinced the aviation-oriented model will see them through to better times. And despite the challenges inherent in trying to tap a niche market, they’re not alone in their confidence. A decade after forward-thinking Okotoks (also home to North America’s first solar-powered neighbourhood) approved the residential airstrip, the idea is catching on in Alberta, downturn or not.

Bruce Winters, the Canmore-based developer who spearheaded the OAR, has never seen the subdivision’s relative exclusivity as a liability.

“When we first looked at the land, it just screamed out it was a winner,” says Winters, who purchased it and the existing airstrip from its builder, Okotoks aviation enthusiast Orville Rowland. After researching a number of successful airparks in the U.S., which currently has more than 600, Winters concluded the airstrip was a “fantastic amenity” that would accelerate its marketing.

Winters then spent $1 million upgrading the existing airport and its runway in order to be certified by Transport Canada, a year-long process alone. The length of the runway dictates that aircraft no larger than light twin-engines (a turbo twin-prop, eight- or nine-seat charter is about as big as it gets) are allowed to land and there is no traditional air traffic controller. Like most airstrips its size, the OAR operates under what’s known as “visual flight rules,” meaning pilots co-ordinate takeoffs and landings by relying on their eyes and ears (radios, that is), the way drivers do at a four-way stop.

Despite the research and upgrades, creating a new market was a struggle. It took six years to sell out Phase 1’s 38 lots (that said, they were also developing and selling subsequent phases at the time), a slow start Winters attributes to the remoteness of the development, then accessible only by gravel road and surrounded by few amenities. “We had very little traffic, and little traffic translates to little sales,” he says. “So the better the road system is getting, the better our results are.”

Naturally, price has contributed to the improvement of those results. Faced with a hard sell, Winters has consistently undercut competitors. The lots, which range from 7,000 square feet up to an acre in size, start at $159,000. The custom estate homes, built by Baywest Homes, WestView Builders and Wolverine Custom Homes, start at $500,000 (including lot and GST). The approach has brought the project to its sixth of 14 phases, with completion, Winters hopes, within the next eight years.

John Servos sits as a board member for Phase 5, where he’s lived for roughly three years. If his biography were to be compressed into a 10-second movie pitch, it would go something like this: Boy sees plane. Boy joins Air Cadets. Boy flies planes. Boy gets job at airport, gets hitched, has a kid and buys a house along an airstrip. Boy lives happily ever after. Even his two-year-old son, Joshua, strapped into his highchair and playing with a toy helicopter, couldn’t escape the influence of aviation on his father’s life: Joshua’s initials spell J.E.T.S.

September 2009 Contents

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