Beespot Neighbourhoods

f awareness, responsibility and creative determination. Two separate trips – one to witness a wedding proposal by my eldest son – and one to celebrate my daughter’s twenty-second birthday – these hours were transformative experiences that launched this BEESPOT journey. We were quite literally taking off! At the heart of BEESPOT is a simple desire to do things differently, for the right reasons, and for the greater good of families, communities and the environment. BEESPOT is the convergence of time-earned perspective, curiosity and the desire of a father to create a different homeowner experience for my three children – and for everyone’s children — and to ensure that we shift our collective thinking, committing, through our actions, to minimize our environmental footprint. Family is everything to me. It’s tough for our young adult children to find their way. Post-secondary education doesn’t necessarily equate to jobs that can sustain them right away. Many are starting their careers with huge burdens of student loan debt, and more and more frequently, I hear young people giving up on the dream of one day being able to afford their own home in the Capital Region. Once married, where will they grow their children? Where will they grow their food? My younger son purchased his “miniature” condo with no green space, no yard, no conservation systems and no renewable energy. At a 9:1 ratio of cost to income, the mortgage costs and utility/strata costs are expensive and increasing. To make matters worse, I also hear a generalized acceptance of this ‘reality’ from parents, many who are also struggling to figure out how they can afford the payments on their own homes let alone plan for retirement. So, what do we do about this? What can be done? Just accepting that our children must leave the community far from their extended family to find an affordable place to live is unacceptable. Can we stand by and witness that affordability is dividing communities rather than uniting them? I say no, let’s do something about it as individual citizens. Through BEESPOT, I am choosing to build something innovative and realizable. Its success will be measured once multiple generations have lived our neighbourhood dream, and experienced the environmental and economical impacts of a BEESPOT lifestyle. Perspective without judgement frees us to be inspired by curiosity and creativity and emboldens us to “BEE” the change that we want to see for our children. With BEESPOT, I am choosing to create a new way of living that supports people and the planet. I look forward to meeting you to get more critical insight. Every person that has listened to my story and our plan has inspired with their comments to improve the framework of BEESPOT 1.0 ……a SUSTAINABLE PLACE OF TOMORROW!

— NINO, BEESPOT FOUNDER