iN PHOTOS: This 16-foot-wide Okanagan lakefront lot on sale for $1 million
Waterfront property in the Okanagan is at a premium these days.
But $1 million to buy a 16-foot strip on Okanagan Lake?
“Locals all think we’re crazy for asking for $1 million for a little sliver of land you can’t do anything on,” Tamara Stone told iNFOnews.ca. “When they approached us about selling it, we had to wrap our heads around it. We really had to think who the buyer for this would be and is there a market for it?”
Stone is one of the two sisters in the Stone Sisters/Re/Max Realty Kelowna office that posted the listing about three weeks ago.
Turns out there just might be a market for the 16-foot by 368-foot long property opposite Cedar Creek Winery near the southern boundary of Kelowna.
While locals scoff at the size of the parcel, Stone is getting lots of calls from potential buyers in places like Vancouver and Toronto.
“We’ve got some interest from some people who have got a condo here and they’re looking and thinking, instead of waiting to save up $3, $4, $5, $6 million to buy on the lake, they’ve got their condo and then they have a place where they have lake access,” she said.
The parcel is so small that it doesn’t actually have an address, just being listed as “West of Lakeshore Road.” It may have been subdivided before the City of Kelowna was amalgamated in 1974 to include that area.
“The story on it is, it’s owned still by the Dunlop family,” Stone explained. “The grandfather owned all that property going back two or three generations. As he was selling off the property, he gave to the city or to the Boys and Girls Club. Camp Dunlop that’s just a little ways down the road.”
Camp Dunlop is actual a 30-acre parcel straddling Lebanon Creek and is operated by Scouts Canada.
“He apparently had four children,” Stone continued. “He subdivided things off but he kept four little slivers for the family to keep using. This is the last one remaining and the family has all moved away so nobody is really using it. That’s how it came to be.”
It also has a statutory right of way on it for the water line running under the driveway to Cedar Creek Winery.
That makes building anything on it extremely difficult, along with its narrow 16 foot (about three-meters) width.
But, there are some amenities on it.
“There is a cabana there,” Stone said. “That’s been there forever. It has a little kitchenette. It has a lofted bedroom. There are some little outbuildings that’s storage for their paddleboards and things like that. There’s a dock that’s non-conforming. It’s been there forever and ever.
“It’s been updated over the years. It’s got newer windows. It’s just been painted. It’s got new flooring. They’ve been doing things but, if it burned down, it’s nonconforming so you wouldn’t be able to rebuild. You could ask the city for a variance, but I think it would be really difficult to do.
When the family visited, they would rent a port-a-potty and put it near the top of the property. They also parked an RV or two there at times.
There’s a flat area at the top, near Lakeshore Road, a steep hill down, then a flatter area where the cabana sits, then a gentle slope down to the beach.
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Stone suspects the other slivers of land were bought by neighbouring property owners and it would make sense for that to happen here. But the asking price of $1,098,000 may be a little to steep for them.
There is a vacant parcel to the north of this site. There is a large house to the south but it has mature landscaping so is not all that visible.
“Waterfront has just become so unaffordable,” Stone said. “For most, this still is unaffordable but, it’s spectacular lakeshore right close into town so we’re confident it’s going to sell. You don’t see lots on Okanagan Lake right in Kelowna where you can walk to a winery and it’s close in. I think that’s the appeal of it.”
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