About

WELCOME FRIENDS AND NEIGHBOURS

We are the residents of Sea Village, located on the east end of Granville Island. Many of you are aware of us since we have been so fortunate to occupy this space for the last 45 years. Serendipity is a pleasant surprise or unexpected discovery. We started as a hodgepodge collection of floating homes looking for somewhere to live. Due to pure serendipity, our homes and Granville Island made a long-term agreement, we contributed plenty of funds, planning, hard work and ingenuity and we made our home. Sea Village is a community, down-to-earth, inclusive family and we care deeply for each other and our larger Granville Island community.

We have spent the last 45 years growing and adapting to our natural environment and to our Granville Island community. In the beginning we concentrated on practical projects like building our infrastructure, fine tuning systems for sewer, plumbing and electricity, making sure floatation for houses and docks were adequate. Then we made improvements for our own personal enjoyment such as boat docks, lighting, plants and gardens. Over the last few decades, the water quality in False Creek has been constantly improving, and we have seen so many more birds, small fish, seals, mussels, oysters and starfish come to feed or live on the walls and rocks near our houses. It became a priority for us to enhance and conserve our space to sustain our connection with the wildlife, sea life and plant life all around us. Now we feel it is time to reach out beyond ourselves and see if our unique location and assets can be of use to anyone else.

Sea Village is a very small part of Granville Island and an even tinier part of False Creek. But, as we humbly observe everyday out our windows, every little organism is a building block and has an important part to play in the world. We are a micro experiment, embracing small scale innovations that are practical and manageable and can lead to big results. So we are reaching out, in any direction we can think of, to see if we can contribute a little more to the world at large. We are so optimistic about the future and our future.

ORIGINS

We are situated on the traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Peoples. (For a remarkable, first-time written history of the Squamish People we recommend TINA7 CHT TI TEMIXW: We Come From This Land).
Sea Village, located in False Creek at Granville Island, is a community of neighbours living in floating households in the heart of Vancouver.

BLAME IT ON THE MOON

Sea Village also enjoys some vertical geography in which we float up and down, twice a day between 0.5 m and 4.8 m.
We do not feel this intertidal movement, but we might detect slight motion if it’s quite windy or if a boat speeds by too quickly.

THE WHO

There are 14 households at Sea Village including singles, couples, and families with children, and pets. There are 13 floating homes and one live-aboard boat.
Residences at Sea Village include one-bedroom lofts and homes with two or three bedrooms. Two feature under-water basements.
MORE THAN YOU WANT TO KNOW The release of sewage of any kind, either black or grey water, into False Creek is prohibited by our vacuum sewage system (The Mighty Vacuusan) which connects to the City of Vancouver system.
Typically floating homes in Sea Village are built on barges with positive buoyancy features built into their floatation systems.
Residents are responsible for day-to-day operations including hands-on maintenance, marina administration, and environmental outreach.
Sea Village Community Ltd. is a registered BC limited company whose sole purpose is to provide a marina facility for a safe, secure and environmentally conscious floating neighbourhood.
Sea Village Community Ltd. covers any and all of the costs incurred by the marina for community purposes and always financed all of its own infrastructure.
Sea Village Community Ltd. pays rent for its water lot to the agency administering Granville Island.
Floating home owners pay residential property taxes to the City of Vancouver, just like all other home owners. In Vancouver live-aboard boats are required to pay live-aboard license fees in lieu of property taxes.