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About a third of Sidney’s households live in apartment buildings

Almost 80 per cent of North Saanich households live in single-detached homes
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About a third of all Sidney households live in apartment buildings, while 45 per cent of the population is 65 years and older, according to new figures from the 2021 census. (Wolf Depner/News Staff)

Sidney is the oldest community on the Saanich Peninsula with an average age of 56 years, followed by North Saanich at 51 years and Central Saanich at 46.7 years, according to new figures from Statistics Canada.

Of Sidney’s 12,320 residents, 45 per cent are 65 years and older. Of North Saanich’s 12,235 residents, 34.7 per cent are older than 65 years. Central Saanich with its 17,385 residents is the youngest community with 27.2 per cent above 65 years. Another measure of Sidney’s age is the average household size of exactly two persons, suggesting few families with children. The average household in North Saanich is 2.4, the same rate as in Central Saanich.

Looking more closely, the largest category of household by size in Sidney is the two-person household with 2,490, closely followed by the one-person hold with 2,310. All households with three or more people total 1,185.

The picture is less lopsided in North Saanich, where the two-person household (2,430) is the largest single category, with 945 people living on their own. Households with three or more people total 1,635.

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Central Saanich offers the greatest diversity in terms of households. While 1,760 residents live on their own, Central Saanich is home to 2,840 two-person households and 2,510 households of three and more.

Of Sidney’s 5,890 households, nearly 35 per cent live in single-detached homes with just under 30 per cent living in apartment buildings with fewer than five storeys and another 3.5 per cent in buildings of five or more storeys. So just a third of all households in Sidney live in apartment buildings.

Of North Saanich’s 5,010 households, almost 80 per cent live in single-detached homes. Of Central Saanich’s 7,105 households, just under 54 per cent live in single-detached homes with 20 per cent of households living in duplexes. Apartment life, meanwhile, appears to be the exception in Central Saanich with just under 800 households living in apartments. This said, a number of new apartment projects are currently under construction or in planning in Central Saanich.


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wolfgang.depner@peninsulanewsreview.com



Wolf Depner

About the Author: Wolf Depner

I joined the national team with Black Press Media in 2023 from the Peninsula News Review, where I had reported on Vancouver Island's Saanich Peninsula since 2019.
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