The building process for 3D printed 8-plexes in Merritt could begin as early as Spring 2023.

Back in March, the City of Merritt began looking at the idea of 3D Printed Concrete homes, to act as temporary housing for families displaced following Novembers catastrophic floods.

The City’s CAO Sean Smith says they are currently 3/4 of the way through a feasibility study with the province.

“We kind of gave them (the province) the freedom to find the best way that 3D printed houses work in a situation like this even if you have to change some of the variables, so they did,” he said.

“They actually came back with instead of single-family homes, they came back with two eight plex’s which happens to work very well on the site we are looking at because we have some utility servicing issues in pulling in individual lots.”

Smith explains they have now rolled into the design phase for the 3D-printed 8-Plexs’.

“Where they are kind of designing façade, sending out material, quoting costs, figuring out insulation costs etcetera and then going to compare that to a more traditional stick-built structure, in labour, needs and cost as well.”

While initially, the plan was to see homes printed as early as this past April, Smith says there’s an issue, that was identified in the feasibility study.

“One of the main issues that pushing back the time at this point is not the 3D printing, it is what’s called the Q200 flood level, or what we need by our bylaw and other statutes to build new infrastructure to.”

“So we cant give permits to someone trying to build a house right beside a river at the current level of the river, even if you wanted to.”

The Q200 flood level is what you would expect the river to flood to in 200 years, explains Smith.

“That of course, in flood-affected communities, including our own changes after big events like this so we are looking at a new Q200 standard in Merritt.”

The city is planning to build these temporary housing 8-plex’s along Quilchena Avenue, which are the properties along the old railway yard.

“This development on Quilchena actually needs to come up a significant amount in order to hit that standard. So there needs to be some earthworks on that project that was not anticipated before,” added Smith.

He hopes to get some of the Earth Work started this year, to then get the ball rolling on the printing of the homes by spring.

Deputy Director of Finance and IT with the City of Merritt, Sean Strang, says they’re pushing for 3D printed homes because of a recent significant donation from an anonymous private donor.

“We (City of Merritt) have received a $500,000 donation for this project specifically because it is a 3D printed project, so they want to see advancement in that particular technology.”

RELATED: Merritt looking at 3D printing houses to help people displaced by November floods