Affordable housing summit ask is for government funding

Story and photos by Sharon Harrison
An affordable housing summit held Monday saw various developers, Bay of Quinte MP Chris Malette and Bay of Quinte MPP Tyler Allsopp come together, joined by members of the Prince Edward County Affordable Housing Corporation board and County staff, to talk about creating purpose-built affordable housing solutions in the County.

The all-day summit included a tour of several properties in Picton, all ear-marked by the corporation for affordable dwellings (all at various stages of progress, but mostly stalled due to lack of finances and government dollars). Included on the tour was also the old Pinecrest Elementary School site in Bloomfield.

Prince Edward County requires 2,700 rental housing units, and of those, 1,350 affordable, targeted in the 2024 County Housing Plan.

Cumulatively, the two housing corporation planned developments, Pinecrest Housing, the former Queen Elizabeth School re-development, Base31 and Nicholas Street apartments represent 20 per cent of that affordable housing target, stated Elis Ziegler, affordable housing corporation supervisor.

Media were allowed to join the whirlwind tour and were permitted to attend an hour of open discussion back at Shire Hall afterward. However, municipal staff have indicated the livestream and the recording didn’t work due to technical issues. The rest of the day and the discussions among government representatives, the housing corporation, County staff and the developers were not made public.

It remains to be seen whether anything positive or fruitful came out of the summit, intended to be an educational/advocacy session to bring attention to, and discuss senior levels of government support. But the idea was to bring all concerned parties together who are striving for the same goal – to make more (or some) affordable rental housing options for Prince Edward County.

In essence, it was about sending a message to all levels of government that in order to make these projects happen, and to progress those already begun, government dollars are needed.

“The housing corporation shares a significant challenge with local developers of purpose-built affordable rental housing in this current financial landscape,” stated Ziegler. “Per unit costs are the same whether a rental housing is market or affordable, and Prince Edward County lacks the critical mass and servicing requiring significant senior level government funding to effectively offset the cost of affordable housing, regardless of the developer.”

Nicholas Street

Developer Alan Hirschfield

This is one of two projects in Picton being undertaken by developers Alan Hirschfield and Tim Neeb, where Hirschfield explained how it is combination of a small apartment building (three storeys, growing to five storeys down the hill), along with eight townhouses and some walk-out apartments underneath.

“It’s a relatively small project with a total of 120 units, but it’s not that small for the County,” said Hirschfield, who added how “it hasn’t been easy to go through the approval process, particularly site plan”. They are scheduled to start construction this year (aiming for October) beginning with the apartment building.

30 Nicholas St site pathway

He spoke to the existing traditional pathway to Delhi Park on the site.

“Its almost like a forest and we wanted these neighbours to feel that it wasn’t an imposition on them. We are paying for an accessible pathway, all the way down to Delhi Park and people will be able to walk to Main Street through the park.”

With 120 all purpose-built rental of concrete construction, 25 per cent are to be affordable (that number was higher, but Hirschfield indicated how the numbers didn’t work).

Former Queen Elizabeth School, Barker Street
This is the second of Hirschfield’s/Neeb’s projects in Picton on the former Queen Elizabeth school 4.5-acre property, the school buildings of which will be torn down to make way for the new development.

“We’ve got four smaller buildings with proposed total units of 230, with 30 per cent affordable, and we have plans for a municipal services hub within the agencies,” explained Hirschfield. “Right now, we have it in at about 20,000-square-feet, we have to go through a costing exercise with the municipality as to what the exact size will end up being.”

He said, in terms of the range of uses, there will be a seniors-focused apartment building, plus three other smaller buildings for general use.

“This is a heritage area, so we’ve made sure that the buildings’ design and scale and arrangement is compatible with this neighbourhood.”

As for progress so far, Hirschfield said they are ready now to make their combined re-zoning and site plan application. “Our plan is to be building in the spring of next year.

“We wanted to make sure we’ve had sufficient input from the neighbours and there was quite a lot of hostility going in, which I think is largely dissipated now, and I think many people are feeling positive about this new proposal that we will be building.”

Developer Tim Neeb

Neeb spoke to the supportive housing aspect outlining that because they are having a centralized hub for a non-profit, it’s a perfect opportunity to bring in a supportive housing units.

“I’ve been developing supportive housing for 25 years working with 18 or 20 different agencies, having agencies involved in the design of the building, and we need some Minister of Health and Long-Term Care rent subsidies,” shared Neeb. “And we need some federal transfer money to the municipality to pay some rent subsidies, so we can house people that really need housing the most. It’s a perfect place to do it.”

County Mayor Steve Ferguson spoke to the acquisition of the site.

“Council and the municipality fought very, very hard against the sale of this to the Catholic School Board, eventually we prevailed because this really represents the last property in Picton that can be developed into affordable or achievable housing,” expressed Ferguson.

He said, having taken since August 2019 to get to this point, he was glad it’s going to move forward. “So, by the time its all constructed, it will certainly help those that most need it, in a very big way.”

While the seniors’ building was planned to be the last building to be constructed (of the four), Hirschfield confirmed that CAO Adam Goheen indicated there is sewer capacity to build all four buildings at the same time.

“It’s a big concern for us and the residents to break it up and extend the construction time and make it more disruptive,” added Hirschfield. “Overall, 209 is not a large amount of units and we’ve elected to break them up into smaller buildings because its compatible with the neighbourhood. It would have be much easier for us to just build two buildings and plonk them in the middle somewhere, but that wouldn’t have been the right thing to do.”

Disraeli Street
Housing corporation member Hilary Spriggs explained how the property was a yard owned by the municipality, and was transferred to the corporation a couple of years ago.
This will bring eight units (three affordable) on a three-storey building on a fairly compact parcel of land. The three units would represent 38 per cent affordable. “Thirty- eight per cent is a tiny project, but something we’re really proud of to provide.”

“The project is an eight-unit in-fill building modular and we’ve hired a construction company out of Ottawa called Theberge which actually has developed a design and built it in Ottawa,” explained Spriggs. “They actually are going to take that exact design that happens to fit on this site perfectly.”

Hilary Spriggs, Affordable Housing Corp

She said they have an application in for Built Canada Homes based on the modular construction, having moved onto the second phase in the process.

“We have asked for them to provide us with enough funding to make all eight units affordable. However, we also have a pro forma that would allow us to build three units of affordable out of the eight in the absence of grant funding from Build Canada Homes.”

She said, the only thing that is preventing them from getting under construction on the three affordable units is some cash equity that they need.

“We’ve managed to get tier one lender to provide us with a mortgage commitment for the rest, if we can come up with the cash equity portion ourselves, and we hope to start fundraising from the public – about $300,000 to $400,000 is needed to be raised from the public.”

“We have a finished design, we have a contractor signed, and literally we could be under construction tomorrow if we had the funding,” said Spriggs.

Councillor Phil St-Jean said the only way to keep build costs low is with modern building techniques like modular. He said the build modular cost comes in at just over $350,000 per unit.

“Our construction cost is very, very low in comparison, at $2.7 million for eight units,” said St-Jean, “and in order to quality for BCH funding, modular is critically important.“

Former Pinecrest Elementary School
The former Pinecrest elementary school on Corey Street in Bloomfield was a hive of activity, both inside and out, being spruced up externally with paint and tree trimming, and with work having began inside to re-purpose the former school property into much needed seniors’ studio suites with a community centre.

“There will be 58 units of all affordable and super affordable housing units in this building,” said Pinecrest’s Ken How.

There will also be a community garden which has already been started, as well as a walkway that will go around the whole property called the Golden Mile, where thousands of trees have been planted. The property extends to 20 acres.

Donna Rodgers, with Pinecrest, said the 50,000-square-foot property, now known as Pinecrest Housing (formerly LoveSong Seniors’ Housing and Community Hub) is used 12 months of the year by people, along with many children’s summer camps in the field.

“We have been very fortunate to have Canada Summer Jobs for the last three years, and what you see is the demolition inside being done by young Canadians learning new skills and establishing a work ethic, because for many of them, it’s been their first job,” shared Rodgers.

The Pinecrest project has partnered with Springdale Development and Elbee Construction for the project, “and they have been our left and right hand in getting to where we are at”. She said, to date they have had thousands of volunteer hours, demolishing, removing things and re-purposing what’s left in the building.

While phase one of the project will focus on seniors’ accommodations within the school itself, Rodgers said they are also exploring the land to the left of the school for phase two, which they are looking at for two or three, three-storey apartment buildings for one- two- and three-bedroom apartments for anyone (not just seniors). The apartments are expected to bring an additional 100 to 200 units.