Habitat for Humanity affordable housing project moves a step forward
Administrator | Oct 25, 2023 | Comments 5
A sale of a parcel of land on Bowery Street and part of Delhi Park to Habitat for Humanity will become an affordable housing project in Picton as council officially approved its sale Tuesday.
The $31,362 sale covers the cost of environmental assessment the municipality undertook to confirm the land is suitable for a housing development.
Hazzem Koudsi, Chief Executive Officer for Habitat for Humanity Prince Edward-Hastings thanked the municipality for its donation and noted the property will “result in a number of homes that will become permanent for a lot of your residents in this area.”
He noted that through public consultation, it will be decided what kind of facilities end up on Bowery.
Council declared the land surplus in May.
Volunteers with the Prince Edward Hastings Habitat for Humanity work with families putting in sweat equity to provide a hand up to construct their own home, then repay a long-term, no interest mortgage.
The application process typically takes several months and waiting for a home to be funded and constructed can take up to two years or more.
The latest builds have been in Belleville, Trenton and Tyendinaga. The last County build was in 2014.
Previous Habitat homes in Prince Edward County have all been built in Picton – on West Mary, Barker and York streets.
Filed Under: Local News
Habitat and its volunteers do a fabulous job providing housing for families all over the country and for that matter the continent. Congratulations to them for everything that they do.
Big paying jobs in the county are a fantasy. Historically there have been numerous industrial commissioners who tried and failed to bring them. Some industries arrived with support money from government grants. When the grants ran out so did the industries.
Curious as to what kind of good paying jobs (industrial) would be interested in the County given our distance from the 401 Highway and our lack of an employee base? We have been down this road for 50 years. Big paying Corporate jobs are not coming here. We are a tourist area. Time to identify as such. Big paying jobs are not coming! Big paying corporate businesses want an eager young work force. We do not have that.
Yes Bob low paying seasonal jobs coupled with the lack of affordable rental units here in The County make it impossible for County Folks working in the tourist industry to make ends meets. The County needs to focus its energy on providing affordable housing and encouraging year round good paying jobs. We do have a under used industrial park that could also be zoned for affordable rental units, doing the hard work of enticing those types of businesses to locate here is the daunting task County council needs to work at. The tourist industry is doing very well here in The County after years of effort by council to promote the area as a vacation spot, if as much effort was put into attracting those good paying job here as was put into promoting The County as a vacation spot it would be successful as well. But You Sir have hit the nail directly on the head when you said “The County needs to step up and attract business other than tourists .”
All this talk about affordable is nice but what is really needed are jobs . With out good paying jobs how can people pay the mortgage and land taxes etc . ??? The County needs to step up and attract business other than tourists .