PEC’s affordable housing corp $117K in debt; discusses partnership possibilities

By Sharon Harrison
The Prince Edward County Affordable Housing reported it is in debt, and is listening to more information about partnership possibilities for its two affordable housing construction projects in Wellington and Picton.

The corporation board held its regular and annual general meeting Monday afternoon, the two meetings separate but concurrent.

The annual meeting lasted a seven minutes, with nothing substantive to report. The meeting of the board presented financial statements and its action tracker, discussed board recruitment, along with an expression of interest received for the Disraeli Street property and more information on a property sharing interest for the former arena property, from the Wellington Storehouse Foodbank. (See below for more on each.)

Arryn McNichol, director of finance and information technology, and treasurer, presented the year-to-date (ending Sept. 30) financial statements which were broken down into capital report, statement of financial position, and statement of operations.

The capital report illustrates two properties, namely the Wellington arena re-development and the Disraeli Street property, and also highlighted the funding, both long-term loans and the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) funding portion.

“What jumped out at me was the $601,000 which we are over the budget at this stage of the game,” stated McNichol. “I haven’t yet come across a financial plan or financial strategy related to that, and how it’s going to be paid for.”

The $601,130 budget overspend relates to the former Wellington arena property. The Disraeli Street property has $32,371 remaining in its budget, bringing the total budget overspend to $568,759.

The project budget for the former Wellington arena is $180,000, and for the Disraeli Street property is $100,000.

For the statement of financial position (financial assets and financial liabilities), McNichol noted how there are three bank accounts (financial assets) holding a total of $548,000, where he said one of the accounts is generating interest.

He said for accounts receivable, which is related to HST, the corporation has not had a chance to claim any of the HST on any of its expenditures, as of yet.

“The municipality gets 86.3 per cent of the HST back, that’s the rebatable portion, and we have yet to claim that, so the intent is to get signed-up through the Canada Revenue Agency and put a claim in and we will receive that $65,252 in cash.”

Financial liabilities total $730,723, made up of $675,938 which is owed to the municipality, and $36,000 which is payable for a CMHC loan, along with $18,785 for audit and insurance costs.

“Our net financial assets is at minus $117,073, so basically, we owe more money than we have,” he confirmed.

Under non-financial assets, the tangible capital assets work-in-progress is $848,749 which he said is made up primarily of the Wellington arena re-development.

“The idea will, as soon as substantial completion occurs, would be we would roll that into a capital asset, but not quite sure when substantial completion for that project, but once that happens, it will be depreciated or sold.”

The statement of operations highlights revenues and expenses.

“There is no reoccurring operational revenue, there is just interest revenue based on the $548,000 in the bank account – it is roughly $1,200 a month,” said McNichol.

He noted there were also not a lot of expenses either, only insurance ($336 per month) plus a $3,000 insurance bill, office expenses ($672), professional audit fees ($15,000), and property taxes ($900).

Board member councillor John Hirsch addressed the $10,176 in audit fees, which he said seemed high for such a small corporation, and asked McNichol if that was normal. Board chair councillor Phil St-Jean also expressed concern about a high number.

“It’s actually closer to $15,000, $10,000 is the interim bill, but it seems quite high to me for the amount of work; I know there is a lot of bookkeeping involved and it is a little bit labour intensive,” added McNichol.

In terms of the action tracker item, Elis Ziegler, affordable housing supervisor, said there was nothing particularly exciting to report, except to say the document had been updated.

“We would expect to have completely new projects on the agenda on the action tracker going forward,” confirmed Ziegler.

The Prince Edward County Affordable Housing Corporation’s financial statements can be found as part of the agenda package on the County’s website.

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Details of the discussions surrounding both the Disraeli Street and Niles Street properties are outlined below. However, both items moved into closed session for further deliberations, and there was nothing forthcoming disclosed from this portion of the agenda, in open session.

PECAHC has been focused on facilitating public-private partnerships (P3s) to get affordable and attainable housing here. It oversees two construction projects: the Niles Street project in Wellington and the Disraeli Street project in Picton.

Last known information states a 12-unit multi-residential modular building on Disraeli Street is to include six bachelor and six one-bedroom units. The County had received $100,000 in SEED funding from the CMHC to build 12 modular housing one bedroom units in a partnership project with its Tyendinaga First Nations neighbour. The units were to be filled by youth on the housing waiting list with the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte.

Last year it was reported the County has pipes in the ground, but requires ‘last-mile’ funding to hook up to existing infrastructure. The County found municipal services do not extend to the end of the street – which was not part of the initial funding application to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation – at a cost of about $400,000 to extend water/wastewater pipes to the site and get an extension of roadwork to allow the snowplow to turn around.

The former Wellington Duke Dome site continues its pre-construction work toward affordable housing. A current update was not discussed. At last report, PECAHC was constructing a 36-unit multi-residential building. The development was to include a mix of of one-, two- and three-bedroom units, as well as four townhomes with three bedrooms each.

Re: The 30 Disraeli Street, Picton – Expression of Interest
There was limited discussion on the Disraeli Street site in open session, which moved into closed session to discuss further, especially the financial aspect.

Elis Ziegler, affordable housing supervisor, advised that just one submission had been received in response to a private sector partnership opportunity expression of interest for a development partner.

“Theberge Developments Limited out of Ottawa is a CMHC-approved modular construction company that has several developments in the Ottawa area,” explained Ziegler. “They are interested in a builder partnership rather than an owner partnership.“

The corporation was looking for submissions to build as many units as they could on the property, as quickly as they could, and identify partnership possibilities.

Proposed is a three-storey, eight-unit modular apartment building model, where Theberge indicate a rapid delivery timeline as modules are manufactured at an Ontario facility and assembled on-site, indicating a four to six month turnaround (from building permit to occupancy).

Re: The Niles Street property, Wellington (former Duke Dome site)

The Affordable Housing Corporation states the former Wellington Duke Dome site “continues its pre-construction work toward affordable housing”. The project was not discussed further.

Proposal for new foodbank in Wellington

Cynthia Riordon, president of the Wellington and District Storehouse Foodbank, spoke to the board about their development proposal for a new home for the foodbank, also providing a summary of a presentation she brought to council in July.

“There is a need in the County. There is hunger, one in four residents are going hungry, demand keeps rising, and we are at capacity at the Storehouse, and we have to find a resolution that will help meet the community needs in a better way,” expressed Riordon.

She said they are ready to build a community food bank and wellness hub, where she said part of the solution is to secure ownership of the land, where the ask Monday was for the housing corporation to sever the southern part of the property on Niles Street.

The idea being that the foodbank can development the property into a new foodbank (the intent is the Storehouse would buy the property, assuming ownership). Re-zoning would also need to be undertaken from residential to commercial, noted Riordon.

“We know that we have the team to deliver, and we have partners in the community that will help raise awareness about food insecurity and help families in need.”

Considerations for the new facility hope to include a client choice market, cold storage, community kitchen, sorting warehouse and a multi-use community space.

Riordon also spoke to how the draft designs have been refined working with their priorities, working with their architect Bill Hurst, where they hope to include a community space that focuses on food security, but also overall wellness for residents.

Plans include a shopping model, food packaging, sorting, cold storage, walk-in fridge and freezers, community kitchen, multi-purpose use, office/file space, break room, storage spaces, community spaces and offices, mini warehouse space that will be used for the community as well, and possibly a social enterprise café.

The Rotary Club of Wellington has indicated it will help with fundraising, a major financial gift is already in place, they have community support and engagement, they have secured an architect and a developer, and they have operational sustainability (donations and grants), according to Riordon.

If all goes to plan, they hope to break ground and start building in 2026, with the build to be complete and doors open in 2027 “or maybe sooner if things move in our favour”.

“We all know that there are many, many benefits for the community, and that some of them are intangible, some of them we can’t measure, but we know that the return on investment in the end, working together to find a community-led solution to food insecurity and poverty, with long-term measurable benefits, is something that we are both seeking.”

“We know in today’s world and economy, it is something that is top of mind and a priority to help us care for others in our community; those less fortunate, and as we know, life happens and things we cannot control, we need to be there for neighbours helping neighbours.“

Architect Bill Hurst said they have been working on the site design in various ways where the idea came from the housing corporation to take the Duke Doom site and divide it into half longitudinally.

“The idea was, to the north, that longitudinal line would be affordable housing of one kind or another,” explained Hurst. “The foodbank takes up about two-thirds of the bottom part of the site, and that means there is room for two roadways that can go up right to border line to provide access to the proposed residential (access could also be from Maple Street).”

The proposed foodbank will be approximately 4,200-square-feet (maybe up to 4,500-square-feet) and Hurst said it is a rectangle, “and not really anything elaborate or fancy, but it really will work”.

Board member and councillor Brad Nieman spoke to the proposed building being one level, and asked if they had thought about having a second level

“Is it just the foodbank, or have you thought about having anything else in there?” he asked.

Hurst said it would be one storey, but a high one storey (modelled after the No Frills grocery store format), but Riordon mentioned there was a time when a two-storey was in the design. However, she said the goal is one level because the average age of their volunteers is 72, and having stairs is not accessible, and is dangerous.

Nieman said by having a two-storey building, could provide opportunity for apartments on the second floor.

Board member and councillor Kate MacNaughton noted how generally single storey development is not the best land use.

“Is there any thought to having a building that could expand in the future, a flex space upstairs, and you have the need to move the offices upstairs and double the square footage for any reasons, or potentially offer some housing,” asked MacNaughton, who also asked about modular construction.

Riordon said they had been talking about modular construction and building up for cold storage and having the opportunity to double up in some of the buildings.

“We have talked about it around the building in terms of things being doubled as we need more capacity,” explained Riordon. “We were thinking about keeping the inside that one level, but we did talk about double levels at different points.”

Board chair and councillor Phil St-Jean spoke about a building that can be expanded, overbuilding the first floor, where he also touched on other elements to consider, such as solar rooftops (also a revenue generator), energy efficiencies, and not using natural gas.

“We want to be as energy efficient as possible, and there’s no reason why a building this size cannot use to its advantage the electric heat pump systems on the market today,” shared St-Jean.

“As making it a future-proof building, it’s important to consider all of those.”

Riordon was before council in July outlining the need for a new foodbank, see that story here:

Wellington Foodbank seeks new home, due to lack of space and increased demand