By David Hutton
The Argyle Avenue YMCA-YWCA will undergo a major renovation in the coming years, but nothing as drastic as a swirling rumour that it will be turned into a high-end hotel, forcing tenants out onto the street.
“We’re in the middle of doing a long-term strategic plan,” says Deirdre Speers, a vice-president with the National Capital Region YMCA-YWCA.
“There’s a lot of sensitivity that’s driving rumours. But there would be lots of notice.”
Speers was responding to calls from tenants to answer a rumour there was an imminent renovation project planned for the building. Some tenants were afraid the facility was to be turned into a high-end hotel, eliminating more than 150 affordable housing spaces in an already cramped market.
“We’ve heard everything,” says Kenneth Elter, a three-year tenant at the YMCA-YWCA.
“Everyone is worried, even the staff I talk to are worried. Nobody can plan on what they’re going to be doing.”
Elter is particularly sensitive to renovations to low-income housing.
He was left scrambling for a place to live after renovations forced him out of an apartment above the former Duke of Somerset pub in 2004.
“I’m gun shy of all that stuff,” Elter says.
“That’s what I was told at my old place then they sold it out from under us. This situation here is so close to that. When all of this happens where are they going to put us?”
Although he would not comment on the specifics of the plan, Tony Pacheco, CEO of the National Capital Region YMCA-YWCA, said a major renovation to the Argyle Avenue housing tower will happen in the coming years to bring it up to modern standards. An architecture company will deliver a proposal in January, when a major fundraising campaign will begin.
The YMCA-YWCA is doing everything in their power not to displace residents during the renovations, Pacheco said.
“We’re looking at ways we can do the renovation without disrupting services. We don’t know if that’s possible but that’s the goal the architects have been given. But we wouldn’t begin this process until people are accommodated in a safe place.”
The Argyle Avenue YMCA-YWCA houses more than 250 tenants who live in month-to-month rental housing, a youth life-skills housing program, emergency housing, and a shelter.
The 144 rental apartment units, set aside for low-income residents, were initially intended to be short-term housing. But some tenants have been living there for more than a decade because of a lack of available affordable housing in Ottawa.
The city is continuing to miss its goal of creating 500 new units per year to deal with a stagnant backlog of 10,000 households that qualify for affordable housing.
The last funding hurdle for a project to build 195 affordable housing units on the former Beaver Barracks site downtown cleared in August.
The additional affordable housing in the neighbourhood may lead to a change in the type of housing offered by YMCA-YWCA, Speers says.
For instance, they may focus more on providing housing for youth.
“The main thing is that we’ve recommitted to staying the business of affordable housing,” Pacheco says. “All of our studies indicate that this is a vital area for us to be involved in.”
The Argyle Avenue facility has aged considerably in the past few years and is in need of major upgrades, particularly to its heating systems, Speers says.
The region’s board of directors is evaluating the services the YMCA-YWCA offers across the region.
The strategic plan looks 15 years into the future and focuses on improving childhood development, marginal and at-risk populations, and affordable housing.
Pacheco said his organization plans to double its programming for marginal and immigrant populations in Ottawa.
The Ottawa Y is one of the oldest and largest in Canada, dating to 1867. It has undergone significant changes already under Pacheco, who took over in 2005.
Speers said she will be distributing flyers to tenants in the coming weeks to quell rumours and clarify what is happening.
“I can understand the nervousness of our tenants,” she says. “But there is absolutely nothing coming in the short-term. There’s nothing to be worried about.”
In the long-term, there may be slight changes in the Y’s housing mandate, Speers says, but nothing as radical as turning the current facility into a hotel, high-end or otherwise.
“We got out of that business,” she said, laughing. “And we’re not about to get back into it.”