The Centretown Citizens Ottawa Corporation purchased a new property worth $2.3 million in early March, a feat that Somerset Ward Coun. Diane Holmes says is great news for Centretown residents.
“The fact that CCOC has purchased the building means that it will stay in public hands and therefore the rent will be as low as possible, so that’s really good news,” she says.
The corporation received a $1.68-million grant from the Canada-Ontario Affordable Housing Program after a recommendation from Ottawa city council.
"I’m very pleased that the city is allocating funding for Centretown non-profit housing to purchase that building,” says Holmes.
“It’s an affordable housing rental building in Centretown. It’s exactly the kind of housing we need to keep affordable.”
The CCOC has begun to renovate the 29 bachelor units at 54 Primrose Ave.
The property will offer affordable housing to Centretown residents, which Holmes says is important so that people don’t have to move out of the area due to increasing rents. Raymond Sullivan, executive co-ordinator for the CCOC, agrees.
“It’s an important part of our mandate not only to build new housing but also to preserve housing that’s reasonably affordable,” he says.
The corporations’s goal is to renovate significant aspects of the property, while also, over time, reducing the cost of rent for current and future tenants.
“Affordable housing is a major issue, specifically for Centretown,” says Sullivan.
“Centretown has some of the highest rents and lowest vacancies in the city and has a quarter of its residents living below the poverty line. So the extent to which we can preserve affordable housing in Centretown is the extent to which we can preserve Ottawa as a whole.”
Sullivan says that there are over 10,000 people on the registry with a waiting period as long as seven years.
“Unfortunately, there’s no shortage of people waiting for affordable apartment units.”
As part of their mission to create, maintain and promote housing for people with low and moderate incomes, the CCOC is striving to accommodate as many individuals as possible.
Since 1978, it has purchased or built 1,500 affordable rental housing units across Ottawa, mainly in Centretown.
The agency is also aiming to make 54 Primrose Ave. more eco-friendly by replacing the boiler, roof and windows. The new boiler will burn less gas and the new windows will improve air tightness so that less heat escapes the apartment units.