On the corner of Gladstone and Bank Street, grated fences surround a gaping rectangular hole where two bulldozers clear the remaining rocks, clay and dirt from the site.
By next summer it will be a nine-storey brick and glass condo building with a central courtyard, underground parking and a vegetated green roof.
It’s one of more than 20 housing projects that are going up or have been recently completed in Centretown – and they’re almost all geared toward those in a high-income bracket. The luxury condo being built on Gladstone and Bank is still just a hole in the ground but 80 per cent of its units have already been sold and the remaining ones cost between $259,900 and $553,900.
The influx of wealthy homeowners is threatening to push out renters who cannot afford to keep up with gentrification, says Ray Sullivan, executive co-ordinator of the Centretown Citizen Ottawa Corporation, a private non-profit housing organization. In 2006, 78 per cent of Centretown residents were renters but Sullivan says housing is becoming unaffordable to them due to cost inflation.
“Centretown has traditionally been a rental neighbourhood and it’s one of the ways to make housing more accessible and more affordable,” Sullivan says. “But increasingly there’s more and more condominiums developing and I have a concern that that’s going to change the character of the neighbourhood in the long term.”
The 2009 Ottawa Neighbourhood Study suggests that 33 per cent of Centretown residents spend more than 30 per cent of their income on housing while the average Ottawan pays only 12.9 per cent.
Shawn Menard, president of the Centretown Citizens Community Association, says “a lot of peoples’ jaws dropped” when they heard the results of the study.
“Prior to that we thought Centretown was a pretty healthy, liveable neighbourhood with good affordable housing stock,” Menard says. “Your eyes just open up a little bit more. Poverty is not always seen.”
It’s not only new developments that are too pricy for many Centretown residents. Based on sales so far in 2010, the Ottawa Real Estate Board calculated the average cost of a home in Centretown at $355,700 – a 16 per cent increase compared with the similar period in 2009, when the average cost was $306,600.
Somerset Ward Coun. Diane Holmes, says when the cost of housing takes up such a large portion of a person’s budget, their overall quality of life suffers.
“If people are on moderate incomes and they’re spending more than 30 per cent that means that something else is happening – that they can’t afford either proper clothing for themselves or food for their families, and they certainly can’t afford to have their children take part in any recreation like playing in a soccer league or a hockey league,” Holmes says.
Holmes recognizes that the city’s plan to build 500 affordable housing units in Ottawa a year is too low given that there are 10,000 families and single people on the waiting list. However, she says there’s simply not enough provincial and federal funding to build more than that.
She points to the Beaver Barracks on Catherine and Metcalfe streets, an affordable housing development that has been “in the books” since 1990 but didn’t secure funding until 2007.
“It has been important to keep that site available, to make sure that that land wasn’t sold, wasn’t put up for disposal. We’ve been able to keep that land waiting for the day when we might get provincial and federal money back again,” Holmes says.
By fall 2010, 160 units will be complete and another 88 the following year. Holmes says that this affordable housing development will help keep families in the neighbourhood, which is necessary to maintain certain Centretown institutions.
“The cost of housing keeps on increasing all the time and it’s becoming harder and harder for new homebuyers or for people who aren’t rich to buy in Centretown,” Holmes says. “It will help keep Elgin Street school open, for example, because we need families to keep the schools open.”
Sullivan suggests that the city should implement a plan that requires a certain percentage of new developments to be affordable for people with low and moderate incomes.
However, Menard points out that there are community pressures against such measures.
“Some people in the community don’t want affordable housing. You have to recognize the fact that there are people in the community that say, ‘We don’t want this outside of our back door,’ ” Menard says. “You recognize both where there’s a potential to place those affordable housing units and also where the backlash will be from residents.”
With a municipal election coming up in October, Menard hopes candidates highlight affordable housing as a priority and brainstorm solutions during their campaigns.
Ensuring affordable housing is available to Centretown residents requires a financial investment but Menard says the social benefit that can come of it proves it’s money well spent.
“An investment in affordable housing is not throwing money away, it actually saves money over time because these folks have a roof over their head and they’re able to spend money on things that matter like food and it gets them off of the street which is a heavy, heavy burden on the social services of the city,” Menard says.