Karen Henderson, Centretown News
Ray Sullivan, executive director of the Centretown Citizens Ottawa Corporation, hopes the LeBreton Flats development will include affordable housing.A Centretown-based affordable housing corporation has partnered with one of the two groups bidding for the redevelopment of LeBreton Flats.
The Centretown Citizens Ottawa Corporation is working with the RendezVous LeBreton Group —a joint venture between the Senators Sports & Entertainment group and Trinity Development Group Inc. —in hopes of ensuring the “meaningful inclusion” of affordable housing on the new site.
The proposal the group submitted to the National Capital Commission included plans for more than 4,000 new homes and a commitment to make 25 per cent a mix of affordable housing units.
“This is going to be one of the biggest residential developments Ottawa’s ever seen,” says Ray Sullivan, executive director of the housing corporation. “Shouldn’t there be homes on that same site for the folks who are selling the hot dogs and the beer and the coffee at the arena?”
The Centretown housing corporation is a community-based, non-profit organization, which has worked to create affordable housing in downtown Ottawa since 1974. Today, the organization owns and manages 50 properties and more than 1,500 units of affordable housing.
Despite progress made over the past few decades, Sullivan says there are still 40,000 households in the city today who cannot afford market rent. That’s roughly two out of every five renters.
“Half of those folks are actually paying more than half of their gross income just to keep themselves housed,” Sullivan says. “Tens of thousands of households in this city are month to month dealing with the possibility of losing their home.”
“That’s a crisis by any definition,” he says.
Barry Hobin is an architect whose company is also partnered with the RendezVous LeBreton Group.
He has worked with Sullivan’s organization on past projects and he says he encouraged the RendezVous LeBreton leadership to reach out to the housing corporation early on.
Hobin says the team agreed that including affordable housing in the LeBreton Flats redevelopment was a no-brainer.
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“It’s just the world we live in right now,” he says. “It’s about city building and designing a 21st century city, and a 21st century city has to look at all housing types. It just can’t be focused on one market-driven condo.”
The RendezVous LeBreton proposal outlined five distinct neighbourhoods within the site. Hobin says four of those neighbourhoods would most likely incorporate affordable housing units.
Devcore Canderel DLS Group — the other team bidding on the LeBreton Flats redevelopment — did not specifically commit to building affordable housing in their proposal to the NCC.
In an email to Centretown News, Somerset Coun. Catherine McKenney says affordable housing is one of her biggest priorities for the redevelopment of LeBreton Flats. She calls it “necessary” as 10,000 are people on the housing wait list.
“Our goal as a city should be to get these numbers down to (zero),” she says. “As the NCC moves forward with their consultation, I will be watching very closely because I want to be certain that whichever proposal the NCC chooses has a significant amount of affordable housing included in the development.”
McKenney says developers should also ensure those tenants have access to affordable resources and amenities, such as grocery stores.
Sullivan says many challenges exist in developing affordable housing, but he’s still looking forward to what comes next.
“To be honest, we’ve had our eyes on LeBreton Flats since the 1970s,” he says. “We’re really excited about the opportunity to work with some of the most respected people in the development industry in the City of Ottawa and internationally.”
Sullivan says it’s important for people to remember that LeBreton Flats has historically been a “diverse, modest income, working-class neighbourhood” and affordable housing would be in keeping with its history.
“It would be a social injustice to not include affordable housing on that site,” he says.