With 254 units, Beaver Barracks is one of the city’s largest rental housing projects.
As new residents moved last month into the final phase of the Beaver Barracks housing project, the president of the Centretown Citizens Ottawa Corp., Calinda Brown, hailed the “family-friendly” development as key to rejuvenating the city’s downtown.
The CCOC provides affordable housing to Ottawa residents and owns more than 50 properties around the city.
Beaver Barracks is one of the city’s largest rental housing projects with 254 units.
The construction of the project has been separated into two phases: the first phase being the apartment buildings at 464 Metcalfe St. and 160 Argyle St. which have been completely occupied since December 2010.
The second and final phase which includes the townhouses at Victory Gardens Private and the apartment building at 111 Catherine St. which began occupancy this September.
Beaver Barracks is wheelchair accessible, smoke-free and environmentally friendly, with a roof top garden on the Metcalfe building.
However, one of CCOC’s biggest achievements has been bringing families back to Centretown and Beaver Barracks has done just that, says Brown. It’s a goal, she adds, that dates to the organization’s origins in 1974.
She says it started with a group of Centretown citizens who were “a little dismayed at the building and destruction of neighbourhoods.”
She says people realized they were losing downtown housing to office buildings and the proposed off-ramp that would connect people to Parliament Hill.
Brown says the organization was formed out of a need to preserve family homes in Centretown. “The organization started buying single family homes in Centretown so that affordable housing would remain in the area.”
Brown says the organization is proud to be housing about 100 children and their families at Beaver Barracks. “One of our big goals has been to create family-friendly spaces, because we know families want to live downtown again. I think we succeeded.”
“People are tired of spending all their available time in cars,” she says, “when they could walk home and be with their kids in 20 minutes.”
Although living downtown is convenient, it’s not always affordable for families.
“There’s a real shortage of affordable rental housing, and it’s a big accomplishment for us and the partners in the City of Ottawa to do something on this scale,” says CCOC executive director Ray Sullivan.
John Adeyefa, a resident of Beaver Barracks who moved into one of the second phase townhouses at Victory Gardens Private this September, called it a privilege to live there.
“It’s central to everything, there’s no need to have a vehicle.”
Adeyefa has lived in Canada for a few years and his wife and three children joined him in Ottawa about six months ago from Africa.
His children enjoy playing around Beaver Barracks, climbing on the elephant statues and playing soccer at the park beside the Museum of Nature,’ Adeyefa says.
He notes that Beaver Barracks is his children’s first home in Canada and he looks forward to seeing them grow up in the Centretown area.
Residents will continue to move into the second phase of Beaver Barracks and it should be completely occupied by mid-November, says Meg McCallum, CCOC’s manager of membership and communications.