Indwell wants in on Jamesville project
Agency says status quo inadequate, proposes more affordable units
The province’s largest provider of affordable, assisted-living housing says Hamilton must do better than what’s on the table for Jamesville.
Indwell hopes to lead a proposal or team up with others on pitches to redevelop the aging social housing complex in the North End.
CityHousing Hamilton’s plan for a mixed-income community at Jamesville involves reducing the 91 rentgeared-to-income units currently there to 46 and moving the balance to a future building at Bay and Cannon streets.
But it will take more than just replacing units to tackle the city’s affordability crunch, says Graham Cubitt, Indwell’s director of projects and development.
“We should actually be augmenting them if we’re going to, with any sincerity, be trying to address the housing crisis that we face.”
Cubitt noted that Indwell submitted an expression of interest to the city for the Jamesville redevelopment last year.
It proposed 150 affordable units to replace the existing 91, along with 250 market units. This would include a variety of housing types for singles, as well as small and larger families.
On Wednesday, CityHousing CEO Tom Hunter said expressions of interest from seven proponents were received.
The plan to issue a request for proposals, the next step in the tendering process, is on track for the first quarter of 2019, he noted.
CityHousing plans to sell the 5.4acre site — situated amid spiking property values in the heart of the North End — and award a contract to a developer by November 2019.
The idea is to raze the 50-yearold townhouse complex between James and MacNab Street North to make way for a mixed-income community with 300 to 400 private market rental or owned residences.
“We are expecting there to be flexibility in the number of affordable housing units,” Hunter said. “At a minimum, we will be seeking 46 RGI (rent-geared-toincome) units.”
The May 2017 request for expressions of interest called the redevelopment “an opportunity to create a medium-density, mixed-income community within a community that contributes to the vibrancy of the West Harbour neighbourhood.”
Roxborough Park, a similar project in the east end, is also to be a mixed-income community, which the city sees as healthier than strictly social housing enclaves.
Cubitt had this to say on the topic: “It’s not splitting up the poverty that’s going to make a better neighbourhood; it’s providing more vibrancy and more supportive neighbourhood networks.”
A few dozen people offered ideas for a redeveloped Jamesville during a two-hour brainstorming session Tuesday night at Indwell’s Dr. John Perkins Centre on Main Street East near Kenilworth Avenue.
“We will be meeting again with community groups,” Cubitt said, noting Indwell would like to meet with Jamesville residents.
Indwell, a Christian-based
charity, has been a major force in the city’s affordable-housing scene with 468 apartments in Hamilton, Woodstock and Simcoe. It aims to provide “deep affordability.” That’s about $500 a month for a one-bedroom unit.
This is in a rental market where one-bedrooms are going for at least $1,000 a month and advocacy groups are calling for reforms to ease the pain.
With a reliable pool of faithful donors and lenders, the charity says it was able to house 74 new tenants last year.
Its residences include the Rudy Hulst Commons across from the Perkins Centre, Strathearne Suites on Strathearne Avenue, and Parkdale Landing on Melvin Avenue. On-site staff provide support services such as addictions counselling.
Last year, Indwell was a partner in a pitch for the Pier 8 redevelopment; it proposed 10 per cent of the roughly 1,300 homes be set aside for affordable units.
The city ultimately chose another consortium, Waterfront Shores, which plans for 65 affordable-housing units, or about five per cent, which Habitat for Humanity will administer.
CityHousing has struggled with a repair backlog and lengthy tenant wait list amid a funding crunch. Part of its renewal strategy is selling single-family and semi-detached homes to generate cash for projects.
“We sit on very valuable land and, essentially, it’s utilizing the value in the land because we don’t have a lot of money in the bank,” Coun. Chad Collins, who has served on the CityHousing board, said in a recent interview.
“There’s no fear that we’ll have less than when we started,” he added. “It’s all but a certainty that we will end up with more; it will happen on a phased approach.”