The City of New Westminster is hoping to support some creative affordable housing projects in the city.
The city has invited non-profit proponents to submit proposals for innovative affordable rental or ownership housing projects for two sites in the city. The city-owned sites are located at 350 to 362 Fenton St. in Queensborough and 2034 London St. and 2038 Ninth Ave. in Connaught Heights.
The plan would see the city making municipally-owned sites available to a proponent at no charge and covering related expenses, such as development approval costs, building permit fees, legal fees and site servicing.
Mayor Jonathan Cote said the request for proposals is a continuation of the city’s small-lots housing program, which has seen projects developed on Ewen Avenue in Queensborough and Hastings Street in downtown New Westminster.
“Given the success of those two programs and the amazing partnerships we found with non-profits, council actually wanted to take another round of projects given how successful the first round was,” he told the Record. “We identified a couple of pieces of property that the city owned that were in excess to our need and not specifically identified for any purposes in the city, that we felt were appropriate locations for affordable housing. We are now putting it out to the non-profit community to see if we can get some interesting proposals for what would be small, affordable, local-serving affordable housing projects.”
In 2019, the city celebrated the opening of two affordable housing projects on city-owned land.
Last year, the Community Living Society, Catalyst Community Development Society and the province (through BC Housing) teamed up on a project that a project built at 43 Hastings St. It includes three fully-accessible one-bedroom units for people with developmental disabilities who are supported by Community Living Society and three three-bedroom affordable rental townhomes.
WINGS (Women in Strength) Gaining Strength partnered with the city to on a development in Queensborough that includes five two-bedroom affordable rental units for single mothers and their children.
“We are certainly hopeful we are going to get a good response,” Cote said of the current requests for proposals. “The first time we did this, I believe we had more than 15 responses, which was really excellent because it gave us an opportunity to hear some really creative proposals.”
Cote noted there have been some changes since the last time the city issued request for proposals for affordable housing.
“We do know the last time around there wasn’t as much activity with affordable housing projects and the provincial government wasn’t as active at that time,” he said. “We do think there might be a lot of non-profits that are busy with other affordable housing projects in the province, so we may not get as good of a response. But we are certainly hopeful, given the success of the program and how people can see how we were able to make those pieces of land in the first round and how successful that’s been, that we should be able to get some interest and we are hopeful to get some good proposals.”
