KINGSTON — Supporters of a proposed co-operative apartment building on Division Street said the project faces a “do-or-die” moment at next week’s city council meeting.
Limestone City Co-operative Housing is to seek $2.29 million over three years from the city for the development of budget estimates and schematic drawings.
Those documents, known as class B requirements, are needed to allow the co-op agency to apply for the federal housing funding needed to build the 14-storey, 248-unit building at the intersection of Division Street and Elliott Avenue.
Meadowbrook-Strathcona Dist. Coun. Jeff McLaren, city council’s representative on the co-op association’s board of directors, said the features that are planned for the building could make it a difficult project to vote against.
The building, estimated to cost about $115 million, is to be built with wood and covered with enough solar panels to make it a zero-energy building and a vertical farm would provide fresh produce to the building’s residents and the surrounding neighbourhood.
On paper, the project addresses council priorities about housing, affordable housing, climate change and food insecurity, McLaren said.
“If we build this, this is a first-of-its-kind building,” McLaren said. “If others around the country are see this and then copy it, it has to start somewhere.”
McLaren said if successful, the building could become a template for similar projects in Kingston and elsewhere.
The building is to be set up as a non-profit, non-share capital, co-op housing complex where residents can work on the incorporated vertical farm in return for lower rents.
The co-operative association is to apply for seed funding from the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities’ Green Municipal Fund, which already funds a city-run home retrofit program.
But that funding would only cover a small portion of the $2.29 million needed to complete the class B requirements and city support is needed to take the project to the next phase.
Without city support, McLaren said it would take years for the association to fundraise the needed money, if it can raise it at all.
The project is not without risks.
McLaren said any city support would need to be forgivable in case the project falls through, but he downplayed the risk to which the city could be exposed.
The city provided $50,000 to fund the early stages of the project development.