New Hamburg feed mill to transform into affordable housing
Posted Jan 27, 2023 08:40:00 PM.
When opportunity knocks, you answer.
That's essentially the backstory to a new affordable housing project looking to convert an old feed mill in New Hamburg.
“When the feed mill went up for sale we thought, why allow this to be torn down or to go to an outside body to come in to put something that's not really reflective of the area,” said Boris Emanuel, Executive Director, Love Your Neighbourhood Communities (LYNC). “Why not, as a group, purchase this property and provide housing for those that are in our community.”
So that's exactly what they did. It did though take the community itself coming together to help support and raise the more than $2-million needed to buy it.
“That just blows me away and I'm extremely proud of the people of Wilmot Township who came together to make this happen,” Emanuel said, adding they are now hoping the project itself may be able to give back.
“Part of the development is not just providing apartments, but actually providing commercial spaces for social enterprises and for other community agencies to use that space to add to our community.”
To the apartments though, Emanuel said they're hoping to be able to build around 30 within the current building itself though he did also note a number of ways in which that could be expanded, including with some big help from the Region of Waterloo.
“They just recently approved the turning over of an adjacent piece of property to Love Your Neighbour Communities so that we'll be actually partnering with the region in this regard.”
That property being the old regional police offices in the area.
And because LYNC will also be acting as landlord in this case, they say they'll be looking to ensure the affordable units built will remain affordable when it comes time to rent.
“We hope to be able, for our apartments we're supporting financially, to provide rent that's 60 to 80 per cent below what the going market rate is for apartments,” Emanuel said.
As for construction, he said they hope to begin building sometime later this year and expect it to take about a year-and-a-half to finish.
