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Kelowna  

Affordable housing unveiled

A new affordable housing unit will open up 86 rental apartments for lower-income Kelowna residents.

The four-storey building will be constructed at 1745 Chapman Place, behind Boston Pizza, in an area known as Central Green. Construction should be complete by summer 2016.

The project is a partnership between BC Housing, the City of Kelowna and the Ki-Low-Na Friendship Society. The province is putting $15.6 million into the project, while the city provided the land, valued at $1 million.

"Today, we are one step closer to the completion of the community's vision for Central Green, ensuring that those in need remain integral and valued members of the community through increased access to affordable housing," said Norm Letnick, MLA for Kelowna-Lake Country.

The Ki-Low-Na Friendship Society will manage the building once it opens.

While the society is a non-profit organization that works primarily with First Nations people, this housing project will be available to anyone who can show they have need. The society and BC Housing will develop the criteria for who is eligible.

“It will continue to help build the good relationships that we have in B.C. between First Nations and non-First Nations when they actually get to live together and experience common housing,” said Letnick.

The lot was once the home of Kelowna Secondary School, but was bought by the city in 2002. 

Letnick said roughly 15 per cent of the Central Green area will be dedicated to affordable housing. The remainder has been sold to developer Al Stober, who is building a “complete community,” according to Mayor Colin Basran.

“It’ll be mixed use, it’ll be park, further residential housing and commercial components,” Basran said.

Basran said Stober is looking to get the first phase of his construction underway later this year.

Edna Terbasket, executive director of the Ki-Low-Na Friendship Society, said the rental unit project is classified as affordable housing and not social housing, so rental units will be offered at a percentage of fair market value instead of charging rents as a percentage of one's income. Exact pricing has not yet been determined, but Cam Martin, administration team leader, said it would be “about 75 per cent of market rate.”

“It has to be self-sustaining, there’s no operating funding for this,” Martin said.



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