City eyes $18.5M church land for supportive housing

The City of Ottawa is seekingcouncillors' OK to spend $18.5 million on churchlands to be used as a supportive housing site.

The land, which totalsmore than three hectares,sitsat the northwestcorner of Kilborn Place and Lamira Street on the western edge of Alta Vista.

The site is owned bythe Archdiocese of Ottawa-Cornwall and includes a vacant building formerly usedas an office, residence and a seminary where priests were trained.

The city says the negotiated price is considered reasonableand is asking councillors to approve the agreement of purchase and sale,according to a report to council's finance and corporate services committee made public on Thursday.

"There was no listed price for the property, but staff understood through discussions with the broker that the owner hoped to sell the property for approximately $20 million," according to the report.

The committee isscheduled to meet on Sept. 5. Council as a whole would also needto approve the deal.

The proposed purchase, which is pegged to the city's strategy on transitional housing, "is a unique and rare opportunity for the city to acquire lands in close proximity to transit, community services and amenities," according to the report.

If council approvesthe deal, years of workincluding community consultation would follow, according to the city.

Long waitlist for housing

The seminary building dates back to the 1950s. Itwas recently vacated because of asbestos, according to an April 2022 consultant's report commissioned by the archdiocese.

The archdiocese closed it down early during the COVID-19 pandemic, saidIvo Valentik, its director of real estate and facilities.

Then, in early 2023, the city asked the archdiocese if it could lease the building to temporarily shelter homeless people,Valentiksaid. The group put it on the market to see what it could fetch and the city made a formal offer.

"We're in negotiations and hopefully going to sell to them,"Valentiksaid. "It needs work in order to be brought up to standards, which is one reason why we had to abandon it. Wesimply could not afford to continue to invest more money in it."

The city is well awarethe building will require significant investment, saidMarty Carr, the councillor representing the Alta Vista ward.

"They'll be undertaking that work in the coming months,"she said.

According to the report to committee, the city has begunan audit"to determine the state, next steps and high-level financial implications of the existing improvement."

Carr said the building contains about 100 rooms that could be used for housing, whereas "community centres have been used consistently since March 2020 to house folks simply because the shelter system was over capacity."

Supportive housing is aimed at people who don't need emergency shelter, but require longer-term support.

"It can be a variety of needs, whether it means some nutrition and health, physical assistance.Counselling can be available," Carr said.

There are currently close to 400 people on the city's supportive housing waitlist, she added.

Kamal Fahs, a local business owner, described the neighbourhood as very quiet and mostly home to seniors.

"You don't see many youngsters here," he said.

The presence of transitional housing "might representan issue to the neighborhood,"Fahs said, pointing to high housing prices in the area.

"They don't want the action around here, let's put it [that]way," he said.

But the development might also bring more traffic to his business, he added.

The location is ideal because it's close to a lot of amenities, saidKaite Burkholder Harris, the executive director of the Alliance to End Homelessness Ottawa.

"It's close to Bank Street ... groceries, transit, allsorts of things," she said. "There's a lot of land, which is really exciting because there's potential to have a really beautiful mixed community here."

Nearby church also vacant

The archdiocese'sSt. Thomas d'Aquin Catholic Church is located across the street from the former seminary building and has not been used as a place worship recently.

In June, council approved rezoning the St. Thomas land to allow for a low-rise, mixed-use building.

But Valentiksaid plans to move the archdiocese's offices to the church building were put on hold due to creeping construction costs during the pandemic.

"We right now don't have a permanent plan on where we will house ourselves long-term," he said. "We're starting to study [the church site] across the road as well as other locations."