Habitat for Humanity eyes former Belleville police station for affordable housing project

A $26-million affordable housing proposal is on the table for the old Belleville police station on Dundas Street East.

Habitat for Humanity is spearheading the project after council decided to donate that land to the charity to build affordable housing.

“Once we received the letter of commitment from the city, we were able to then move forward with the seed funding application,” says Habitat for Humanity Prince Edward-Hastings executive director Hazzem Koudsi.

Habitat is currently seeking seed funding from the Canada Mortgage Housing Corporation (CMHC) in order to move forward on the project.

Koudsi says the application will be completed in the next two weeks, and will then be sent off to CMHC for review.

“From there it takes them about four months, so that puts us in around September,” he says. “Where we can hopefully hear back on the funding, and possibly some of the grants that we’ll receive.”

The proposal is for a 66-unit structure, with a mix of one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments.

Just less than half are slated to be rent-to-own, with the rest being rented apartments.

“Sixty-six units would be a good opportunity to provide an affordable housing supply to help with our demand in the area,” Koudsi says.

Belleville is becoming one of the fastest-growing cities in the province.

This means housing has become scarce and more expensive, indicating that more affordable housing is needed in the city.

“It pushes people out of the opportunity to buy market housing,” says Koudsi. “It pushes them back into market rent. And market rent has also gone up because of that.”

If all goes well with the application and seed funding, Habitat expects to have shovels in the ground on this project by summer of next year.