Fredericton council starts to pave way for up to 100 more affordable housing units

Fredericton city council is taking additional steps to encourage the creation of more affordable housing in the city.

Council has voted to spend $1.6 million on new road and water infrastructure to service land that will be sold off later for the purpose of creating as many as 100 affordable housing units.

Part of the city's affordable housing strategy sets out to make city-owned land available for the construction of new affordable units.

The vote Monday at council's regular meeting was another milestone in fulfilling that objective, said Deputy Mayor Greg Ericson.

"This is, you know, a wonderful example of how the city and the province, you know all our levels of government are kind of pulling together and co-operating around the provision of affordable housing, so [it's] quite an excellent moment," Ericson said.

The 0.85-hectare plot (about 2.1 acres) is near Murray Avenue on the north side of the city

It will be accessed by extending Cuffman Street so that it joins with Murray Avenue, and then by building a new road to the north from the Cuffman Street extension, said Ken Forrest, Fredericton's director of planning, in an interview.

Forrest said the project was partly spurred by the New Brunswick government's plan to build a new elementary school near Cliffe and Cuffman streets.

A curve in Murray Avenue is roughly the location where Cuffman Street will be extended in order to join it. Another street will then be built perpendicular to the extension, with the city hoping to see affordable housing built along it. (Google Maps)

Forrest said the city helped pick the location of the new school for the province, which then acquired a large piece of land to build it.

Forrest said the city then bought a piece of that property from the province last year for $290,000.

"So it's kind of a very co-operative effort between the city and the province to build a much needed school on the growing north side, but also to unlock the opportunity to provide a pretty significant amount of affordable housing right next to that school," he said.

Forrest said the city will now be looking at this year's construction season for getting the new road and water infrastructure built and to initiate selling off the land to interested non-profit and for-profit developers.

Fredericton planning director Ken Forrest says the city is hoping to recover its upfront costs through selling off the land to non-profit and for-profit developers who are interested in building affordable housing. (Aidan Cox/CBC)

Forrest said the the city is taking on the $1.6-million upfront cost of servicing the land because it wants to be able to attract bids from non-profit developers, which otherwise might not have the capital to take on the costs of servicing the land themselves.

But as the city divides the plot into separate parcels and sells them off, the hope is to recover the roughly $2 million spent on the purchase price and servicing costs.

Already zoned for residential use, Forest said the land can accommodate a mix of low-rise, multi-residential apartment buildings, and townhouses, detached and semi-detached homes.

"So there would be opportunities for some rental housing but also affordable home ownership, which has been talked about a fair bit around the council table in the last number of weeks," Forrest said.

The property near Cuffman isn't the first piece of real estate the city has earmarked for affordable housing.

At their last regular meeting, councillors agreed to spend about $1 million extending Brown Boulevard to provide access and services to a 2.8-hectare plot of city owned land.

The hope there is to see developers acquire portions of the property, which the city believes could accommodate 200 new affordable housing units.