CANMORE – The Town’s perpetual affordable housing reserve will eventually be replenished when Canmore Community Housing Corporation (CCHC) decides to sell the 17 rental units it acquired from Mountain Haven Cooperative Homes late last year.
On Tuesday (Jan. 8) , council unanimously agreed to use the proceeds of the sales to replenish the same reserve that it used to buy the units.
In September, council agreed to transfer $4.2 million from the reserve to buy the units from Mountain Haven because it was on the brink of foreclosure.
Just over a month later, CCHC took ownership of the units and began working with Mountain Haven to convert the entire development from a co-op to a condo corporation with the aim to eventually sell the units as perpetually affordable homes to eligible buyers through CCHC.
When the process is complete, all 44 units of the building will be managed by CCHC.
“The current understanding of the board is they will dispose of some, if not all, of the units at some point to PAH eligible buyers, but exactly how many units and when they will be sold remains unclear” said Michael Fark, general manager for municipal infrastructure.
By approving the motion, he said it will give the board the flexibility and discretion on how many units it decides to sell, when the units will be sold and whether or not they keep some of the units as part of its rental portfolio.
According to the staff report, there is a degree of uncertainty as to when the units will be sold because there are existing tenants within the units and CCHS needs to balance the process of selling the units with its obligation as a landlord.
According to Fark, tenants whose lease expires before July 30 will be offered a one-year lease extension to July 20, 2020, while those who have a lease expiring after July 30 will be offered an extension, but potentially of a shorter duration.
He also told council at this point in time two tenants have already indicated they are interested in purchasing their units when they becomes available.
“Some of the other tenants may be interested, but we also know there is significant demand for ownership units and we have other people in the CCHC perpetual affordable housing program who have expressed an interest, so I don’t believe CCHC will have a difficult time selling the units to eligible PAH clients,” said Fark.
“Having said that, some of the units, especially some of the one-bedroom units, may be quite desirable to form part of the rental portfolio for CCHC.”
Eventually the remaining 27 units in the building will also be converted under CCHC’s perpetual affordable housing program and be managed as a condo corporation.
With the purchase of the 17 units, the current balance of the PAH reserve now sits at $362,000.
Any proceeds from the sale of the units will be returned to the PAH reserve.
