City council is spending $10.3 million to buy a vacant 46-unit Beltline apartment building in an effort to ease Calgary’s affordable housing shortage. “The price was very good compared to recent values in the housing market in Calgary,” says Ward 4 Ald. Bob Hawkesworth, who voted in favour of the purchase January 14. “It was a very attractive price.”
By purchasing existing units instead of waiting for new ones to be built, the city hopes to get more people off the Calgary Housing Company’s lengthy waiting list. (During 2007, the waiting list hovered at around 2,200 applicants.) Hawkesworth says people will be able to move into the newly renovated building “in a matter of weeks.”
Half the building’s units will be subsidized by the city, while the other half will be rented at market value. (JK)
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