The Village was previously a college campus and served as a student residence covering more than six acres of land. The building is equipped with classrooms, lecture halls, a gym, an auditorium, offices, lounges, and a library, all accessible via an underground tunnel. It has a capacity of 260 people with 137 rooms and two private apartments.
“We know from numerous reports that Peterborough is facing a severe affordable housing crisis, marked by extremely low rental vacancy rates, rapidly rising rents, home prices outpacing income growth and a huge backlog for subsidized housing, forcing many residents, including families and vulnerable populations, into precarious or unstable housing situations,” said Stephen Kylie, Mount Community Centre board chair. “The Mount Community Centre believes that everyone deserves a place to call home and continues to pursue its vision of increasing the capital stock of affordable housing units in the Peterborough Area.
Upgrades to the facility are planned, with the Mount seeking to renovate the east and west wings into approximately 60 to 70 apartment units. However, the Mount will pivot on what renovations will occur depending on the demand of its tenants said Kylie.
“We have to figure out which tenants might use the dormitory concept,” he explained. “If nobody is interested in that, we're going to have to retrofit the whole building and create those self-contained apartments, so we'll be working on designs with the architect who has been identified today and work on a capital budget for doing that.”
The initial timeline for completing the project is three years but several factors could alter it according to Kylie.
“We'll do it incrementally based on availability of capital and construction times,” he said. “We’ll probably start with one wing, year one, we’ll get maybe 40 units going, year two, another 40 and by year three, it should be fully built.”
On July 2, the City of Peterborough passed a by-law amendment for 780 Argyle St. that would permit residential uses, community uses and neighbourhood-supportive non-residential uses, provided there is no association with a college or university. The City confirmed that the zoning by-law amendment will remain in effect from Aug. 5, with no objections.
“When we put our offer in to buy this place, our planner at the time said 'you should get the property rezoned' because we didn’t have the zoning we wanted,” explained Kylie. “We started the rezoning, it was concluded within a month. This property was rezoned for our anticipated purposes so that is huge cooperation.”
Due to the rezoning, conversations about prospective tenants can already begin said Kylie.
“We're working with one group, those clients could use the dormitory-style concept,” he stated. “They could actually move in today because the zoning is already in place but right now, we're working hard at getting the 'anchor tenants' so the health and social service agencies, we want to get them in here so we can build around them but they are also paying the commercial rents that we desperately need to get this project jump-started.”
The property purchase was another step in the right direction for affordable housing in Kylie’s eyes.
“As we announce the acquisition of The Village on Argyle, it is a celebration of the progress that has been made to date to address the issue of providing affordable housing in our community and the future growth of the Mount Community Centre redevelopment projects,” concluded Kylie.
