Funding transforms Charleswood housing co-op

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This article was published 23/03/2022 (1527 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Charleswood

Workers are putting the finishing touches on a nearly $20.3 million project to upgrade homes in a Charleswood housing co-op, some of which had been sitting empty due to much needed upgrades.

The Westboine Park Housing Co-op (32 Shelmerdine Dr.) had four uninhabitable units when construction began in October 2019.

“It was literally raining on the inside. The water was coming down the walls,” Coral Hetherington, president of the Westboine Park Housing Co-op’s board of directors, said. “People would have lost their homes.”

The treed campus — set back from Roblin Boulevard by the length of Bannatyne Grove Park — comprises 188 units staggered upon a site near the Assiniboine River (just under three dozen of these units make up a three-storey apartment). In total, 60 units are subsidized through Manitoba Housing.

Almost all 20 buildings on the development’s 14-acre lots were given new exterior cladding — nearly 165,000 feet of it. The structures, built in the mid to late-1970s, were covered in cedar shingles that were grayed and weak. The renovations also included 836 new windows, 1,100 doors, and about 95,000-square-feet of roofing.

“It was a massive project,” said Hetherington, a disability tax credit advisor and longtime co-op resident.

The co-op accepted $19.5 million in funding from a number of channels, including $11.5 million through the National Housing Strategy of the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation, $8 million through Assiniboine Credit Union, $45,000 from the CMHC’s preservation fund for community housing, and $750,000 of the co-op’s own money.

This scale of renovations would have been impossible without outside help, Hetherington said. The co-op would have been unable to get ahead of the repairs quick enough without transferring some costs to its members.

“That would totally go against our reason for being,” she said.

The renovations have also given residents, like James Rodgers, a breath of fresh air. A heat recovery ventilation system was installed throughout many of the townhomes, including Rodgers’ four-bedroom unit.

“I think the co-op’s very fortunate that we had a really good team of management to get this done, otherwise I don’t think it would have got done,” the senior financial advisor said.

Rodgers’ mother moved into the co-op about 10 years ago when she needed to downsize; the development was in Rodgers’ neighbourhood at the time. Three years ago, Rodgers and his partner decided it was time for them to downsize from their home, too.

“It was really my mom’s experience and the community that made us want to live here,” Rodgers said. “When you live in a house, on a street, everybody tends to be the same. Here, there’s all kinds of people, which means a nice mix of interests and ideas. It’s just a good place to live.”

For more information about the Westboine Park Housing Co-op, visit. westboineparkhousingco-op.com