The Sarnia-Lambton Native Friendship Center is getting an upgrade, as is the affordable housing supply for the area’s urban Indigenous population.
The Sarnia-Lambton Native Friendship Center is getting an upgrade, as is the affordable housing supply for the area’s urban Indigenous population.
The plan right now is to break ground this September on a 40-unit affordable housing building on Confederation Street, beside the Good Shepherd’s Lodge, said Cathy Connor, director of housing development with the property owner, Ontario Aboriginal Housing Services.
Sarnia city council recently approved rezoning needed for the $18-million five-storey project, which will also become the new home for the friendship centre, currently located on Lochiel Street, Connor said.
“They have existing housing there,” she said about the centre’s current location, explaining about a half-dozen units were added five or six years ago, “but when they put the housing in, they very quickly realized that their wait lists became more than their units were ever going to support.”
Even 40 units – half one-bedroom, 10 with two bedrooms and 10 with three bedrooms – will only make a dent in the growing demand, Connor said.
“It won’t completely resolve the wait list,” she said.
If all goes according to schedule, the construction of the housing complex should take from 16 to 18 months, she said.
Rents will be 80 per cent of median market rates, she added.
“We’re new to Sarnia and we’re excited to be there,” she said, noting the friendship centre, the City of Sarnia and the County of Lambton have been great partners.
The 940 Confederation St. property was severed from the adjacent Good Shepherd Lodge lands more than a decade ago, and then sold to the County of Lambton for $100,000 in 2019, City of Sarnia officials said.
The county donated the land – previously home to the Lambton Shrine Club and vacant since the club’s facility was demolished in 2017 – to Ontario Aboriginal Housing Services, which provides affordable housing for Indigenous people living off reserve in Ontario, officials said.
Plans for the build, led by Two Row Architect, have been in the works now for several years, Connor said.
The friendship center is expected to occupy the main floor and part of the second and will offer programming to residents, she said.
That programming can be essential for healing for people who need cultural touchstones and aren’t used to an urban environment, Sarnia Coun. Brian White said.
“I think this is a great proposal and it fills a great gap in our community,” he said.
count. Terry Burrell was the lone opposition vote on rezoning, predicting the plan, which provides fewer than one-third the parking spaces normally required, will lead to problems.
“I just see this as a disaster looming,” said the councilor, calling it “a way overdevelopment of the site.”
Project agents with Monteith Brown Planning Consultants said many municipalities are ditching parking requirements in circumstances like this to help put a dent in a widespread affordable housing shortage in the province.
Most residents of this building aren’t expected to own a car while the residence is near bus routes, shopping and fast-food restaurants, officials said.
There’s also overflow parking available at the lodge property, they added. The property will make use of the lodge’s driveway, council heard.
Individual projects are supposed to stand on their own merits, Burrell argued.
Outside of a 54-unit affordable housing project on Maxwell Street – with a 24-unit expansion in the works – there’s little affordable housing in Sarnia right now, Coun. Mike Stark noted.
“We need to have projects like this,” he said. “We need to accommodate them.”
Sarnia should also re-examine its parking requirements for similar mixed-use projects, Mayor Mike Bradley suggested.
“The world is changing on parking in every city,” he said, “so I think we need to take a good look at our bylaw and have that discussion.”