On Friday, the former owners of the unique, modular housing development at 64 and 74 Elgin Street in Orillia handed over the keys to the buildings’ new owners, Ontario Aboriginal Housing Services.
Steve Marshall, owner of the Northern Shield Development Corporation (NSDC), was a development partner for the build with Village Inn owner Chris Small and his wife Tracy. In an interview with OrilliaMatters, Marshall said the decision to sell wasn’t expected; it was due to an offer they couldn’t refuse.
“This was never the plan,” said Marshall. “Myself, Chris and Tracy were planning to build, own and operate it as a rental property, but we received an unsolicited offer from a not-for-profit that was desperately in need of affordable housing. I had done business with them before through Northern Shield.”
The buildings are being sold to Ontario Aboriginal Housing Services (OAHS), and will be managed by Infinity Property Services (IPS). In an interview with OrilliaMatters, Small confirmed the units were sold in the middle of December, and the sale was expected to close on Friday.
“They said they wanted to move quickly and proceed with an offer. When we went through all the details... we decided it was worthwhile to sell it, particularly because of who we were selling it to,” said Marshall.
OAHS and IPS did not return a request for comment for this story, however according to their website, OAHS is a non-profit corporation with a mandate to provide safe and affordable housing to urban and rural First Nation, Inuit and Métis people living off-reserve in Ontario.
Marshall said it has been built into the sale contract that tenants currently living in the buildings will have their leases fulfilled. Marshall says the buildings are about 50 per cent occupied, noting the vacant units will be filled with tenants seeking housing through OAHS.
“The terms of the sale are that no one is being evicted. We did Zoom meetings with each of the tenants as well as the new owners,” said Marshall.
Marshall said there is one tenant who has expressed a concern to management about the transaction, however the rest of the residents have signed new leases with OAHS.
The unique housing development consists of stacked units, which are 12-by-40-foot steel-frame modules. There are 27 units combined. Twenty-three of them are 480 square feet, two are 640 square feet and the other two, which are two-bedroom apartments, are 800 square feet. Two of the units are fully wheelchair accessible.
The Elgin Street development is not social or subsidized housing, and the 480-square-foot units go for $1,195 per month, plus hydro.
“There is a huge interest in this type of housing from two different perspectives. (There’s interest) in the whole affordable, modular housing thing because the cost of building it is bananas. People are looking for more cost-effective and unique ways to construct,” he said.
Marshall says the shipping-container model of building is also a trend right now, which is another reason why they’re so popular. He says the Elgin Street property borders on microhousing.
“People love the concept and the look of the container-style office or house. There’s interest from all sides of the spectrum,” he said.
“The ultimate goal is to try to come up with creative ways to provide safe and secure, thermally efficient housing and the containers allow for all of those things to happen,” said Marshall. “The backlog for affordable housing is enormous.”
Marshall said there are plans in the works at NSDC to bring more innovative types of housing to areas of Simcoe County including another project in Orillia, a cottage-style development near Penetanguishene and a project in Barrie.
- with files from Nathan Taylor
