Plans are underway for a five-storey block of affordable housing that would also contain new recreational facilities for Nelson and District Community Complex.
The structure would be built on the 800 block of Front Street. The City of Nelson owns the lots at 818-824 Front St., while the Regional District of Central Kootenay owns the NDCC and an adjacent 0.13-acre undeveloped piece of land on the north side of it.
Under the plan, the RDCK and city would combine their properties and the Nelson CARES Society would develop the new building on the newly formed parcel. It would contain up to 56 units of housing and an expansion of recreational space at the NDCC.
Nelson CARES developed and runs five low-income housing buildings in Nelson: Ward Street Place, Hall Street Place, Cedar Grove Estates, Lakeside Place, and Copper Mountain Court.
As a first step, Nelson CARES must successfully apply to BC Housing for funding. A preliminary application is due this month, and a final one on Jan. 31, 2025.
BC Housing is a provincial agency that funds and develops housing for low-income people across the province.
Before it would consider the initial application from Nelson CARES, BC Housing required a letter of support from the RDCK including a statement that it intends in principle to provide its portion of the land for the project. The RDCK board agreed during its Aug. 15 meeting to write the letter.
"We're thrilled," said Nelson CARES board chair Ron Little. "We're really appreciative of the support of the city and RDCK."
He said the planned building would house people with disabilities, low-income adults and families, and people in transition from homelessness.
The details of the expansion of the recreation facilities at the NDCC will be the subject of a formal needs assessment and public consultation in the fall of this year.
Joe Chirico, general manager of community services for the RDCK, appealed to the community to take part in that consultation.
"They need to help us, to be really be engaged, to help us identify what the highest priority (recreational) use for the community is for that piece of property."
Chirico said many of the fine details of the collaboration between the city, the RDCK, BC Housing, and Nelson CARES are still up for discussion, and that such collaborations toward affordable housing are a new phenomenon.
"What makes it exciting is that we're exploring this, and I'm not sure that we would have done that a decade ago," he said.
"Recreational facilities are expensive, housing projects are expensive, and ... in Nelson, we need to make the best use and most effective use of land, and that may be by this kind of combination of different pieces coming together."
Keith Page has been at the centre of this collaboration because he is a Nelson city councillor, an RDCK board member (representing Nelson) and the chair of the Nelson and District Recreation Commission No. 5, which oversees recreation in Nelson and neighbouring electoral areas E and F.
He agrees with Chirico that new kinds of collaboration are needed in order to fund affordable housing.
"Sometimes I think we get too pigeon-holed and wanting to have a simple pathway on a project," Page said, "and we don't have the tolerance to having a back-and-forth to shape it into something bigger."
Unusual partnerships like this one are becoming more common in the Kootenays.
The Rossland Yards building in Rossland has a new city hall on the ground floor and housing in four stories above it. The project was a collaboration between the City of Rossland, the Lower Columbia Housing Society, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, and BC Housing.
On city land in Fernie, with a list of partners including the Ministry of Education, ground will break in 2025 on a building with childcare spaces on the ground floor and housing above. Rental priority will be given to childcare workers employed at the facility.
