The downtown site where seniors want to make themselves home, will finally be under local ownership. Today, MLA Don Scott announced the province closed a deal to purchase the land from the federal government.
“When I first heard that we finally acquired the land it was an emotional moment for me because it’s been a very long journey,” said Scott. “It’s been a journey of many partners. We’ve had the prime minister of Canada involved in Willow Square, we’ve had our premier Jim Prentice involved in Willow Square.”
The agreement will have Ottawa’s 75 per cent share of the property transferred to the Alberta Social Housing Corporation, which already owns the rest of the land. Alberta will finish transferring the land to the Wood Buffalo Housing and Development Corporation at no cost. It will also get $3 million in provincial funding towards the project.
Joan Furber of the Golden Years Society has been one of the most vocal advocates for an Aging in Place centre at the site. While she applauded the step forward, she hopes the parties involved do a better job in including seniors in any future developments for the site.
“It’s awesome that the land deal is going through. We would have loved to be invited to this [announcement] though. We heard about it on the internet last night,” she said.
WBHD will soon be launching public consultations on what should be included in the downtown building. President Bryan Lutes says it could incorporate affordable housing for seniors and the public, along with commercial, office and non-profit space.
“There’s certain restrictions and requirements of the land that will have to be given serious consideration in the development of it. So that’s where those concepts would have come from at this point. They’re not written in stone,” said Lutes.
He wants to connect with a broad spectrum of the community. Lutes says WBHD will be going into high schools and the college to speak to students who may want to live in the building. It will also be connecting with seniors and non-profit groups, even though some would prefer a building that’s more exclusive.
“We have a lot of seniors in this town struggling to live in a nice, clean environment and safe environment. Affordable housing can be seniors affordable housing and that’s what we’d like to see out there is seniors affordable housing. We’ve always said that and I don’t think we’ve changed our mind,” said Furber.
The public consultations, concept design and engineering design is expected to take a year. A tentative date for groundbreaking is spring 2016.
