Feb. 11, 2025
When Phillip Monson picks up one of his guitars these days, he strums a different tune.
In fact, through years of housing precarity, Monson kept his treasured instruments in a storage locker.
From basement suite to boarding house, he contended with bad landlords and tough conditions.
“It’s all over now because I’m here,” the 66-year-old says before easing into a tune on his acoustic guitar.
“Here” is 106 Bay St. N., CityHousing Hamilton’s newly constructed 55-unit building at Cannon Street.
The $28-million project includes 35 one-bedroom and 20 three-bedroom units in a six-storey, energy-efficient design.
Monson, who pays $1,000 a month, lives in one of 10 moderately affordable units, which go for half of what the market demands.
The other 45 are rent-geared-to-income (RGI), with an average rate of about $400 and as low as $85.
Where CityHousing’s latest address stands was once a municipal parking lot, Mayor Andrea Horwath said during a ribbon-cutting ceremony Monday.
“And now it’s a place where 55 households are able to come every day and call it their home.”
In addition to environmental benefits, the building’s “near-net-zero” carbon-emission design muffles noise between apartments and the din of downtown, said Coun. Nrinder Nann, who’s CityHousing board president.
“This building represents the best of what cities can do when we prioritize building affordable housing in a sustainable way.”
To pay for the $28-million project, CityHousing secured $12.4 million from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation and $10.7 million in city funding. The municipal housing provider, which has just over 7,100 units, covered the rest.
The city is “really doing everything” it can to build more affordable housing, Horwath said.
“We, of course, need more funding from other orders of government.”
The Bay Street building’s 45 RGI units were transferred from Jamesville, a vacant 91-unit CityHousing townhouse complex on James Street North that awaits redevelopment into a denser mixed-income community.
That plan, which stretches back more than a decade, remains delayed by litigation stemming from CN Rail’s appeal to the Ontario Land Tribunal (OLT) in 2022 over potential “conflicts” with its bayfront shunting yard.
The project calls for the preservation of 46 CityHousing RGI units, plus the addition of 114 supportive and affordable units through non-profit Indwell and 315 market ownership units via private developers.
OLT hearings that had been scheduled to start this month have been pushed to May in order to allow for more settlement talks.
“It’s really quite disappointing for all of us,” Horwath said about the long-stalled plan for Jamesville, a fenced-off dilapidated site near the West Harbour GO Station.
“Conversation continues to happen, which is a good thing, and I’m hopeful that we’ll see activity on that site before too long.”
Late last year, officials cut the ribbon at 257 King William St. a 24-unit CityHousing project with support services provided by Indwell.
Another 82 CityHousing units, between two buildings at the Queenston traffic circle in east Hamilton, are expected to open this summer, Nann noted.