By Dominic Abassi

Partnership aims to transform Harewood sites to help ‘community under stress’

Dec 17, 2018 | 4:55 PM

NANAIMO — There’s no timeline, budget or firm plans in place, but there is palpable excitement over a new partnership with the potential to transform underutilized sites in the heart of Harewood.

The province, City of Nanaimo and Nanaimo Ladysmith Public Schools announced on Monday a newly signed agreement to explore opportunities to re-develop three pieces of land along Fifth St. and Howard Ave.

The sites include the school district-owned land once home to the old Harewood School, City-owned greenspace adjacent to the school and neighbouring housing project Sanala, which is owned by BC Housing and operated by the Nanaimo Aboriginal Centre.

Priorities for the site include affordable rental housing, educational programming, recreational space and community services.

Nanaimo Aboriginal Centre executive director Chris Beaton said Sanala — formerly King Arthur Court — needs to be torn down and replaced, but that can’t happen until there are new units in the area for the families currently living there to move in to.

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Beaton said for him the top priority is to create more housing for families.

“There just aren’t many family units being built in the city right now. BC Housing and the Ministry is doing an incredible job in funding housing units across the city but most of them are bachelor suites and one-bedrooms. We need three to four bedroom units, especially in Harewood where we have so many families.”

Beaton said the Harewood community “deserves a project like this.”

“This is a community under stress. It’s one of the fastest growing communities in the city at the moment. In some ways it’s being gentrified, we’re seeing a lot of new housing and the affordable units are being taken up and switched to market housing. So if we can build 100 units of affordable housing on this property, that’s phenomenal for this community.”

Dale Lindsay, the City’s director of community development, said conversations have been ongoing for a number of months and feature three groups who could have gone out on their own to undertake three separate projects but saw the potential for something greater by working together.

He said the City envisions greenspace remaining in any future development, as well as enhanced recreation opportunities.

“It’s a critical corridor for many reasons. It connects the Parkway and the university to the downtown. This area is going to play a key part of providing important services to existing and future residents,” Lindsay said.

The concept is in very early stages and there are many unknowns, including potential costs, who would fund the development and specific timelines.

Housing minister Selina Robinson said the partners will spend the next 18-months consulting with the community to find out what’s needed and creating a vision and plan for the roughly five-acre area.

Robinson said there’s amazing potential to create a community hub providing supports and services which will hopefully mean less reliance on government support.

“Imagine there’s one central parking lot where you can drop off your child to a daycare, go do some recreational stuff and it turns out your aunt lives here too because there’s senior housing here too…Maybe there’s commercial here too. It’s taking existing parcels of land and saying ‘what’s the best use we can create.’”

The province said it’s hoped consultation and planning will be finished by summer 2020.

dom@nanaimonewsnow.com

On Twitter: @domabassi