FERGUS – The roof is on two buildings and the foundation is poured for the others as the Habitat for Humanity project in Fergus inches closer to completion.
Habitat for Humanity broke ground on the project on Garafraxa Street West in November of last year. Stuart Currie is the build day construction lead and he took The Grand at 101 on tour of the site to see the progress.
Currie says the project is a 32-unit stacked townhouse development that will include a mix of unit types. The number of bedrooms will range from two to four depending on the unit.
“Each building has two accessible units from the main floor entry,” said Currie. “So you walk straight in and it’s entirely on one floor.”
Given the nature of the build, Habitat is not able to use as many volunteers as they would for a typical single family home project.
“The days of volunteers crawling all over the place, doesn’t work here because this a multi-unit location and not conducive to having volunteers work that way,” explained Currie.
Currie explained they do still use volunteers for things like safety and site clean-up and possibly framing in a basement where needed.
The new model of building Habitat Homes also requires a fresh approach to funding. In order to pay for all the contractors working at the site, Habitat for Humanity began offering community bonds.
“It’s not exactly like a GIC but it’s very much a similar thing to a GIC but offers a higher interest rate,” explained Currie. “Community investors who want to invest anywhere from $2,500 up to $2 million can buy these bonds and get guaranteed rate of 6.5 per cent for the current issue.”
To further offset the costs of the build, Currie explained some of the units will be offered at market rate while others will go to Habitat families who will get a portion of their mortgage interest free to keep their monthly payment below 30 per cent of their income.
There have been a few construction delays so Currie was not able to provide a timeline for when families will be moving in.
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- Framing is completed in the basement of this unit of Garafraxa Village. Photo by Kate Stockmann.
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- Framing is completed in this unit of Garafraxa Village. This unit will be one of six accessible units. Photo by Kate Stockmann.
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- Windows are in at the Habitat for Humanity Build in Fergus. Photo by Kate Stockmann.
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- The foundation of two of the buildings is poured and electrical and plumbing rough-ins included. Photo by Kate Stockmann
