Halifax surplus land pilot results in 1 affordable housing project

A Halifax pilot offering surplus city land for affordable housing has only led to one project, but some councillors say the program remains valuable.

Last Tuesday, Halifax regional council unanimously approved the sale of 48 Pinecrest Dr. in north Dartmouth to the housing non-profit Rooted for $1.

“It’s definitely one that we’re excited about,” Dylan Ward, Rooted’s director of real estate development, said about the 4,600-square-foot lot in an interview Tuesday.

“It’s a small site, but we’re trying to maximize public good on it.”

The lot, which has an estimated market value of about $300,000, sits between two properties Rooted owns now featuring low-rise rental homes.

Ward said the group is considering whether to create the 22-unit building they originally pitched to Halifax by consolidating all three lots, or a smaller four- or six-unit apartment building on the new parcel.

“It’s figuring out what makes sense for Rooted and what makes sense for the community,” Ward said.

Council also approved a buy-back agreement that requires at least some of the project’s units to be affordable rentals for the 25-year span of the contract, and for the property to remain in non-profit hands, or the city can buy the property back.

Construction must also start within 2½ years of the closing date.

Ward said the Halifax process was “strong” for a pilot program, and hopes it can roll into something permanent. He said it was especially helpful to have a stream exclusive to non-profits, since they often compete against private developers in other funding programs who might not commit to long-term affordable units.

Halifax opened applications for affordable housing projects on four parcels of surplus city land last summer, but the Pinecrest site was the only successful one.

Last week, city staff told council they received eight submissions for three of the sites, but Rooted’s project was the only viable one that fit their criteria.

Staff said they discovered through the pilot that non-profit groups need at least 10 units on a lot to make a business case work, as they often rely on market-rent units in a building to help cover the affordable ones.

The three parcels besides Pinecrest had multiple challenges, staff said, including being too small to accommodate sufficient density, needing expensive infrastructure like roads, or zoning issues.

“It would have been nice if we’d had more opportunities, but the reality of our properties is a lot of this is leftover pieces that have challenges in putting to use,” Coun. Sam Austin said in an interview Tuesday.

Austin, who represents the neighbourhood with the Rooted development, said he was happy to see the project move ahead because there is a “real need” for affordable housing in the area.

If Rooted ends up creating a smaller project than it originally pitched, Austin said a few new units are still an improvement over the land’s current status as a vacant lot.

The pilot project was paid for through the city’s $80-million federal Housing Accelerator Fund, which wraps up this October. 

Staff have said they will return to council by September with more details on how much it will cost for dedicated staff to make the program permanent, through the city’s upcoming affordable housing strategy.

Both Austin and Coun. Kathryn Morse said they believe this is an important program to maintain, and council could help some of the surplus property challenges by addressing zoning issues early.

“If you leave everything up to the private housing market, you’re not going to see a lot of affordable housing,” Morse said Tuesday.

“So HRM has to do whatever we can, whatever is within our power, to try to get that affordable housing built.”

This is the second round of surplus land Halifax has sold in recent years for a very low value to a non-profit for affordable housing. The first was for the Affordable Housing Association of Nova Scotia’s 32-unit project on nearby True North Crescent in Dartmouth.

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