The City of Waterloo is looking for partners to transform a parcel of downtown lands into an affordable-housing project.

It has opened a process to solicit expressions of interest from non-profit organizations and consortiums led by non-profit organizations to build the project at 2025 University Avenue East.

The city says the development proposals should align with the city’s objectives for the property. Specifically, that it create a compact, mixed-use, complete community; deliver housing that is affordable and attainable over the long term; make efficient use of the lands while designing for liveability, human scale and a vibrant public realm; integrate sustainability, natural heritage conservation, climate change mitigation and adaptation into building and site design; and support diversity, inclusion, social cohesion and community well-being.

“Council and staff are excited to take the next step in our historic journey to use city-owned land for more affordable housing options,” said Waterloo Mayor Dorothy McCabe, “The requirements for this project reflect our strategic priorities of creating complete communities that are connected, climate change resilient, inclusive and accessible to transit.”

Through this process, the city hopes to identify a non-profit group to work with on the important project, making the lands available to them either at no or low cost, or through a long-term land lease. The city is also considering additional financial incentives.

This project advances the City of Waterloo Affordable Housing Strategy to increase the supply and mix of affordable housing, the city’s commitment to its provincial housing pledge of building 16,000 units by 2031 and the Housing Accelerator Fund action plan.

The site at University Avenue was originally part of the purchase to support the construction of RIM Park, but has been vacant for years.

A study to estimate the potential for the property included a high-level concept plan focused on missing middle, four to six-storey buildings, such as stacked townhouses and mid-rise apartments. These buildings are compact and could maximize the number of housing units on the site, while still providing some ground-oriented built forms and options for larger households. The scale of development would permit wood frame construction which would also support lower construction costs and greater affordability.

A concept plan revealed the property could support an estimated 480 stacked townhouses and 250 apartment units for a total of 730 units or 73 units per hectare. The exact number of units and the proportion of units that are affordable/attainable, market/non-market and rented/owned will be determined in the future. The first step is to successfully convert the lands to support residential use, followed by a public procurement process to select an appropriate development design and building partner, before beginning the detailed planning, design work and costing.