Submitted by Eric Moschopedis on behalf of Planning and Development
Planning and Development has been very busy over the past few months laying the foundation for the next steps for the co-op’s work with Urban Matters.
Here is a recap:
At our April budget meeting the Membership passed a motion that Sunnyhill would formally enter into negotiations with the City of Calgary. We were happy to see this motion pass near unanimously. Within days, the Board signed the letter we prepared for them and we have since heard back from Janet Maccubbin at the City and they are preparing to do an appriasial of the site.
We have lined up Acacia Engineering to undertake an Energy Audit. A large part of the funding requirements for grants is the increase of our energy efficency. This study will establish a baseline of efficency for our current buildings. Some members will be contacted by Andrea to particpate in the study (if you’d like to volunteer please contact the office).
We have also lined up an investigation of our wood pilings. This necessary task was identified during the Asset Management Planning work done in the fall of 2019. IRC Building Science Group who has conducted several of our Building Condition Assesments will be doing this work for us in early June. Again, Andrea will be in touch with some units to participate in the study.
The committee worked hard with Lee Provost from Urban Matters to prepare a Phase 2 and Phase 3 Housing Preservation and Co-investment Feasibility Proposal. There are twelve important tasks that will be undertaken as part of the work. Some of these tasks run concurrently and others need to be completed to move onto the next.
Here is a summary of task to be completed by the fall:
Task 2: Sunnyhill will also be conducting its own land appriasial. This will be important for negotiating a price for the land.
Task 3: Will see Urban Matters continue to negotiate with the City of Calgary and their Affordable Housing and Real Estate Development team to prepare a Memorandum of Understanding. This will be a letter that documents the intention of the sale of the land to Sunnyhill (or some other scenario). This letter will need to go to Council to be passed and signed off on. It is only when we have funding in place to undertake the work will a formal purchase of sale agreement be drawn up.
Task 4: is designed to continue the external engagement work necessary to bring City Councilors and other stakeholders on board for both the land purchase and development. It is important that we have early buy in from important and major stakeholders in the community as they will be able to provide support should we receive opposition from outside the co-op.
Task 5: sees us prepare a financial analysis—a base pro forma and capital budget documents. This study will form the basis for future operational and capital investment decision making and satisfy Canada’s feasibility funding application requirements.
Task 6: a relatively easy process that will gather information and prepare a Need & Demand Summary. This document is necessary for any application to the Co-investment program and will outline and identify neighbourhood population characteristics, housing stock, valuation and vacancy rates and conduct a gap analysis to identify populations in need of support amongst the local community. Luckily, the City of Calgary did a similar excercise recently and we will be able to borrow heavily from this data.
Task 7: will feel like one of the most important processes we have undertaken in several years. It is here that we will start to envision what our aging-in-place, accessible housing might look like. Urban Matters has again hired MODA—who did the schematic design work for the townhouses—to work with Sunnyhill on this process. At the end of this process we will have design schematic similar to the one produced in the fall.
Task 8: has us hire a Cost Consultant to refine the proposed cost of undertaking this work. This updated and further refined budget will provide further evidence for Sunnyhill to use in our decision making processes.
Task 9: is a straightforward site assesment. This will include a review of our existing Phase 1 Environmental Assesment and geotechnical evaluation to understand the soil bearing capacity and flow of water through the site. (as side note: the flood zone mapping the City of Calgary uses was updated and our one bedroom mound is no nonger shown as above the flood plain. We suspect that the geotechnical review will confirm the previous granular maps the City published).
With Task 10 we will circle back to our operating pro forma and the capital budget and refine it with all existing information. This will allow us to undertake financial “stress tests” where we can learn about the carrying capicty of the co-op and test iterations of unit mix and capital investment.
Lastly, Planning and Development has been working on a Canadian Federation of Municipalities Green Municiplal Fund for Sustainable Affordable Housing. This grant will be submitted some time this week.
Should you have any questions, please do not hestitate to be in touch. We are always happy to discuss the work we are doing.