BU affordable housing project gets $12M in provincial funding

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This article was published 16/01/2016 (3784 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A slow-moving affordable housing complex project for Brandon University students with families is set to proceed after the provincial government announced $12 million in new funding on Friday.

BU president Gervan Fearon said ground for the $13.5-million project is set to be broken this summer near Sioux Valley High School just off Victoria Avenue. The three-storey, 24-unit apartment building will have two- or three-bedroom units and be surrounded by 18 three-bedroom townhouses. The units will be ready for the 2017-18 school year.

The project dates back as far as 2011 when BU, the City of Brandon and landowner Kirk Brugger signed on to develop 2.2 acres of land near the former Fleming School building. Construction was originally pegged to start in September 2015.

Fearon said affordable housing has been a consideration not only for his administration, but for the Wheat City in general.

“It’s something we’ve aspired to because it has such an effect on our students,” he said after the announcement.

“No doubt there will be some new students who prior to, might not have looked at the university or might have had difficulty coming who will then say this is a choice that’s relevant,” he added.

Jillian Vanderheiden agrees. The single mother is in her third year of studying at BU to become a high school math teacher, a degree she started after almost a decade of work as an office manager, when she was in her 30s.

When she made the decision to go to school, she struggled to find housing — she eventually settled on a home in the east end. Her son will be too old for her to take advantage of the complex, but she agrees it’s in demand.

“I see a lot of students who are coming from rural communities, from reservations, with their families to study. It’s not just giving a student a roof over their head for their family, but now their kids are going to grow up knowing Brandon University,”Continued from Page A1

Brandon East NDP MLA Drew Caldwell made the announcement on behalf of Mohinder Saran, Manitoba’s housing and community development minister. It’s one of a flurry of provincial funding announcements made by the government leading up to the blackout period that starts on Tuesday, ahead of the April election.

The $12 million is coming from the department of housing and community development’s budget, according to Caldwell.

“These announcements would typically roll out over the course of a few months, but with the election laws, we’ve got the imperative of making them all in a shorter period of time — primarily because of the election law,” he said.

“This announcement was ready to go, so it would have been made today anyway, frankly.”

Caldwell called the announcement historic, noting three ministers and two BU presidents have worked on making the facility a reality. The last provincial funding for housing at BU was for McMaster Hall, 42 years ago.

Fearon, who once worked as a senior analyst in Ontario’s ministry of finance, said he wasn’t concerned that the project could be in jeopardy if Caldwell’s NDP isn’t re-elected in April.

“We look at this as a budget statement, meaning the dollars are now allocated to us to get the project started. We would say that it’s government making the commitment and consequently, we would start on the project on the basis we have government commitment to get the project going.” Fearon said.

“It makes sense for Brandon University, for Brandon, for the region and it makes sense for the entire province and as a result those factors means it’ll be going ahead under any government.”

Caldwell wasn’t as optimistic, pointing to Progressive Conservative Leader Brian Pallister’s agenda.

“I think Mr. Pallister has made it very clear, he is running on an austerity agenda. He’s made it very clear that he plans to make significant cuts to the provincial budget. I think every project in every organization that has got a project ready to go has good cause to be concerned, quite frankly,” he said.

Brandon West Progressive Conservative MLA Reg Helwer said Caldwell’s accusations are wrong.

Helwer, whose constituency includes Brandon University, said he wasn’t told of the announcement.

“We have said that we’re not going to make promises that cannot be kept. What we’ve said is we’ll look at a value-for-money audit to see where the money is spent and when you look at the announcements that have been made over the last few months … how many millions or billions of dollars of promises have been made by the NDP government. We know they can’t keep those promises without raising your taxes,” Helwer said.

“When we commit to a project at Brandon University, we deliver the project to Brandon University,” Caldwell said.

» tbateman@brandonsun.com

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