CityHousing Hamilton, the city’s affordable housing provider, has officially opened two buildings at the former City Motor Hotel site at the Queenston Traffic Circle in the east end.
The buildings, 55 Queenston Road and 1620 Main Street East, provide 82 units of affordable housing combined.
The city says that both buildings will be “passive house certified to deliver near net-zero energy performance and near net-zero carbon emissions.”
A large collection of solar panels on the roof of both buildings is expected to generate approximately 30 per cent of annual electricity use.
The building at 55 Queenston Road was the first phase of the project and will have 20 deeply affordable rent-geared-to-income units and 20 moderately affordable units at half-market rent.
There are 25 one-bedroom units and 15 three-bedroom units.
The ground floor will soon be home to a 26-space childcare centre operated by YWCA.
Meanwhile, 1620 Main Street East has 42 units, 100 per cent of which are deeply affordable rent geared-to-income.
There are 38 one-bedroom units and four two-bedroom units.
Hamilton Mayor Andrea Horwath commented on the opening of the buildings, saying, “This site was home to the City Motor Hotel, a building that had become a blight in the neighbourhood. The city’s foresight has led us to where we are today. This ribbon cutting is a sign of where Hamilton is headed: housing solutions that meet real community needs. These buildings show what’s possible when we work together to tackle the housing crisis with urgency, creativity and care.”
It should be noted that the site was purchased by CityHousing Hamilton in February 2018 after a motion from then Ward 4 Councillor Sam Merulla directed staff to pursue the move.
Fred Eisenberger was mayor at the time.
The building at 1620 Main Street East was built with funding from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s Rapid Housing Initiative and was completed in only 13 months.
The six-storey structure was built using mass timber, leveraging offsite prefabricated construction in the process.
The building is one of the first multi-residential mass-timber passive house buildings in North America.
The city says, “Mass timber uses sustainably harvested wood in cross laminated timber panels for almost the entirety of the structure, including the stairwells and elevator shafts.”
“Unlike typical concrete and steel construction which cause a significant amount of greenhouse gas emissions in their production, mass timber almost entirely eliminates greenhouse gas emission for the production of the structure of the building.”
Both buildings host a partnership with Communauto’s car share program, which will see two car share vehicles available directly on site.
All households in the building will receive memberships to Hamilton Bike Share and both buildings are next to a future LRT station and close to current HSR bus stops.
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