MANITOWANING—Seniors in Assiginack are edging ever closer to having an apartment complex of their own, thanks to the hard work and determination of a core group of people and a contractor interested in seeing the units through to fruition.
The group, made up of Jean McLellan, Jane Tilston, Marg Peltier and Dave Ham, have been working on the initiative of having Assiginack seniors afforded the option of residing in their home municipality when the care of a home becomes too much. This project has been ongoing since May, Ms. McLellan told The Expositor.
Ms. McLellan and Ms. Tilston were fresh from a trip to Mindemoya where they toured the Sparrow’s Nest facility (near the Mindemoya Hospital) and the Jeremy Gordon developments in the Anglin Subdivision. They found elements of both to be very appealing and would be passing these suggestions on to the developer, who cannot be named at this early stage, she explained.
“The developer is going to do it all; all we can do is suggest,” Ms. McLennan added.
The group is now helping to find a location, one with five acres, preferably.
“We got permission from the council, 100 percent support,” she said.
The group is hoping to have 12 units, all of which would be two-bedroom and on one level.
The group realizes that it is hard to designate a complex ‘seniors only’ and have it viable, so a 20 percent cap of residents under 50 is being suggested, Ms. McLennan explained.
“We haven’t discussed the price range for rent yet, but it wouldn’t be beyond the price range of rents in Manitowaning,” she concluded.
It is the hope of the contractor to break ground in the spring of 2016.
