ESPANOLA—The Manitoulin-Sudbury District Services Board (DSB) has passed a motion allowing for its CAO to negotiate a transfer and sale of the vacant land located on Water Street in Gore Bay, along with the 10-unit Woods Lane apartment social housing property, to the Ontario Aboriginal Housing Services. The move is one that Gore Bay Mayor Dan Osborne and DSB representatives feel would potentially be beneficial to the town.
“I researched this a little and I think (if the negotiations are positive) it will be a benefit to the town,” stated Gore Bay Mayor Dan Osborne after the DSB meeting last week. “I understand Ontario Aboriginal Housing Services’ priority is to take First Nations persons first, but will accept non-First Nations applications for rentals of housing spaces. Ontario Aboriginal Housing Services already own one (housing unit) in the town, on Dennis Street.”
“After a discussion at an in camera meeting, the board authorized the CAO to negotiate the transfer and sale of vacant lot on Water Street in Gore Bay and the 10-unit social housing property on 66 Meredith Street to the Ontario Aboriginal Housing Services per the terms discussed during the board’s in camera session,” stated DSB CAO Fern Dominelli following last week’s board meeting.
Mr. Dominelli noted that the OAHS “is not exempt from paying property taxes on the building, the same as DSB does. I think it (the potential sale) will be very positive for the Town of Gore Bay.”
At its meeting last week the DSB board passed a resolution, “whereas the Manitoulin-Sudbury District Services Board has discussed the disposition of DSB Social Housing properties in the Town of Gore Bay in camera. Therefore be it resolved that the Manitoulin-Sudbury DSB authorize the CAO to negotiate a transfer and sale of the vacant land located on Water Street in Gore Bay and the 10-unit social housing property located at 66 Meredith Street Gore Bay to the Ontario Aboriginal Housing Services per the terms discussed during the board’s in camera session.”
Mr. Dominelli said the four residents still residing in the Woods Lane Apartment buildings, “won’t be affected by this move. Yes, they will be able to stay where they are.”
Mayor Osborne noted, “there is the potential that if the sale takes place on the vacant property near the Bayside apartment buildings, OAHS could build there and we need seniors housing and/or affordable housing. So this would be positive.” He added OAHS, “has property all over Ontario.”
As was reported by the Recorder this past May, the DSB had agreed to sell Wood’s Lane Apartments due to the costs involved in maintaining the building. The projected cost of maintaining the Woods Lane units was expected to increase significantly to $42.39 a square foot by 2023 from $1.15 in 2017. “It is the most expensive building for us to maintain,” Mr. Dominelli told the Recorder in May.
