A new building in Courtenay will provide homes for 52 seniors and people with disabilities.
Cypress Gardens on Balmoral Ave is now open, the province announced today. Ravi Kahlon, Minister of Housing, says the building will be a safe and affordable place for Comox Valley seniors to live and age in place.
Cypress Gardens is owned and operated by the Comox Valley Affordable Housing Society (CVAHS). It’s a three-storey wood-frame building and contains 52 one-bedroom units for seniors 60 and older, and people of all ages living with disabilities. It replaces an old townhouse complex and triples the number of affordable housing units on site.
Society executive director Ann Janssen says the project shows with proper planning, affordable housing can be accessible to everyone.
Cypress Gardens was designed to meet the needs of people with disabilities that might affect mobility, vision and hearing. Twelve of the units are wheelchair accessible. The rest are adaptable, meaning they have been designed to easily accommodate future renovations to improve accessibility if the tenant’s needs change. The building has earned a certified gold rating under the Rick Hansen Foundation Accessibility Certification (RHFAC) program.
BC Housing provided approximately $5.2 million to the project through the Building BC: Community Housing Fund and will provide approximately $161,000 in annual operating funding.
CVAHS provided $1.84 million in equity as well as the land, which was valued at $890,000 at the time of purchase.
