City Issues RFP for Residential/Affordable Housing Development

A proposed new residential development on Limerick Road in Southwood Park features up to 107 units of two-bedroom single family rowhouses, one and two-bedroom triplexes, and apartments. Approximately 25 per cent of the units provided for this development will be targeted for affordable housing.

The Province of New Brunswick offered this property to the City at a fixed price that must be recovered. The City will in turn sell this property to a private developer at market value. It is not the intention of the City to profit from this development proposal.

The project, designed by Dr. Avi Friedman, co-founder of the Affordable Homes Program at the McGill School of Architecture in Montreal, was unveiled during a public meeting in October 2009. The meeting was attended by 70 people, mostly neighbours, but also developers, realtors, as well as representatives of non-profit organizations and public institutions.

Residents were given an opportunity to ask questions about how this property could develop in the future. Dr. Friedman, the Montreal-based architect who was commissioned to prepare the series of options for the site’s layout and building designs, spoke about the importance of aesthetic, lasting architectural designs to add identity and pride to a community’s environment, and the adaptability of the housing types to a person’s or a family’s natural stages in life.

The request for proposals for the development was issued on March 24th. It shows the three proposals proposed by Dr. Friedman and asks developers to submit their vision for the site based upon the work that has already been undertaken. City Staff will review the proposals to determine whether they are compatible with the vision for the site.

If a developer is chosen by the City to proceed, they must make the appropriate development applications to the City of Fredericton to change the Municipal Plan and zone applied to this property.During the development application phase, residents will be given the opportunity to comment to both the Planning Advisory Committee and Council about the proposal.

Here is a link to a story on this subject published by the Daily Gleaner on March 30/10: http://dailygleaner.canadaeast.com/cityregion/article/1000940