A six-storey, 80-unit affordable rental and social housing apartment building is being proposed for 346 Campbell Avenue on the North Shore of Kamloops.

The City bought that property along with the Northbridge Hotel for $7.1 million in 2021 with an agreement that BC Housing would then buy the Campbell Avenue property for $3.8 million and turn it into affordable rental housing for seniors and families.

“When this first came up, I was so nervous. The city is buying a hotel, and not just a hotel but a hotel will deep history. What was there was the potential what could be and I didn’t think I’d see it this fast,” Councillor Bill Sarai said, calling the project a “win” for the North Shore.

“We stepped up for the North Shore and adopted their plan and put our money where our mouth is by supporting them on this. Seeing this project come to this stage is very exciting for me.”

Councillor Mike O’Reilly also spoke in favour of the project, saying it has been a long time coming.

“This is one of the big pieces of the puzzle to revitalize the North Shore and not only that, it happens to knock off 80 units in our housing continuum which frankly, we are short in every area of our housing continuum,” he said.

“This is a huge day for the North Shore and for everybody in that area over the last two decades to get to this point.”

While the City of Kamloops is currently listed as the owner of the land, staff say both the land and building will be eventually be owned and subsidized by Provincial Rental Housing Corporation and managed by Ask Wellness.

“For interest sake on the timelines, May 1 is the deadline for removing subjects,” the City’s Development, Engineering, and Sustainability Director Marvin Kwiatkowski said Tuesday. “That is why this is here [at council]. Some of the subjects are housing agreements, another one is an approved development permit, so that is why it is still in our name.”

“The final closing date is June 1, so these are just some of the final steps to move that [project] along in order to finalize the sale of the property.”

City council voted in favour of issuing a development permit, once a housing agreement with B.C. Housing has been adopted.

“To ensure the units are preserved as subsidized affordable rental and social housing units, a housing agreement bylaw is required prior to issuance of the development permit,” city staff said in a report to council.

BC Housing is planning 15 one-bedroom units, 45 two-bedroom, 15 three-bedroom, and five accessible one-bedroom units in the six-storey development.

“To be clear this is affordable market rental housing where the rent won’t exceed average market rates for 24 units,” the City’s Social, Housing, and Community Development Manager, Carmin Mazzotta said. “The other 56 units are subsidized affordable rental housing for low income working people in the community where rent is geared to income, meaning rent is tied to no more that 30 per cent of income levels.”

“This is not a supportive housing development, this is an affordable rental housing development.”

Originally set to be built in Brocklehurst before those plans fell through, Mazzotta says this project was moved to the Campbell Avenue property once the city bought the Northbridge Hotel.

“It is very similar in a lot of ways to the development that we’ve seen at Spirit Square, where you have a seniors affordable building and a market building,” he said.

“This would be the affordable building, and then to be determined in terms of the future replacement for the market building on the Tranquille frontage where the Duchess is currently located.”

BC Housing is proposing to add 53 parking spots on the one acre property, more than the 37 required under city bylaws. It will also include 40 long-term storage bicycle parking spaces and four visitor spaces near the main entrance.

The Campbell Avenue property currently houses a former liquor store which will be demolished to make way for this development, though it is not clear when construction will start.

“Just like to thank our staff for moving this as fast as they have because I’ve familiar with the history from the outside looking in and now that I’m on the inside looking at it a little bit more, I’m very impressed with what they’ve done and in the time frame they’ve done it,” Councillor Stephen Karpuk added.

“Through the committee’s work we’re learning that BC Housing is just about heads in beds, but this is far more than that. This is really aimed at a really good segment of our community that needs it.”

The future of the Northbridge Hotel isn’t clear as well, though the City said in January that it will demolish the building sometime this year.

“We have specific parameters that we want to see done there. We want to see affordable market market housing,” Councilor Dale Bass told NL News at the time.

“We don’t want to see four figure rental condos in there. I have to believe that there are developers out there who are going to buy into the push that you are going to see from us in this council term to quit building million dollar houses that people can’t afford.”