100 new affordable housing units for Prince George

Aug 1, 2019 | 1:36 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – The City, Northern Health and BC Housing are joining forces to create a huge housing project in the downtown.

BC Housing will oversee construction of the 100 units at the current site of the NR Motors location on First Avenue. The project will be built in two phases.

First, there will be fifty units of supportive housing for those experiencing homelessness. The second phase would provide another fifty units of affordable housing.

What makes the project very unique is that Northern Health will provide primary care, harm reduction and specialized mental health and substance-use services.

“With the City of Prince George, BC Housing and our many health-service partners, we are taking a bold step in addressing some of the challenges that we are facing in the downtown,” says Colleen Nyce. “This project will meet the housing and health-care needs of vulnerable people, where and when they need it.”

“We saw this as an opportunity to create a significant change and a significant difference downtown,” says Mayor Lyn Hall. “And I think will prove to be just that piece we’ve been looking for. It’s not going to cure [the downtown], but it’s a component of it. And I think we need to make that perfectly clear.”

The City will purchase the land from NR Motors and will oversee the rezoning, an amendment to the official community plan, environmental and geotechnical review, and project approval.

“Right now, as you can appreciate, this is early on. There’s negotiations taking place. There’s contractual obligations. We’ll definitely have that price out to the public sometime down the road once we solidify that agreement.”

It expected the beginning of the rezoning will take place this Fall.

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