The Maple Ridge News is looking at the housing affordability crisis in the series Crisis at Home, and in this edition we look at housing co-operatives, and their strength as relatively low cost and secure housing.
Glen Labarre bought a home in Mexico, and was planning to live his senior years there with his wife. When the demand for medical care brought him back home to Canada, they found the housing market had exploded. They couldn’t afford to buy back in.
They found a solution in the Ford Road Housing Co-operative in Pitt Meadows.
Housing co-ops were popular in the 1960s through the 1980s, and there are four co-ops in Pitt Meadows and another three in Maple Ridge. Funding from senior governments for housing projects dried up in the 1990s.
Those who live in this housing form say it could be part of the solution for the housing crisis that grips B.C.
The Ford Road Co-op has housing charges significantly lower than the market rents in Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows. There are one-bedroom apartments as low as $924 per month, two-bedrooms for $1,037 per month, three-bedroom townhouses for $1,479 per month and four-bedrooms for $1,738 per month. There 50 townhomes and 110 apartments in two buildings, in one of the larger co-ops in Ridge Meadows.
A look at homes advertised for rent here shows a two-bedroom apartment at the Brickwater building downtown going for $2,500 per month, and others in the same price range. One-bedroom units can be found for $1,500 per month. There is a three-bedroom townhome up for rent at $3,475, and a four-bedroom house for $3,995.
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“It’s a good deal. I don’t want to give it up,” said Labarre.
He also likes the sense of community that sees his wife joining a gardening committee, and he helped create vegetable gardens. They used to have group yard sales.
“I like that part of community – when everyone is doing the same thing,” he said.
Laurie Smillie and her husband moved in two years ago, and said she loves it.
“It’s like a community within a community. Everyone works together,” said Smillie. “There’s problems, but we solve them together.”
She pitches in by vacuuming the hallway on the floor of her apartment building, and cleaning up the laundry room.
They must pay member shares before moving in. It’s $2,000 for an apartment, and $3,000 for a townhome. That gives members a share in the co-op, which owns the building. Then, members have the security that they can live in their home for as long as they wish, as long as they follow the rules, and pay their monthly housing charges. Their member shares are to be returned if they move out.
“We won’t be going anywhere,” said Smillie.
That’s one of the issues with housing co-ops – people don’t leave. Generally, they move between units – as co-op couples become families and move into larger homes.
“Everybody likes it – nobody wants to leave,” said Awadh Singh, who manages the Devonshire Court Co-op on Dewdney Trunk Road in Maple Ridge. He said there is a long waiting list for people to get in.
“This is the best system of community living – I don’t see any reason there wouldn’t be more co-ops,” added Singh.
Thom Armstrong is the CEO of the Co-operative Housing Federation of BC, and said co-op housing is undergoing a renaissance in B.C. He represents 260 non-profit housing co-ops, with more than 14,000 homes.
And he hopes to see more.
He said the level of satisfaction is obvious in the long lineups of people wanting to buy into a co-op.
“The primary evidence is that you can’t get in one,” he said. “They stay because of the wonderful communities that co-ops build.”
He said co-ops can be complex to finance, build and manage. To be affordable, there must be land available at very low cost, capital grants from government, operating subsidies, and other significant costs cut.
They are also affordable because they are not-for-profit.
“They don’t deliver a return to a shareholder, or revenue to a landlord.”
They become more affordable over time, he noted, as today’s co-ops are 30 years old, or older, and have had decades of paying down mortgages.
Affordability, and security of tenure are the strengths. The weakness is that they cannot be viewed as an investment in the way private property can.
“They are not your retirement nest egg,” said Armstrong.
He said the main barrier to co-ops is finding land. If land is available, the Community Land Trust, of which he is also CEO, can help develop co-ops.
“If you’ve got land, we’ve got development capacity.”
He said the primary source of properties for co-ops is through municipal land.
Armstrong wants to see more of these built.
“They say the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago, but the second best time is today. Get planting,” he said.
“Our goal is to keep building co-op housing until everyone who wants one has one.”
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Have a story tip? Email: ncorbett@mapleridgenews.com
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