Progress on Port Alberni’s newest low energy housing complex continues on the corner of Eighth Avenue and Maitland Street.
The third of four floors is under development and the project is on track, said Mike Ruttan of the Alberni Low Energy Housing Society, overseers of Maitland Street Village. There will be 46 units in total: 31 of them will have three bedrooms and two bathrooms to accommodate families. Each floor will have shared laundry facilities.
Although the building is not a certified passive house, it is being built to those specifications by contractors Island West Coast Development. “It’s the first apartment in B.C. to be built to Step 4 in the new B.C. Building Code,” said Ruttan.
The building will hopefully include a solar array built into the carports, but that is still in the development stage—no building permits have been issued for this phase yet.
The housing society already had a waiting list for people interested in a unit once the complex is finished. “People are getting in touch with me virtually every week,” Ruttan said. A number of them are people who already live in the neighbourhood.
“By the end of March we will have chosen who the managers are going to be.”
Once the managers are chosen, an application form will be finalized, and everyone who has been in touch will receive a copy of the form to apply for housing. “While the building will be turned over to us in early December—that’s the plan—we don’t anticipate having tenants move into the building until January 2022,” he said.
Move-in days will be phased so there won’t be a mass of people moving in at the same time. “It could be chaotic if we had 46 tenants moving in on the same day.”
The project is still on track to wrap up in early December, Ruttan said.
