Affordable-housing highrise given tentative go-ahead

Calgary city council has given initial approval to the construction of an affordable-housing highrise in the Beltline.

The Mustard Seed, a non-profit group that feeds and houses the poor, is asking the city for a land-use change that would allow it to build a 224-unit apartment building at 10th Avenue and Centre St. S.E. designed to help low-income people.

City council members gave the initial approval to the proposal on Monday, with a second and third reading expected in the afternoon.

Pat Nixon, a spokesman for the Mustard Seed, said affordable housing is urgently needed in Calgary. The subsidized 37-square-metre apartments are meant to help homeless people get off the street. One of the conditions of living in the complex is that it is drug and alcohol free.

Nixon said the people with whom his agency works are asking for housing in an environment where their chances of relapsing are far less.

"It's time to build some housing," he said.

But John Torode, who owns the nearby Hotel Arts, argued against the project, saying the area has enough centres for the needy. There are already three social agencies, including the Mustard Seed,  helping the homeless in the core.

"I realize there are people that need help," he said, "but I think there is a different method for doing that, and the comment I made earlier is how much can the downtown core handle?"

Torode said he is worried businesses will abandon the area.

The biggest battle for the Mustard Seed may still be coming in the next few weeks, when the agency applies for a development permit in hopes of starting construction next spring.

The Mustard Seed has already scaled back the complex from the original proposal that envisioned more than 400 affordable housing units in a taller building.