This former feed mill in New Hamburg will be turned into affordable housing by community group

A community group wants to turn the empty B&W Feed Mill in downtown New Hamburg, Ont., into affordable and attainable housing units.

The non-profit organization Love Your Neighbour Communities (LYNC) say they want to create a community hub at the Peel Street building while also addressing a township-wide need for affordable housing.

"We thought it would be a very unique concept not only to keep this historical property in the community, but to then continue to make it provide for the community for the future," Brois Emanuel, executive director of LYNC, told CBC Kitchener-Waterloo in an interview.

The group had looked at various properties in the downtown core before putting an offer on the mill in the spring of 2021. 

Glen Good, the group's facility development and design team, said as part of the project, the group also wants to expand the development onto the adjacent property where a small regional police detachment building currently sits. 

"Through discussion with the region we were able to come to an agreement where we are actually going to acquire that piece of property and add it to this," Good told CBC KW's The Morning Edition.

"We want to create a welcoming streetfront from Peel Street, so we will add an addition onto to the existing mill."

33 residential units 

In terms of the renovations and construction, Good said the mill, which is more than 100 years old, is still structurally sound. The goal will be to create 33 residential units in the entire project.

Some of the residential units will also be accessible and rent will be geared to income for tenants.

Emanuel said the main floor will be designed to include a communal space with a kitchen for people who live in the building. There will also be space available for local groups or organizations to use.

The building was first built as a lumber mill before it burned down in the early 1900s and then rebuilt into the feed mill. Emanuel and Good both said it was important for the group to preserve the original structure.

Keeping the building pays tribute to the lumber that was used to build people's home and the feed that helped farmers use to feed the community, they said.

"While it's not designated under the Heritage Act, we want to maintain this landmark," Good said. "It is the pinnacle, the landmark at the end of Peel Street."

Need for affordable housing in rural areas

Wilmot Township has expressed the need for more affordable housing options. Emanuel said rural communities often get missed in the conversation of affordable and attainable housing.

"All of our resources have been dedicated to city centres, dedicated to what we can see on the streets," he said. "We don't realize that housing is a huge problem in rural communities."

"There's this need, both for the businesses and the area, to maintain affordable housing because that will help maintain employees, but there are a lot of families who are struggling," he added.

Good said it's been years since affordable housing units have been added in New Hamburg.

Good was part of a recent committee through the Wilmot Family Resource Centre that found there were 600 people in the township who were spending the majority of their monthly income on housing.

He hopes the project starts "a domino effect" to bring more affordable housing to the region's townships.