Planning and Development Update - March 2020

Submitted by Eric Moschopedis on behalf of Planning and Development

It has been a couple of months since Planning and Development has written to the membership, but the membership has been very active in learning about our progress and has made some important decisions in this time.

On December 16th, Lee Provost from Urban Matters attended an open Planning and Development meeting where he presented to the membership a summery of the work completed and made recommendations (slideshow here) as to how Sunnyhill could acheive accessiblity (aging in place), negotiate with City of Calgary regarding our land lease, and rehabilitate our buildings. Urban Matters used five Guiding Principles to inform their recommendations:

• Strong membership support for aging-in-place opportunities,

• Strong commitment to energy efficiency/sustainability upgrades,

• Successful land lease/purchase from the City of Calgary,

• Ability to satisfy funding (CMHC) opportunities, and

• Impact to operating pro-forma, debt-servicing ability and rents.

Urban Matters considered two different approaches for Sunnyhill. One: building envelope upgrades with some visitablity updates for accessibility, and two: building envelope upgrades with new age-in-place units. In their report, Urban Matters says:

Weighing the benefits and challenges of both options, and recognizing the significant risks of proceeding with any development undertaking, our recommendation is that Option 2 presents as most able to satisfy the membership’s desire for age-in-place options while meeting the same energy efficiency/sustainability options as would be achieved with Option 1. It would also better support a lease extension or purchase from the City of Calgary, the latter of which could help secure a permanent future for Sunnyhill in its established, supported location. Option 2 also has the much better chance of meeting the CMHC’s accessibility requirements and thereby contributing to a competitive funding application because it addresses the accessibility requirement. And lastly, Option 2 provides more options to find partnership capital contributions and operating proforma supports.

At the January 27, 2020 General Meeting, Planning and Development asked the membership to:

approve Urban Matters recommendations and that Planning and Development continue working towards an “environmentally and economically sustainable” “deep green retrofit” as the standard for rehabilitation of our housing stock and the development of evidence-based scenarios for “aging in place” at SHC with an eye towards accessibility as defined by CHMC’s Co-investment Fund until proven unviable or until October 2021.

The motion passed.

At the same meeting we brought forward four other motions. The first was to agree to “a set of principles to guide Sunnyhill’s decision-making related to those members presently living in units that would mostly likely be affected by any decision to redevelop.” The motion passed.

We also asked the membership to approve an “evidence-based succession planning process that may include, but is not limited to, a robust membership engagement process, collecting statistical information, membership surveys, proposed changes, updates or additions to policy, and recommendations for the role, quantification, and definition of participation at SHC.” This motion was prompted by the Asset Management Plan that was created by Urban Matters and Planning and Development. The plan identified succession planning as a medium strategic risk to the services SHC provides and how we provide them. We will be bringing a plan forward to the membership in the next while. Stay tuned.

The last two motions were for small expenditures to study the pilings our buildings are standing on and to do an energy audit. These motions also passed.

Lastly, we want to report that we have been busy and in conversation with Urban Matters and CMHC about next steps. Urban Matters is currently working on a Phase 2 proposal and will be presenting it to the committee in the coming weeks. CMHC has had a turn over in staff, but we moved quickly to establish a new relationship with the new regional program officer. We will report back on all of this as soon as there is information.

Thanks for reading all of this!

Asset Management Progress

Submitted by Herta

Our co-op is facing a financial gap between our current revenues and what needs to be done to keep up our buildings through repair and replacement over the foreseeable future. This requires a long term financial plan and commitment that keeps economic housing charges below market prices, while at the same time allowing us to make decisions based on evidence.

For the majority of Sunnyhill’s history planning and upkeep of our buildings and grounds has been carried out through our Buildings and Grounds committees on an annual basis. There is no clear long term plan or policies in place to plan for risk assessment to avoid emergencies, and long term costs of operating and maintenance.

With this in mind, on Oct 25 David Broadhead, Eric Moschopedis, Bob Bott and Phil Cox along with members of the Finance Committee spent 6 hours with Jeff Ku and Christina Hopkins from Urban Systems to develop a draft for an Asset Management Plan for our Co-op. This Asset Management Plan is a first step in understanding the options for improving our long term outlook. Please see the recommended reading post for more information about Asset and Stratregic Risk Planning.

September 2019 - Planning and Development Update

Submitted by Herta and Eric

Onward and Upward

The Planning and Development Committee has had a month of meetings which have resulted in making strides toward the rehabilitation of our buildings and addressing aging in place.

On Sept 16 the Co-op was provided with CMHC’s approval letter for the Preservation Funding program. Funding is for a maximum amount of $25,000.00. The Board signed the agreement and it was submitted October 1st, 2019.

The Planning and Development Committee met with Jeff Ku and Christina Hopkins from Urban Systems on Sept 23 (see minutes here). Asset Management is an important application to plan for the future of our co-op needs. Urban Systems will be teaching our co-op how to plan for future decision making concerning what gets repaired / replaced, and when and long term financial planning to accommodate our future needs. Up to this time there has no clear directive or culture of long term planning at SHC. For the most part Buildings and Grounds Committees have done the bulk of this work. Planning and Development has provided Urban Systems with a number of important documents (annual budget, current financial statements, 60 year analysis, 2018 Building Condition Assessment, etc.). Urban System’s will spend the next few weeks building out a strong working draft of an Asset Management Program and will present it to the Planning and Development Committee on October 25th.

Urban Systems has also provided us with some important information that we encourage each member to read through. Although “Building Community Resilience Through Asset Management: A HANDBOOK & TOOLKIT FOR ALBERTA MUNICIPALITIES” is designed for cities, the principals will apply to SHC’s future planning.

A meeting with Urban Matters, CMHC and Planning and Development Committee members was held to discuss the issue of accessibility in our units. While no clear decision was made Bob Bott reported that there seem to be some interest in CHMC being flexible about the 20% accessibility rule for funding.

A meeting was also held on Sept 26 with MODA to discuss the first draft of the schematic design. The result of the Accessibility study and a draft of the design for our units was presented at the General Meeting on Sept 27 (see presentation here).