Submitted by Phil Cox, Planning & Development Committee
Lots going on… Here is a round up:
April 27th - Sunnyhill has #2 meeting with the City of Calgary to discuss our lease - present were:
- Councillor Druh Farrell and her team - stewards of the process
- Corporate Leasing - current holder of our lease,
- Calgary Housing - carrying the affordable housing mandate for the City
- CMHC - interested party invited by Calgary Housing
- SACHA - already active in affordable housing discussions at the municipal and provincial levels, invited by Sunnyhill
Sunnyhill presented our operating model; how we maintain a subsidy-surcharge system without external funding support. We also showed our housing charge rates for 1, 2, and 3 bedrooms since 2010. With these two pieces of information we demonstrated that we meet the City’s criteria for affordable housing. The way we do it, being a housing cooperative, doesn’t fit the norm, thereby making us something of a curiosity. The City’s message to us: “we are on the path toward a sale or a lease option under the City’s affordable housing program, we are just not sure what that price should be.” They requested that we work with CMHC to assemble a costed concept for the deep energy retrofit and the new development with financing scenarios in place. They want to see that we can develop a formula that keeps us more than 10% under market rents for our part of Calgary and able to provide the subsidy-surcharge program as we do today.
April 30th - Sunnyhill says good bye to its old, expensive, mortgage - We submitted our letter of acceptance to “avail ourselves of the Mortgage Loan Pre-payment Initiative”. We are now permitted to pre-pay our existing mortgage on the terms and conditions outlined in the agreement - and we need to by June 30 or face penalties - but to do this we need to refinance. See below.
In process - Sunnyhill is negotiating a “bridging mortgage” with First Calgary Financial. The loan will allow us to pre-pay our existing mortgage and thereby end our current housing agreement with CMHC. And the loan itself will be at an interest rate that is much lower than what we have been paying - the margin of difference in interest rate, or the saving, will be 5% or approximately $4,000/month.
It’s a “bridging” solution because: a) we don’t yet know exactly what we need to borrow to finance our improvements and, b) we can’t get the best rates until our land security is sorted with the City either through another lease or a sale. What is up in the air right now is the amount we need to borrow in the short run and the term of the loan. We have organized a General Meeting ahead of the June 30th deadline so that we can agree on the best scenario based on options that will be prepared by Planning and Development and the Board.
In process - three bits of research -
a) technical specifications and costs for installing solar panels,
b) a study of the feasibility of replacing hot water tanks with water on demand systems, and
c) an exploration of land trusts as an alternative land security arrangement to the lease or sale options.
More on these as the news comes in…