Co-operative Housing Federation of Toronto<\/a> (CHFT), says the main selling point of co-op housing for individuals is having a say in the building you live in.\u00a0<\/p>\n\u201cCo-op housing is really about the members who live in a co-op \u2014 running the co-op, having a say in how the buildings look, giving input into capital projects,\u201d he explains.<\/p>\n
Clement says CHFT is looking to set up a land trust to keep the co-ops they help develop affordable forever. In the case of co-ops, a land trust is a community non-profit or charitable organization that helps preserve, maintain and secure affordable housing for future generations.<\/p>\n
Since establishing land trusts in the 1980s, Clement says numerous co-ops have paid off their mortgage, allowing for future building improvements.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Since Olivia Chow was elected as mayor, Clement says the wait time for rezoning a property has decreased to 70 days on average, which planners and developers find to be absurdly fast.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlanners, developers and everybody I talked to has found it unbelievable that the city was able to move so fast. That\u2019s what Olivia Chow has done. There are lots of programmes for tenants groups or organisations like ours to purchase small apartment buildings,\u201d Clement says, \u201cIt\u2019s really saving rental housing in the city.\u201d<\/p>\n
Of all the co-ops under CHFT\u2019s roster, the Kennedy Green co-op is currently the largest co-op under construction in 25 years.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A recently constructed co-op is the Naismith Co-op, which are 10 units located in Ten York Street in Downtown Toronto.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Another co-op that CHFT is breaking ground on is in Etobicoke and will have 180 units, but they\u2019re still working on securing funding from the government.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Benefits of living in a co-op<\/p>\n
As long as you live in a co-op, Clement says, you can be confident that the rent \u2014 which co-ops call a \u201chousing charge\u201d \u2014 won\u2019t skyrocket. He says long-term, the rent in co-ops do not go up as fast as the market rate, allowing units to stay affordable.<\/p>\n
\u201c[Prices] might seem a little close to market [rate] in the beginning, but it remains affordable in the long run. Many of our co-ops are 30 to 35 years old. People are paying affordable housing charges because we\u2019re not making a profit. It\u2019s not a profit making venture.\u201d<\/p>\n
Unlike a rental apartment, there are no greedy landlords or investors that aim to make as much money from a housing project as possible. But securing a co-op unit is almost impossibly difficult. Many co-op housing buildings pick residents based on a monthly lottery system, giving all interested Torontonians a fair chance at winning affordable housing.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf there is surplus [revenue], it\u2019s going right back into the co-op and [residents] have access to the books. They know how much the costs are being raised,\u201d Clement says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What to know A new co-operative housing building called the Atkinson Co-op has just opened in Alexandra Park.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":507687,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194291],"tags":[202155,202156,49,48,202157,202158,202159,3302],"class_list":["post-507686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-toronto","tag-alexandra-park","tag-atkinson-co-op","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-chft","tag-co-op-housing","tag-tchc","tag-toronto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=507686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507686\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/507687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=507686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=507686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=507686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}