Upgrades to Yellowknife's Aspen Apartments are complete, but tenants yet to move in
CBC
A former federally-owned apartment building in downtown Yellowknife is now the city’s newest public housing complex. But the additional units won’t bring down the public housing waitlist.
The opening of Aspen Apartments adds 30 one-bedroom units and six two-bedroom units to social housing, but the future tenants of that building are already living in public housing.
That’s because Housing N.W.T. is phasing out subsidized units offered through non-government landlords like Northview REIT.
Yellowknife has a public housing waitlist of over 300 people.
Kuptana says that while the new Aspen Apartments units won’t shorten the public housing waitlist, they will add more commercial units to the market, "helping ease the pressure on Yellowknife's housing market and ultimately increasing housing availability for all residents."
The units at Aspen are still empty and Housing N.W.T. wouldn't say when tenants would be moving.
On Thursday, an opening ceremony was held at to celebrate the completion of the building's upgrades. This included a tour of some of the new units.
Kuptana says the upgrades aim to ensure the building will continue operating for the next 25 years.
There have been some additions to the building, including the installation of a camera security system in the hallways and biomass heating that aims to make the building more energy efficient.
Even though the building dates to the 1970s, it was in decent shape, according to Dan Korver, director of infrastructure services with Housing N.W.T.
“The building didn’t really have any structural deficiencies, it had already had some insulation applied to the exterior by the federal government, so it was in pretty good shape,” said Korver.
The project’s near-completion is the result of years of collaboration among all levels of government.
It began in 2018 when the building was highlighted as surplus housing by the federal government.
This made it available to be transferred to the territory as part of a federal housing program, something both the city and territory pushed for.
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