Among the several serious concerns born of our condo boom, the most vexing is class. Even though most towers offer lower-priced units, they’re usually tiny, unsuitable for anyone but singletons who will eventually buy more expensive digs.
One of Toronto’s strengths has long been its class mixture. The Annex is an excellent example, where $5-million homes but up against houses split into six apartments that go for under $1,000 a month. But even in Forest Hill and Rosedale, there are apartment buildings that ensure people with a wide range of incomes can live there.
Artscape, among others, saw the danger to this equilibrium the explosion of downtown development posed, and has begun doing something about it.
Pace and 210 Simcoe are two below-market condo complexes, subsidized in the form of perpetual second mortgages that give buyers their down payment. Though similar to
Options for
Homes, about which we’ve written here in the past, the Artscape plan differs in two significant ways. First, the second mortgage plan applies not only to the first buyer, but to all subsequent buyers of the units in question. “We’re interested in permanently retaining affordable space,” says Artscape’s executive vice president Celia Smith.
The other is that these homes are only available to artists, as defined by the
Canadian Artist Code.
The reason for this, Smith says, is to transform communities.
“You’re buying into the concept of community. You’re participating in that community, but you’re also contributing to it,” she says.
This isn’t the first time they’ve done it, though the scheme has changed slightly. Five years ago, they sold 48 units in the Triangle Lofts. What these two new projects — which are mostly built — represent is Artscape’s ambition to expand the project city-wide.
“We’d love to do this in every ward in the city,” she says, recognizing that art is not just a downtown phenomenon.
The deadline for applications is January 30 — that’s this week — for occupancy between late summer and the first part of 2016.
You can apply
here.
Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Celia Smith