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A vacant building on city-owned property on Monaghan Road could soon be torn down to make way for the affordable apartment complex the city plans to build within four or five years.

The city bought 681 Monaghan Rd. in late 2020.

On that property stands a building that once housed both the Community Training and Development Centre and the Learning Circle Daycare; the daycare is permanently closed and the training programs no longer operate from there.

The plan is to demolish the building and replace it with an affordable apartment complex, which is expected to take up to five years to plan.

In the meantime councillors want to act soon to demolish the vacant building.

The idea is to save money. Demolition costs are on the rise lately, states a city staff report, so it will be less expensive to raze the building sooner than later.

There could also be funding opportunities arising soon from the Ontario or federal governments for affordable housing projects where construction can begin promptly — without having to first demolish an existing building, for instance.

Demolition is expected to cost $300,000. The city can take it from a $361,000 reserve fund of provincial government money previously granted for projects to make life more affordable for renters.

At a virtual committee meeting on Monday night, councillors gave preliminary approval to consider using the reserve funding for demolition. The plan needs a final vote at a forthcoming council meeting.

There was no debate or discussion, prior to the approval.

Details such as the number of units in the future apartment complex haven’t been finalized yet: the city has met with Lett Architects and other consultants on it, but further study is needed (neighbourhood impact studies, for example, and other technical studies on stormwater and sewer management).

It’s also unclear how much it will cost to rent the apartments that will eventually be built, though the staff report explains that a mix of below-market rents and market-rent units would make the complex financially sustainable and also produce a “mixed-income community” of tenants.

Because it’s expected to take a few years to plan the new building, city council had previously hoped to put up 10 modular homes on the property in the meantime (rather than let the land sit vacant).

But that plan fell through in 2021 after Peterborough was turned down for the federal grant that would have paid for the modular homes.

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