County to Recycle Housing Material from Demolition

The County has announced several Affordable Housing projects recently but one that got a lot of attention was the demolition of eight units at 265 -327 Elgin Street East to build 20 new ones.  Some people commented on this blog and others participated in a County survey with the message – why can’t these units be salvaged?  Well it turns out they can – at least partially.  The County has now announced that “Key items such as doors, cabinets and plumbing fixtures that are in good condition and able to be reused will be donated to ReStore – Habitat for Humanity’s non-profit home improvement centre. The materials will be sold at a discounted price to generate revenue in support of Habitat for Humanity’s homebuilding program, which provides affordable housing for local families in Northumberland County.”

ReStore at Elgin Street
ReStore at Elgin Street

When gathering public feedback, the County described the project:

The full program involves increasing the number of subsidized and market rental housing units at this location from 18 to 40. In addition to 12 market rental units, there will be 28 subsidized units – an increase of ten over the current availability at this site – adding to the Northumberland County Housing Corporation’s existing stock of 344 units across Northumberland. This project responds to the critical need for additional purpose-built rental housing in Northumberland.

In addition to salvaging materials for ReStore, the retired buildings will also be repurposed as a training site for the Cobourg Fire Department prior to the demolition.

See Links below for more information about the projects and the transitioning of tenants.

County Warden Bob Crate said:

The Elgin Park Redevelopment project has proven to be an excellent example of community collaboration.  In addition to the expansion of our local affordable housing stock to address a critical need in our community, the innovative partnerships formed between the NCHC, Northumberland County, Habitat for Humanity Northumberland and the Cobourg Fire Department will ensure we’re minimizing waste and maximizing community benefit.

There’s no word whether public feedback influenced their decision to recycle – or maybe it’s just the right (and obvious) thing to do.  This project is managed by the Northumberland County Housing Corporation (NCHC) – see list of members below.

Links

County Web site

Cobourg News Blog reports

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Sandpiper
2 years ago

Restore my faith in Fiscal reasonability
Restore & repurpose the whole building and foundations
Build more units else where .
The Depo area is becoming to concentrated
This project will be so far over Budget it won t be funny
Time will tell

Keith Oliver
2 years ago

Glad to see that the County is catching on to the recycling initiative started by Al Rose and Anthoney Dew of Stallwood Homes Inc in their ongoing development of East Village, east of Brook Road North and north of King East. I am an impartial but concerned observer of the development of Cobourg into the future and applaud this responsible recycling of construction waste.

JimT
Reply to  Keith Oliver
2 years ago

But “…doors, cabinets and plumbing fixtures that are in good condition” strikes me as being nothing more than just enough token recycling to mollify those of us who would otherwise cry “unnecessary waste”.

We have yet to see whether this is a sincere attempt to “reuse, recycle and repurpose” as much as possible of these buildings or just cosmetic tokenism.

Gerinator
2 years ago

Big fan of Re-store. Glad they are involved.

cornbread
2 years ago

Hopefully our fire department will not be setting any of these units on fire for their training sessions, polluting the air in Cobourg. Love to see their “written plan” on this site.

Informed
Reply to  cornbread
2 years ago

Fire Departments don’t intentionally do live fire training. Where do come up with such nonsense?

JimT
Reply to  Informed
2 years ago

Burning Down the House: A Homeowner’s Guide to Fire Department Training

https://www.hometowndemolitioncontractors.com/a-homeowners-guide-to-fire-department-training-exercises

Give back to your local fire department
If you have an old house or structure on your property that you plan to demolish, reach out to your local fire department first. According to fire officials, finding locations for burn exercises is happening less and less.

  • These exercises are great for teaching:
  • How to size up a fire
  • Best ways to advance hose lines through an area
  • The speed at which fire spreads
  • Fire behavior and how it reacts to varying circumstances.

Before Your House Can Be Burned Down…there is a lot of prep work that needs to be done before fire officials can actually burn down a house.

The house is generally burned, then put out, then burned again multiple times for demonstration purposes….
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Last edited 2 years ago by JimT
Informed
Reply to  JimT
2 years ago

What relevance does a U.S link have to do with any fire department in the Province of Ontario?

cornbread
Reply to  Informed
2 years ago

Love to see the “Training Program” on a dry run house. Practice putting up the ladder? Breaking in the doors? Breaking windows? Practice connecting and laying out the hose?
Informed – tell us more..

Sandpiper
2 years ago

So was a reason as to why these unit can’t be salvaged by the County ever provided ?
or did we once again take their word as Gospel ?
We have all seen units in far worse condition brought back to life by competent private sector
people .

Why with all the land the County owns could they have not retained the existing units
not displaced the existing residents at a undisclosed cost , plus the demolition costs
coming in around $100 K plus is beyond me . or Better yet sell the existing units to
a private landlord or builder at a reasonable Market price to be renovated and put back on the market , and if the County wanted to Head lease or subsidize those units then great .landlords love that ..
The more the merrier Take the money raised from the sale and put it towards the new project
may be even build a few more .