Designs are in for Nanaimo’s next permanent supportive housing project in the city’s south end.
At a meeting Thursday, March 14, the City of Nanaimo’s design advisory panel reviewed a development application for a 36-unit supportive housing building at 355 Nicol St., a partnership between B.C. Housing and Snuneymuxw First Nation.
The property was earmarked for supportive housing in a 2020 memorandum of understanding between the City of Nanaimo and B.C. Housing.
“[B.C. Housing and SFN] will provide care and housing in this development for the neighbourhood’s most at-risk residents, prioritizing Snuneymuxw members and offering supports for healing and reconnection with land, self, culture and community,” noted the application, prepared by MacDonald and Hagarty Architects Ltd.
Joan Brown, Snuneymuxw First Nation chief administrative officer, told the design panel that the building, with its waterfront views and landscaping, will provide residents with connections to the natural world as they build back trust with people as part of their healing.
“The support services are going to be built on from an ancestral lens and so this built environment and the landscape combined is really going to promote a different way of being with each other and more importantly, with the land herself, because we feel that’s where the first, most important step is for that deeper healing,” she said.
The six-storey building’s main entrance will be along a lane parallel to Nicol, and across the lane, a “sacred garden” and parking will be constructed at 364 Haliburton St., a property that is also owned by B.C. Housing. The garden will be planted with native species of cultural importance and will include gathering spaces and a meditation circle, and will be closed at night.
“I really think this is a next-level landscape design. The amount of attention to detail that’s gone into this is pretty clear,” said Coun. Hilary Eastmure, city council’s representative on the design advisory panel. “It’s a really exciting project to see happening.”
The design panel unanimously recommended the only proposed variance, a minor front yard setback, and made several other recommendations, most notably accessibility provisions for the building’s Nicol Street entrance.
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