{"id":21231,"date":"2018-08-01T16:45:42","date_gmt":"2018-08-01T20:45:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=21231"},"modified":"2018-08-08T18:38:53","modified_gmt":"2018-08-08T22:38:53","slug":"community-co-op-marks-red-hot-milestone-35-years-in-the-making","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/community-co-op-marks-red-hot-milestone-35-years-in-the-making\/","title":{"rendered":"Community co-op marks red-hot milestone 35 years in the making"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was a sizzling celebration on Saturday as the Aurora Village Co-Op gathered around a fire.
\nThis wasn\u2019t, however, your average fire \u2013 it was a blaze 35 years in the making.
\nThe atmosphere was jubilant as co-op board officials lit the match on the co-op\u2019s mortgage that turned the page on a new chapter in the community\u2019s history.
\n\u201cWe\u2019re a housing cooperative, part of the social and affordable housing stock, and it is not often that units of affordable housing are able to pay their mortgage off without having another mortgage or another loan, and we thought it was something to celebrate,\u201d says Colleen Ewart, Manager of the Aurora Village Co-Op, on why they wanted to make this milestone as festive as possible.
\n\u201cIt is a massive, huge milestone. To be able to maintain affordable housing for 35 years, we have to start replacing major components in the building because they are old and they have reached their life expectancy. We have been able to do that, hopefully without taking another mortgage. We\u2019re able to continuously replenish and top up our reserve fund to do so and meet those needs. By paying off this mortgage, that is a huge chunk of money that has been freed up, so we can continue to build and develop up our reserves, and improve housing for people.\u201d
\nThere is no shortage of ideas \u2013 and necessities \u2013 floating around on what these replenished and strengthened reserves can be used for.
\nThe co-op recently undertook the development of a brand new playground.
\nThat was one of the happier projects.
\nBut, there is a flipside of the coin.
\nThey\u2019re also dealing with having to prematurely replace watermains on site, an issue that came to light just last month when a sinkhole opened up in the area.
\n\u201cIt is huge for us and that just came to light last month,\u201d said Ms. Ewart. \u201cThe godsend is the mortgage is paid off. The life expectancy the engineer typically gives on water mains is 80 to 100 years. We\u2019re at 35, so it is not something we expected to be replacing at this stage in the game. This is a really big project \u2013 it is not a claim to fame, it is not a project we\u2019re happy we have to do, but it is one that is going to take a lot of focus and resources as well.\u201d
\nThe Aurora Village Co-Op does have real claims to fame, adds Ms. Ewart.
\nChief among them, she says, is the unique housing model that co-ops provide, and that can be seen in its membership.
\n\u201cIn co-ops, people are called members, not tenants,\u201d she explains. \u201cAs a member, when you become a member, you\u2019re agreeing to participate within the governance of the co-op, and perhaps do work through committee. You are volunteering your time and you\u2019re agreeing to do so once you become a member. For example, when you come on site, all the gardens are done by volunteers and there\u2019s a Board of Directors and various community activity committees and various committees that actually do some of the work that needs to be done. That is the difference in terms of the co-op model versus the straight non-profit.
\n\u201cThey vote on their budget increases and every member has a vote, that vote is the privilege part of it; the responsibility is the participation. One of the ways to achieve low end of market housing and keep us affordable is because people put their time in and I don\u2019t have to tender out landscaping and pay for a contractor to come in. The fact everyone has a vote and a say and it is a majority rules democracy.\u201d
\nThat member buy-in translates into social equity. The Aurora Village Co-Op has members who have lived there from Day One. Then there are others who lived there once before, bought a house and moved, but came back because they missed the \u201cabsolutely wonderful\u201d community involvement.
\n\u201cI think there is a lot of perception that a cooperative is 100 per cent subsidized and it is not. We have a percentage of our units, in our case it is 15 per cent, that are rent geared to income and the rest of the units are market value,\u201d says Ms. Ewart. \u201cThat market value is based on basically the increases that we take per year and we try to stabilize inflation if we possibly can. When things have to be done, people will step up and do them. The misconception is perhaps there is a stigma that there is social housing and therefore everyone is subsidized and that is not the case at all.
\n\u201cI hope [the dignitaries on hand for Saturday\u2019s mortgage burning] get to experience cooperative community and get to see it in action. I would like them to leave and say it would be great to have more affordable housing in Aurora and York Region, and in my opinion, particularly for people aging. All my units have stairs except for a very few one bedrooms. I have a high population of aging people and my wait list internally for a one bedroom is about seven to ten years. My desire would be that the Mayor will be able to take a look at that and like what he sees and realise that affordable housing is a very, very important component and an important aspect for people to live a quality life.\u201d
\nThe Aurora Village Co-Op is located just off Henderson Drive, west of Yonge Street.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir It was a sizzling celebration on Saturday as the Aurora Village Co-Op gathered around a fire. This wasn\u2019t, however, your average fire \u2013 it was a blaze 35 years in the making. The atmosphere was jubilant as co-op board officials lit the match on the co-op\u2019s mortgage that turned the page on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":21232,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/2018-08-02-01.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-5wr","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-20 19:53:48","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21231\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}