By Cecilia Nasmith
Cobourg council voted at Monday's committee-of-the-whole meeting to sell a surplus lot to Habitat For Humanity Northumberland to build a home to serve a hard-to-serve family.
The town has declared the 9,583-sq.-ft. parcel of land at 600 Daintry Cres. to be surplus, and has discussed an offer from Habitat executive director Meaghan Macdonald to purchase it for $35,000.
The house that will be built in this subdivision will be consistent with Habitat policy in that it will be for a qualifying local family who otherwise might not be able to afford the opportunity to purchase a house of their own. However, it will differ in one key regard.
Many families who have achieved the strength, stability and independence of affordable housing through Habitat have been small enough to be well served by two- and three-bedroom homes (sometimes in multi-unit settings). But there is a waiting list for families that require a larger home of five to six bedrooms.
“The lot at 600 Daintry Crescent would provide the appropriate site to build a home to accommodate the needs of one of these larger families,” said the staff report from manager of legislative services Brent Larmer.
