Grant Wanzel Professor Emeritus BArch, MArch (Toronto)
I started teaching 39 years ago in the School of Architecture at Ahmadu Bello University, Nigeria. My two years there was followed by two years of graduate studies at the University of Toronto and a further two years of teaching both landscape architecture and housing studies at the University of Guelph. In 1973, I joined the teaching faculty of the School of Architecture in what was then the Nova Scotia Technical College. Since then, my general interests have included issues of urban form, neighbourhood preservation and intensification, and the requalification of the Region's small towns and territories. The focus of my teaching, research and writing has always been housing, including matters of policy, history, theory, development and design. In particular, I've found inspiration in the built works of Aalto, Asplund, van Eyck, Hertzberger, Erskine, Fehn and Holl. Throughout, I've attempted to balance my responsibilities as an academic and programme administrator with my other commitments as a housing-researcher, -policy analyst and -activist, community organizer, architect-planner, and developer of non-profit housing. Practice and Community Service In parallel with my full-time teaching duties, I practised architecture as a founding member and co-partner in the Design Co-op and later in the Community Habitat & Resource Team. Still later, I founded and for several years directed and participated in the work of the Neighbourhood Housing Association — a non-profit developer of not-for-profit co-operative housing active throughout Metropolitan Halifax in the 1980's. I have continued this work and am at present the president of the Creighton/Gerrish Development Association, a non-profit, community-based developer. In addition, I have served on and chaired the boards of many local, provincial and national organizations, including: Harbour City Homes — the City's non-profit housing society, the Housing For People Coalition, the Canadian Housing Design Council's Residential Community Awards Jury, the National Housing Committee of the Canadian Council on Social Development, and the Canada Mortgage & Housing Corporation's (CMHC) Graduate Studies Scholarship Committee and ACT Programme jury. In 1989, I served as the founding chair of the Affordable Housing Association of Nova Scotia and am still a board member. I have served two three-year terms as a member of the Board of Directors of the Metropolitan Regional Housing Authority. Between 1990 and 1999, I was a member of the Research and Policy Committee of the Canadian Housing and Renewal Association (CHRA), a member of its Board of Directors from 1993 to 1999, and in May of 1996 was elected to a two-year term as President. In May of 1999, I received the national CMHC Award for outstanding contributions to social housing. Current Research — The Creighton/Gerrish Development The Creighton/Gerrish Development is a sobering demonstration of the virtual impossibility of meeting the full extent of housing need in Canada from the grassroots alone. That said, the Creighton/Gerrish Development was conceived as a laboratory for studies in community partnerships and sustainable community social and economic development. It is at the leading edge of practice in affordable housing design and development and is serving as a model for similar initiatives throughout the region and across the country. Since 1995, I have been President of the Creighton/Gerrish Development Association (CGDA), a non-profit, community-based developer currently implementing a $7.5 million mixed residential and institutional development on Gottingen Street in Halifax. When completed it will include: a 19-unit apartment building for low-income and 'hard-to-house' single persons owned and managed by the Metro Non-Profit Housing Association (MNPHA); six units of affordable 'free-hold' housing for sale; an 11-unit apartment building which, once renovated, will be owned and operated by Harbour City Homes, a non-profit housing society; and a 60-unit condominium offering afforable home ownership to local households in need of a 2- or 3-bedroom dwelling. The C/GDA has obtained support from a number of sources, including: a $20,000 grant from CMHC's ACT (Affordability and Choice Today) programme and $75,000 in Project Development Funding from CMHC's Centre for Public Private Partnerships in Housing. The Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM) has donated two properties to the development. The NS Housing Development Corporation (NSHDC) has provided an interest-free loan of $550,000 to enable the purchase of a major parcel of privately owned land. The HRM has granted property tax exemptions to two of the three parcels. Loan guarantees are being provided to particular components of the development by the NSHDC. The first building, the 19-unit apartment building for the MNPHA, received a $1.4 million grant from Human Resources and Development Canada and a $160,000 Capital Reduction Grant from the NSHDC, and as a result is mortgage-free. It has been occupied since January 2002. The six freehold dwellings are under construction and will be fully occupied by October 1, 2004. The renovation project will commence in 2004 and the condominium will be built in stages over the next two or three years and will remain the focus of my research until it is complete. |
