Two new apartment units built in existing County of Lambton buildings are ready to be occupied.
The units were built using unused or underused space.
A one-bedroom apartment was added at 230 Capel Street by redeveloping a lounge space and a bachelor apartment was added at 124 Queen Street by redeveloping an unused storage space.
Housing Services Manager Melisa Johnson said the first tenant will be moving in the week of January 20.
"[The units] have been offered and tenants are lined up for that and the move-in will be happening over the next week or so," she said.
The residents were chosen for the units from the county's current housing wait list.
Johnson said there is a significant wait for housing.
"Across our entire portfolio we have over 950 people on our waitlist with an average wait time of three and half to four years for an offer of housing," she said.
Johnson said the process was different than if new buildings were built.
"All in all there weren't any big surprises. We took the space down to the studs, added the plumbing and electrical where needed and built up from there, which we have experience in doing, we do unit renos already for our highly damaged units, so it was a very similar process to that, " she said.
The budget to complete the units was set at $150,000 for construction for each unit.
Johnson said the final price tag came in at $125,000 for each unit.
"When you compare that to new construction, we're currently looking at building a new 50 unit apartment building on Kathleen and we're looking at about $330,000 per unit, so converting non-residential space in existing buildings is significantly cheaper," she said.
Johnson said these two units were a pilot, to see how it would work to convert unused space in county buildings into apartment units.
"We will be looking at all of our existing housing stock to see if there is any possibility of converting non residential space. Buildings with larger lounges, we may look into splitting the lounge into a smaller lounge and unit, if there are storage spaces we can convert to a unit, we will be looking at that," she said.
County staff are currently looking at the spaces and will bring back recommendations where an architect will be approached to look at the feasibility.
Meanwhile, the County of Lambton is working on several other housing projects.
This includes the 24-unit addition at Maxwell Park Place and a 50-unit build on Kathleen Avenue.
