This is where Ottawa Community Housing will build 336 new affordable units

Breaking ground on affordable housing Ottawa Community Housing is building more than 300 affordable housing units. CTV's Peter Szperling reports.

A groundbreaking was held Tuesday afternoon, for what will be new affordable urban housing.

Ottawa Community Housing has announced a new development downtown, which in its first phase will see 336 new affordable homes – and that plan is only the beginning.

Gladstone Village is located within walking distance of public transit, just steps from Little Italy.

"We will see bedrooms from a studio to four bedrooms, apartments being built right in the center of Ottawa, in Centretown, next to Corso Italia," Stéphane Giguère, CEO of Ottawa Community Housing Corporation tells CTV news Ottawa. "And the beauty of it, it's transit oriented, it's mixed use, and in a very vibrant community," he says.

The development is bordered by Somerset Street, the O-Train Trillium Line, and Preston Street.

It comes at a time when the need for housing is high.

"The need is growing all the time. We know that we're in a housing crisis, and we need to work very hard to make it easier for people to build homes in Ottawa and to build more affordable homes. And we've taken a number of steps to do that already. But there's more work to be done," Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe told CTV News Ottawa.

This is just the first phase. According to Ottawa Community Housing, the plan is to build up to 1,100 affordable homes on the site.

Work at the site is underway and, according to OCH, the first phase will likely welcome residents at the end of 2026.

"I was here in nine minutes, by bike," Somerset Ward Coun. Ariel Troster said at the announcement. "That shows what an amazing location this is and how lucky these new residents are going to be. LRT here, right across the middle of Little Italy. Right beside Plant community centre."

The site was former federal buildings. Ottawa Centre Liberal MP Yasir Naqvi explains that, "this was, sort of a storage area for a couple of our museums and other utilities. More just like a warehouse. Back in 2017, federal government sold this as a surplus land to Ottawa Community Housing below fair market value.

"We've got a lot of federal land in the city. A lot of it is no longer is needed. Let's partner with City of Ottawa, with Ottawa Community Housing so we can build more affordable homes on them as quickly as possible," says Naqvi.