Habitat for Humanity Proposal for Hinchinbrooke School

Jeff Green | Oct 09, 2024

As you approach Wagarville and Long Lake roads in the hamlet of Parham, there sits a building on prime real estate. The old building on the site slowly crumbles and the boarded-up windows reveal a harsh reality of vandalism and destruction that awaits any structure that sits idle for too long.

The building is the former Hinchinbrooke Public School, hidden behind the bushes out front, which have overgrown the façade. This was once an active, vibrant school, built in 1966. The Limestone District School Board closed it in June of 2013, and it was purchased by Central Frontenac Township in December of 2015. It has sat unoccupied ever since.

The purchase price was $220,000, $110,000 each for the Hinchinbrooke and Sharbot Lake Public School buildings and the land they sit on. While the Sharbot Lake Public School building was condemned within days of the purchase, and was left unheated until it was demolished almost 5 years later, the Hinchinbrooke building was heated and maintained, in a minimal way, as a number of possible uses were considered and eventually rejected for a variety of reasons, chief among them being the cost of renovating an older building to current building code standards. Eventually, the township stopped heating the building, and it has been deteriorating more rapidly ever since.

Residents call the OPP every so often to deter the kids from tossing toilets from rooftops and smashing

windows. Anything of value has long since been removed, or stolen.

One of the plans had been to turn it into a recreational centre. But that project never came to fruition.

In two weeks, however, Central Frontenac Council will be presented with a new opportunity for the site, which will come with a cost.

Nicki Gowdy, one of the Central Frontenac Council members from ward 4 (Hinchinbrooke) is also a member of Frontenac County Council. As part of that role, she has been the Frontenac County representative on the Housing and Homelessness Committee in the City of Kingston. The City of Kingston is the consolidated service manager for social programs for Frontenac County, which includes housing.

“Sitting at that table with representatives from Kingston City Council, and staff from the city and affiliated agencies, I keep bringing up the need for housing in Frontenac County, which is not anyone else's concern around the table. They keep saying to me that I would need to find a developer before any project in Frontenac County will be viable,” she said.

About a year ago, Gowdy began talking to Gary Lees, the Chief Executive Officer for the Kingston chapter of Habitat for Humanity, about the Hinchinbrooke site.

Habitat has built in Hinchinbrooke ward before, a single unit in Tichborne in 2016, which was a very successful build for them, and for the family who helped build, and eventually took ownership of the house.

“Homelessness and housing insecurity is different in rural communities than in places like Kingston,” said Nicki Gowdy, "There are many people ‘sofa surfing’ in our area, and a good number would be suitable candidates for Habitat for Humanity projects. Each resident applicant has to participate in 900 hours of build for each home, and they go through a rigorous application process.”

The project that will be proposed for the 5 acre Hinchinbrooke site is to build 4 unit buildings, similar to a build that Habitat is in the midst of, in a location on Hwy. 15 near Kingston, at the moment. The Hinchinbrooke site would be appropriate for up to ten such buildings in the long run, but the plan would be to start with one.

In order to build more on the site, a communal water and sewer system will need to be built, and this would make the site a pilot project for the Frontenac County owned Frontenac Communal Servicing Corporation, over a projected ten year time frame.

But before a single building or multiple buildings can be constructed, Central Frontenac Council will need to make a decision, one that will cost them money.

Habitat For Humanity does not have the resources for a land purchase for the project, and they also do not have the money available to demolish the existing building.

They will be asking the township to forego any potential opportunity to recoup the $110,000 that was initially spent on the property, as well as at least an equal amount that has been spent since then on maintenance. And, given that it cost $200,000 to demolish and remove the Sharbot Lake School in 2021, it will likely cost at least that much this time as well.

All told the township could be out over $400,000 if they give the property away, including $200,000 that would have to be budgeted in 2025.

The project was brought to the Central Frontenac Housing and Homelessness Committee in recent months, which includes 4 members of council in its makeup, and the committee has forwarded it to Council, but it remains to be seen if Council will be willing to abandon any ideas of recouping money they already have spent and spending more, on the Hinchinbrook school site.

Gowdy said that she, and Philip Smith, the other Central Frontenac Council member from Hinchinbrooke ward, have both been working on the project.

“Along with providing home ownership, this project would help to increase the population of the area while rebuilding the local economy,” said Gowdy. “Habitat for Humanity will favour Central Frontenac residents in their selection process. There is a library on the site, and it is next to Pickelball Court and the ballfield. It would be a great place to raise kids, and could double the population of Parham.”

(Editors note - This article has been corrected. The original had the name of the Executive Director of Habitat for Humanity as Mike Lees, and the construction date of Hinchinbrooke Public School as 1970)