The Municipality of Chatham-Kent is buying property in hopes of turning it in to affordable housing.
CK council met on Monday and approved the purchase of the Meadow Park Long-Term Care home for roughly $1.7 million.
The plan is to create 34 one-bedroom apartments which would cost an additional $8.8 million.
Mayor Darrin Canniff told CK News Today this was an opportunity they couldn't let pass by.
"There are other places that want to do affordable housing but they don't have any municipally owned land," he said.
The $1.7 million won't be coming out of the 2025 budget. The purchase won't happen until 2026 at the earliest as Meadow Park needs time to find new living arrangements for all its current residents.
"We'll have an opportunity to plan for it," added Canniff.
There's also hope much of the overall cost will be covered by federal and provincial grants. Councillor Melissa Harrigan, who voted in favour of the purchase, explained during the meeting that the upper levels of government don't want to invest in potential projects but rather ones ready to happen.
Canniff noted if this doesn't happen there's still the possibility they can just resell the land.
"We can put it out to the market and at least get our money out of it, if not more," he said.
This didn't sit well with Councillor Michael Bondy, who explained during the meeting that the municipality shouldn't buy land just to control it. He also stated he wasn't a fan of spending $1.7 million when they just bought former St. Agnes Elementary School for just over $1 million.
"I just think it's inappropriate to be buying this when we haven't even torn down St. Agnes, let alone got the funding to do it," Bondy added.
There are currently no plans on what to do with the former school as previous attempts to get funding to turn it into affordable housing were unsuccessful. Still, Bondy believes the plan will be to try and turn it into affordable housing since there are over 1,250 households currently on a waiting list.
The other councillors who voted against the purchase were Lauren Anderson, Ryan Doyle, Amy Finn, Rhonda Jubenville, and John Wright. Councillor Carmen McGregor and Jamie McGrail were not in attendance.