Kensington Market Community Land Trust (KMCLT) is urging residents interested in owning property in the popular Toronto neighbourhood to stop gentrification.
KMCLT bought a 150-year old building at 54-56 Kensington Avenue. Instead of turning it into a condo, the land trust kept all twelve residential units and gave small businesses more stability with their leases, according to a release.
Statistics Canada Census Profile found average residential rents in Kensington Market increased by 99.8% between 2006 and 2021.
Tenants pay about $1,142 for a bachelor apartment and $1,594 for a two-bedroom apartment at 54-56 Kensington Avenue, which is 80 per cent of current average market rent, Co-Chair Dominique Russell told Now Toronto.
Some tenants who have been living there for forty years didn’t have to pay as much of an increase in rent.
Those rents are in accordance with the City of Toronto’s data.
KMCLT aims to purchase and own another property with residential and commercial space priced between $2 to $4 million by the fall of this year.
The City of Toronto provided them a loan of $476,000 to go towards this new purchase.
They expect $2 million of the funds will come from their new initiative, “Kensington Community Bonds.”
Community members, institutions, and individuals can purchase a bond to support a specific project an organization needs to finance, Tapestry Community Capital Senior Campaign Manager Jennifer Bryan said in a video.
This takes the land away from the commercial real estate market and uses it in a way the community wants to use it, according to Development Manager at Kensington Market Community Land Trust Zack Bradley.
“The key challenges right now are the affordability both for residents and for businesses,” Bradley said in the video.
The community bonds waitlist already has more than 450 people on it as of publication.
There are three community bond options:
People can invest $500 minimum and receive 2.5 per cent annual interest over three years.
People can invest $5,000 minimum and receive 3.5 per cent annual interest over five years.
People can invest $25,000 minimum and receive 4.5 per cent annual interest over seven years.
Generated revenue will be used to pay back interest, according to Bradley.
“The building they purchase is most likely to be tenanted and land trust members are the first to know about a vacancy,” Russell said.
The bonds will be administered by community investment company Tapestry Community Capital.
Interested Torontonians can invest on the KMCLT website.
