Ottawa, British Columbia and the City of Victoria announced more than $50 million in combined funding on January 13, 2026, to build 77 more homes at 8 Chown Place in Victoria. The second phase will add 68 apartments and nine townhomes for independent seniors and families in the Burnside Gorge neighbourhood.
What is being built at Chown Place
The new phase is part of a larger, multi-phase plan for the Chown Place site. It will contain 68 apartments with one, two and three bedrooms, along with nine three-bedroom townhomes. The homes are intended for independent seniors and for families, two groups that often face very different housing searches in the same city.
The project will also add an amenity building and shared green space. Those common areas are meant to serve everyone living at Chown Place, including residents of the earlier phase, rather than only the people who move into the new buildings.
The site is in Burnside Gorge, close to shops, banks, pharmacies and medical services. For seniors living on their own, that proximity matters in daily life. A home that is affordable but far from a pharmacy or a grocery store can still leave a resident dependent on others for basic errands.
The finished homes will be owned and operated by the Gorge View Society. The society’s chair, Jan Kernaghan, noted in the announcement that the organization has worked for more than 70 years to provide dignified, safe and secure housing for people with modest means, and that the partnership allows it to carry on that work through this second phase.
Where the money comes from
The combined total passes $50 million, but no single government is paying the full amount. The federal government is contributing $28.2 million through the Affordable Housing Fund, a program under the National Housing Strategy.
British Columbia is providing a $12.6 million grant through BC Housing under its Community Housing Fund, plus about $900,000 a year in operating funding. Operating money is easy to overlook beside construction figures, yet it is what helps keep rents within reach after a building opens.
The City of Victoria is contributing $770,000 through its affordable housing grant program and roughly $585,000 in reduced municipal fees. The Gorge View Society itself is contributing land valued at $7.5 million, along with about $126,000.
Adding those pieces together explains the headline figure. It also shows why announcements of this kind list so many partners. Each level of government holds a different lever, from construction financing to land to fee relief, and non-profit operators need all of them aligned before a project can proceed.
Who made the announcement
Victoria MP Will Greaves made the announcement on behalf of Gregor Robertson, the federal minister of housing and infrastructure. He was joined by Esquimalt-Colwood MLA Darlene Rotchford, speaking for B.C. housing minister Christine Boyle, along with Victoria mayor Marianne Alto and Kernaghan.
Greaves described the project as being about community as well as housing, saying that when seniors and families live side by side, communities become more caring, resilient and connected. Alto made a similar point about access, saying the expansion means more people will have safe, secure homes close to the services they rely on.
The wider housing program behind it
The Affordable Housing Fund is a $16.1-billion program that supports new affordable housing and repairs to existing community housing, using low-interest loans, forgivable loans and contributions. According to the release, the federal government had committed $13.72 billion through the fund as of September 2025, supporting more than 54,100 new units and repairs to more than 174,600 existing units.
Ottawa also added $1.5 billion in loans to the fund’s new construction stream in September 2025, which it said would support more than 5,000 additional units starting in 2025-26.
For Victoria, the practical result is narrower and more concrete. Seventy-seven households, split between seniors and families, will have a new option in a neighbourhood where they can already reach daily services on foot or by a short trip. Construction timelines and move-in dates for this phase were not detailed in the announcement.
