Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - The Cortes Housing Society has made some important steps towards making the Rainbow Ridge affordable housing project shovel ready. They received a $99,000 grant for the associated trail network and are close to closing the sale of their Gregg Road property. They have applied for two more grants, the final report on housing insecurity in our area is now available and the new plans for the Rainbow Ridge affordable housing project are about to be unveiled.

“I'll keep you posted as far as our town hall meeting for around the middle of November, when we want to share the new site plans, the dwelling plans, and the landscape plan,” said Executive Director Sandra Wood.

The Cortes Housing Society, Cortes Community Economic Development Association (CCEDA) and Southern Cortes Community Association (SCCA) jointly received a $99,000 grant from the Community Foundations of Canada Healthy Communities Initiative.

“The plan is to connect those three properties more efficiently and beautifully so that people can walk from the Health Centre through the Rainbow Ridge property into the CCEDA property next door and ultimately to and from Mansons Hall. It's an east west corridor connection that doesn't exist right now and is a way to keep people off of Beasley Road if they want to have a more pleasant forest experience. We'll create a more vibrant village core and have more connection between our three adjacent properties,” explained Wood.

Some of the money will be used to renovate the old deck on Manson's Hall, which is starting to show signs of wear and doesn't have ramp access for people with mobility challenges. The SCCA is going to make improvements to their outdoor spaces.

Wood added, “We’re hoping that there'll be enough money, as well, to make improvements on the cemetery road end of the existing trail at the South end of the Rainbow Ridge property. We'd really like to reroute that to higher ground so that it's not so wet in the winter and to better connect with the Siskin Forest Trail head, so that people don't get lost when they're trying to get from Siskin Forest into Rainbow Ridge.”

The contract for this work has not yet been awarded, but Wood said there were a number of qualified contractors on Cortes Island.

They may use gravel in sections that have drainage issues, but it is an expensive resource and most of the trail will be finished with wood chips.

Wood said a lot of this will come from the trees and tree limbs that will be removed.

“The timing of that healthy community's initiative couldn't be better in that finally the rains have arrived on Cortes. That's going to reduce the fire risk, as far as dropping trees for the new trail route. It also means that the bird migration is almost over, as far as them heading south for the winter. Our plan always was to do the trail work through the winter months, so that we would not impact the bird nesting. Our plan is to have that finished by April 1, 2023, before they come back looking to build their new nests,” explained Wood.

Earlier this year, she informed Cortes Currents the Cortes Housing Society had been given a property on the corner of Gregg and Sutil Point Roads. They intend to sell this plot to raise capital for the Rainbow Ridge project. A prospective buyer has come forward and agreed to pay the $200,000 asking price.

“We are hoping that the sale is going to close this week. It's between the lawyers right now, and the paperwork is hopefully being completed. I should be able to tell you who the new owner is next week,” said Wood.