The Ottawa Journal from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada • Page 3

THE JOURNAL 563-3731 HOME DEUVEUV S6M8U CLASSIFIED 563-3711 RETAIL ADVERTISING 563-3842 NEWS 563-3788 SPORTS 563-378 A i The skeptics have been i occupied by families subsidized proved wrong, although Patrick Chen, one of the organizers of the co-op noted, "it was uphill all the way." The result of more than two years of talk and planning, and hard work, is 56 families living in good standard accommodation for a price that doesn't compare with the private market. Where else in the city can you get a four-bedroom townhousc within walking distance of downtown for less than $210 a month? The project is built on three acres of land at the former in tersection of Cobourg and Hency Streets, leased from the city for 60 years. A three-bedroom will rent for 5180 plus $22.50 to cover water by the Ontario Housing Corpo ration if negotiations now going on with OHC are successful. But no one will know who the families are. They will pay the same rent as everyonefelse.

Chen, with expertise gained in the city planning department, has been making sure enstruction is up to standard. "We wouldn't let them get away with anything," he said. "If we had complaints, we went right to the architect and he saw that problems were looked after." The group's experience will be of benefit to other groups. In fact, they're working out details of another co-operative project at Cobourg and St. Patrick, also on leased land, which will contain 110 units ranging from one to four bedrooms.

i CO-OP BUILDING PROJECT LAUNCHED Ottawa joins the co-operative housing experiment with the Pare Bcausoleil project now under construction in Lower Town East where residents will own everything connected with the project on a com more than $300 a month in principal, interest and taxes, or more than 35 per cent of your income. So you find yourself among middle-income families which, a decade ago, could buy a house, but now are apparently destined to pay rent. But now there is a solution. It's a radically-different meth- But that home continually al-iod of providing accommodation ludes you because even with called co-operative housing, your higher-than-average in- Co-operatives are not new. come, you still can't afford to 'For many years, groups have make payments.

formed building co-operatives to A 530,000 condominium town build individual homes, and the go up is if expenses rise house (a single family home is i groups worked together until The first housing co-operative, out of the question) would cost their homes were completed 'Uphill all the way co-op organizer When the first families move into the Pare Bcausoleil co-operative housing development in Lower Town this summer, they will be doing what a lot of people said could never be done. "There is no way," said the skeptics, "that you are going to get people to co-operate that closely and electricity and operating costs. That will be the cost to the average family with an income of $7,800. It will be as much as $10 lower or $10 higher for incomes below or above the level, thanks to an internal subsidy built into the scale. There will also be five units 200 units, was built in Winnipeg about eight years ago and since that time co-ops have sprung up in more than a dozen centres across the country, including Ottawa.

Ottawa's first co-operative housing development Pare Beausoleil in the urban renewal area of Lower Town East is now under construction and the first part will be completed by the end of May. A senior citizen's co-operative high-rise will soon be constructed in the city. And another group is in the process of forming to develop 37 acres of land in Lucerne. Statistics shoiv trend to renting The technicalities of establishing a housing co-operative are not all that complicated. In Ontario and Quebec, a cooperative must have a minimum of five members to become incorporated.

Money to build is obtained from the Central Mortgage and Housing Coproration under terms of the National Housing Act. This requires that members must put up a minimum of five per cent of the cost of the building. This usually amounts to about $1,100. Sometimes the land is purchased outright and the cost be comes part of the overall capi tal cost. But some groups, such as the Lower Town group, lease land from the city for 50 or 60 years.

Cost of the land for Pare Beausoleil amounts to only $7 per month for each of the 56 units because it is leased. De Cosmos Village in Vancouver, "one of the best housing co-ops in Canada" according to Dr. Alex Laidlaw, a senior advi sor to CMHC, also leases the seven acres on which its 110 units are built. That co-operative has been so successful that residents took The groat Canadian dream of owning a home is becoming just that a dream for the majority of the population. The trend towards renting accommodation rather than owning is evident from the following statistics which show the percentage of owners and renters in various areas in 1961 and 1971.

Own Rent Canada 19(51 (ifi 34 1971 60 40 Ontario 19R1 70 30 1971 63 37 Ottawa-Hull 1961 52, 48, 1971 50 50, Ottawa '1961 not available 1971 48 52 Hull 1961 not available 1971 57 43 munal basis. Algonquin College is exploring the co-op concept in a series of seminars starting Tuesday. (Journal Photo by The Canadian Pressl Co-operatives Another attempt to solve the housing By JOHN FERGUSON You and your spouse are average Canadians who have done just about everything this society says to gut ahead. You both work hard and out of your combined income of say $10,500, you have managed to save S4.0IH) toward a down-payment on a house in which to raise your two children. But a housing co-operative goes a step further: they continue as a co-operative after the project is completed.

Everything is owned co-operatively by the group. There is no separate ownership of individual units. Residents pay rent to the co-operative for the use of the housing but, in effect, they are paying rent to themselves. And that rent can't increase at the arbitrary whim of a landlord. The only way the rent will crisis left-over expense money and voted themselves a rent decrease something which is probably a "first" in Canada.

The incomes of families in De Cosmos range from 513,000. Dr. Laidlav told a seminar on co-operative housing held at Al gonquin College Saturday that residents of the developments say they feel like owners because they have control of it. If someone leaves the co-oper ative, he only gets his original investment although it may be slightly increased to cover in flation. If co-operative members were able to take profits on their original investment when they left, he said, it would "defeat the purpose of a co-operative housing concept" which is to provide housing at a low cost.

New amendments to the National Housing Act, which have received second reading in the Commons, will make housing co-operatives available to an even wider range of people-since they will allow for 100 per cent NHA mortgages. Non-profit co-ops will also be eligible for a grant equal to 10 per cent of the value of the project. Another innovation will allow mortgages on existing housing. This could result in members of an apartment building forming a co-operative and buying their building, thus becoming their own landlords some thing not possible under present legislation. The continuing education division of Algonquin College is sponsoring six sessions on co-operative housing to run six successive Tuesdays beginning tomorrow evening.

The course will cover every thing from the fundamentals of setting up a co-operative to the construction of the buildings. It will provide information not only on housing co-oper atives but on building co-op- cratives. Facilities of the college's technical centre vill be used to demonstrate building techniques. lllllml1" iiiiiiiiiimiiiiiiiiiiiiitiiiiii in iiiiiiiiiimiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii iiiiiiiiiiiiiiimiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiimiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii in iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiini imiiiiiiiiiiiiii iiiiiiiiiiiiini iiummiiiii mimmiiiiiiiiiiiiiminiiii urn Enrolments falling 3 Centre Town RC schools may close By JOHN WYLIE The Ottawa separate school board is giving serious consideration to closing three Centre Town area schools. The matter has been discussed for some time.

Final decisions are expected to be taken in about 0vo weeks time. The main reason for the proposed permanent shutdown is the drop in student population. The three schools being looked at with a view of closing in June are St. Theresa's, an English-language school at Waverley and Cartier Streets; and two Frenc h-language schools Christ the King, located on Catherine Street between Bank and O'Connor Streets and St. a n-Baptiste on Empress Street at the corner of Somerset Street West.

St. Jean-Baptiste is one of the board's oldest schools. Proposals call for transferring St. Theresa students to St. Patrick's school on Nepean Street; children from Christ the King would be sent to de Mazenod school on Main Street and students from St.

Jean-Baptiste would go to St. Dominique's school on Eccles The three schools being considered for alternative accommodation have a substantial number of empty spaces. Because of the declining number of students, several other schools have closed in recent y. years. Some are being used for specialty classes.

In June of 1972, Notre Dame des Anges in Ottawa West was closed as a regular school. It is now being used to teach creative arts courses. St. Ignatius, an elementary school in the Over-brook area was closed at the same time. It is being used for the teaching of home economics and manual training.

Separate school board children from other areas are being bused to the two schools for classes. St. Thomas Aquinas school, located on Kilborn Avenue at Bank Street, also closed last year. It is vacant at present. The board is considering selling the property.

If the three schools in the central area of the city close this June, consideration will likely be given to putting the properties on the market. According to board statistics officer Michel Arvisais the decline in school population is due mainly to a decrease in the birth rate and the fact that many families are moving to the suburbs. Figures show that the separate school population in September, 1971 was 28,600. Of that number 14,500 were attending i- rencn-language schools; 14,000 were going to fc.nglish language scnoois. By September, 1972 the total dropped to 26,400, with 13,300 at- tending French language schools, 13,000 at English-language schools.

This September the total num ber of students is expected to drop to about 23,500. With the decrease in the number of students has come a decline in the complement of teachers. In 1971 the board employed teachers. This year there are 1,448 teachers. In September there will be 177 fiiwer for a total of 1,271.

Board officials arc not speculating what the number of students will be in the 1974-75 school year. However, the downward trend is expected to The Dutch Canadian Alliance of Ontario is again sponsoring a car rally as part of the Canadian Tulip Festival. The rally, now in its sixth year, is modelled after the annual event in Holland where professional drivers wind their way throughout Europe for more than a week. But the Ontario rally is designed primarily for the family. It runs over a prescribed route between Toronto and Ottawa for a day.

Entrants will leave Toronto beginning at 7 a. in. Saturday, May 19 at one-minute intervals. The navigator will be handed route instructions one minute before departure and, as in all rallies, the car will be expected to follow the exact route and have their scorecards validated at checkpoints. Cars are penalized for early or late arrivals at a checkpoint.

To make it interesting, there will also be a number of questions on points of interest along the route, such as the color of a building or the name of a school. That's designed to keep other family members watchful. The Ottawa Journal Monday, April 30, 1973 iniiwiiiiiHniimiiiimiiiiinmiminiiinminiiimmniiimmm imiiuiiiiiiit iiiiiuiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiim iiiiiiiiiini Car rally to be part ofi Tulip Festival The rally winds up at the University of Ottawa where accommodations have been arranged for participants. Prizes will be presented at a university dance in the evening. -bM'J fx 9 By CLIFF COWAN Two waiters were setting ta bles in an Ottawa hotel for a dinner meeting Saturday, when one turned to the other and said, 'that machine has been clicking like that all afternnon.

This reporter, who had just arrived to have a look at the noisy little machine, turned to the slightly-distraught waiter and said, "stick around, it's go ing to be sounding off like that all evenings." The hotel men were laying I tables for the annual dinner of the Morse Telegraph Club. It's a rather unique fraternity of all former Morse operators. Former, because the last commercial Morse telegraph message was sent in Canada last year. That was the hundredth anniversary of the death of its inventor, Samuel Finley Breese Morse, famed U.S. artist and inventor.

The one-time Morse telegraph operators, men who can read understandable messages out of bursts of unintelligible clicks coming from a small machine, gather throughout North America every year, April 28, the anniversary of Sam Morse's death to spin talcs of their days receiving and sending news, stock exchange information and 'telegrams. Each chapter of the Morse club meets in its own city, but they are connected in a tem porary net with their morse keys and "bugs." The "bug" was a later devel opment of the original key, pro viding faster message trans mission. Ottawa chapter members Sat-u a were "chatting" by Morse code with their fellow telegraphers across the United States and Canada, wherever other telegraph veterans were also having their reunion. The key chatter was more light-hearted than the original message sent by Samuel Morse from Baltimore to Washington FOR OLD TIMES' SAKE Ed Kennedy of Vanier is one of many former Morse telegraph operators in 35 North American cities who turned back the clock Saturday to "talk" briefly over a temporary line hook-up. The operators get together each April 28, the birthday of code-originator Samuel Morse who died more than 100 years ago.

Watching Mr. Kennedy clack, out signals on "the bug" are Cecil Uphand (left) and Gord Smith. (Journal Photo by The Canadian Press) Reunion relives days of Morse eode in 1844 At that time, he tapped from Prime Minister Trudeau, out the memorable words: I who had included a message "What Hath God Wrought." written in Morse saying: "Poli- rpi ticians must know how to com- Tne Ottawa Morse Club is the imumcate. first Canadian chapter, and re- He sent it in code in both lan-ceived letters of congratulations jguages. from politicians.

Among them They all look different Note: The Morse code line reads "sound off." But they're all the same Wonderful, warm, wise, unselfish and untiring; tender, thoughtful, generous, affectionate and forgiving. They're our Moms. Let's remember them on Mother's Day, May 13, with greeting cards by Coutts, Gibson and Gordon Fraser. SPARKS STREET on the Mall BILLINGS BRIDGE PLAZA 731-6672 CARLINGWOOD PLAZA 725-2139 LINCOLN FIF.LDS 828-5171.