The Tranquille Road property that is set to become home to the Propolis Cooperative Housing Society's first property. (Photo via Google Maps)

By Victor Kaisar

Housing Cooperative

Proposed affordable housing project in Kamloops reaches fundraising milestone

Apr 14, 2025 | 9:49 AM

KAMLOOPS — The Propolis Cooperative Housing Society says it has reached a milestone in its quest to raise money to build a cooperative housing development in Kamloops.

The society says it has successfully raised $1.1-million from 101 different investors to advance its 53-unit affordable, net-zero housing building on at 422-424 Tranquille Road.

“It’s a huge success for us. This is the first community bond campaign that’s been run in Western Canada and we’re really, really thrilled to be at this point,” Propolis Executive Director Lindsay Harris told CFJC Today.

“It also means that we can now turn our attention fully to focusing on the pre-development process for our project.”

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Harris says the campaign included a first-of-its-kind investment from five community foundations – the BC Interior Community Foundation, Shuswap Community Foundation, Central Okanagan Foundation, Community Foundation of the North Okanagan, and Community Foundation of the South Okanagan Similkameen.

“They each contributed $20,000 towards the pooled investment and that is what brought us to the finish line,” Harris said. “But we have to acknowledge every single community investor that stepped up to make this a reality.”

“It speaks to the power of community and the way that people can come together and say ‘we see the housing crisis in our community. We see how its affecting people.’ And we know that if we work together that we can have a really significant difference.”

In a news release, Wenda Noonan, the Executive Director of the Kamloops-based BC Interior Community Foundation, said they’re “excited” to join forces with the other in the Thompson-Okanagan community foundations.

“Collaborating on opportunities like this strengthens our regional impact and builds lasting connections between our communities,” Noonan said. “This is BC Interior Community Foundation’s very first impact investment, and we’re proud that it supports a sustainable, net-zero housing co-op right here in Kamloops.”

Construction may begin this year

Harris told CFJC Today that expects to submit a development permit application to the City of Kamloops by this summer. She also said they hope to be able to begin construction later this year, and occupy the proposed six-storey, mixed-use building by 2027.

Propolis has tapped Empacta Development Consultants and Nexbuild Construction as development managers for the project, and BlueGreen Architecture and Project Green Architecture as lead architects.

“We are deep into the planning process to create the best possible design for the building,” Harris said.

“We are tyring to be really conservative and building in lots of buffer time and we know that there is lots of uncertainty as construction projects move forward but we’re doing our due diligence to make sure that the project can move forward in a timely way.”

Existing businesses may remain

Harris also said Propolis has been in “close conversations” with the tenants in the existing building – like Hatsuki Sushi and the Effie Arts Collective – about the future

“We are really grateful because we know that they are so supportive of seeing the development go forward,” Harris said.

“We are incredibly supportive of their businesses and we’ve been in conversations with them about the possibility of whether it will work for them to come back into the new building.”

She also said Propolis hasn’t made any final decisions about the future of the commercial space in the new building, noting it “has to work” for the existing businesses if they are to return.

“They’re incredible assets for the neighbourhood and we hope that they’re able to keep operating whether thats in our new building or somewhere else,” Harris said.