AHANS | Development Consulting

DEVELOPMENT CONSULTING

For over 30 years we have worked in collaboration with non-profit housing providers, all levels of government, and the private sector from across the province to develop affordable housing.

Developing real estate is a complex process that requires, expertise, time, equity, and the work of a variety of dedicated professionals. Land use requirements, financing procedures, multi-part government programs, and evolving design requirements all add to the complexity.

Our experienced development consultancy team offers the comfort of having someone on your team who understands the complexities of the process and the challenges of the sector. As demographic needs throughout the province shifts, our goal is to work with stakeholders from the non-profit, public, and the private sector to maintain and expand an affordable housing stock for all.

Offerings:

Organizational Growth Assessment

A sustainable growth plan should be based on your organizations capacity, values and mission. Your organizational growth assessment will incorporate these distinct characteristics while evaluating organizational structure, staffing, and financial capacity.

Inter-organizational capacity assessment
Growth path development

Needs Assessment – Market Analysis
Expansion and development should be informed by the current market, target population, and ability to complete the project. AHANS wants to support non-profits in making these difficult decisions by supplying them with the most relevant data.

Demographic analysis
Analysis of current housing supply, including rental rates and occupancy
Analysis of organizational need (location, program requirements, unit suitability)

Create Your Concept
Findings from the Growth Assessment and Needs Assessment, inform a sustainable growth path distinct for your organization. AHANS can help create development concepts for a specific project, or provide a long-range plan for expansion.

Develop a plan representative of your organizational goals to achieve appropriate housing type and size for your intended residents
Appropriate housing type, features and for your intended residents
Identify site limitations
Determine number of units / beds
Determine municipal service requirement and planning process for project completion
Design funding plan
Initial financial business plan

Financial Modeling
Ensuring an organization can afford to build and sustain development is essential to maintain a quality affordable housing stock. We can prepare fair financial budgets for your organization and include all relevant funding opportunities to assist you along the way.

Prepare preliminary project budgets
Design operating budgets that incorporate affordable shelter costs for your target tenant demographic
Explore potential federal, provincial, municipal funding programs and private lender financing that help you achieve your goal.
Coordinating funding applications to government and lenders.

TESTIMONIALS

“After an initial consultation with AHANS we determined that they had the internal capacity to prepare a comprehensive Growth Assessment and Feasibility Study for our Non-Profit Affordable Housing organization. Given my busy schedule and skill-set it would have taken me years to collect, analyze and present the information contained in their report. The contents of the study were also fashioned in a way that it could easily be applied to funding applications from all three levels of government.”

– ED, Non-Profit Housing Provider

"Wanting to explore the possibility of developing new housing that is truly affordable, we turned to AHANS consultants. There is no way in the world that I (we) could ever accomplish what AHANS did; not in a year, much less a month! That's the value of bringing in people who know their business."

"Fortunately, we had the resources to draw upon to hire AHANS because we would have spent much more in our own time and effort, and we would have ended up with incomplete results without them.”

"I wanted to thank you and say how impressed our board of directors is with the work you did. Based on the results and your report, we feel confident to apply for CMHC Seed Funding, the next step in realizing new housing that is truly affordable."