Anhart Launches Renfrew County Housing Initiative to Demonstrate a New Model for Affordable Housing in Rural Ontario
King’s Landing in Barry’s Bay and a new Pembroke neighbourhood modular facility will combine rental housing, affordable home ownership, local manufacturing and impact investment.
RENFREW COUNTY, Ontario — August 4, 2026 — Anhart Affordable Housing Corporation is establishing a new housing initiative in Renfrew County that it hopes can demonstrate a practical model for developing affordable and attainable housing in rural Ontario.
The initiative brings together two complementary projects: King’s Landing in Barry’s Bay, where Anhart intends to advance both rental housing and affordable home ownership, and the acquisition of industrial land in Pembroke for a new neighbourhood-scale modular housing manufacturing operation.
Anhart is working with the Ottawa Valley Affordable Housing Association and other local, development, construction and financing partners to create a regional housing model that connects land, development, manufacturing and private impact capital.
The objective is larger than either individual project.
“Much of the housing system in Canada has been built around large urban development,” said Keith Wiebe Gordon, CEO of Anhart Affordable Housing Corporation. “But rural Ontario has a different problem. Communities may need 10 homes, 30 homes or 80 homes rather than 500. We need a development and financing model that can make those smaller projects work.”
King’s Landing: Rental Housing and Affordable Home Ownership Together
King’s Landing is an approved residential development on approximately 18 acres in Barry’s Bay, with approval for 42 rental homes and 34 affordable homeownership opportunities.
The rental component is intended to increase the supply of professionally managed housing, including affordable rental homes.
The affordable home ownership component will explore ways to lower the cost of entry into home ownership for working households and families who may have adequate incomes to carry a mortgage but are increasingly unable to meet the cost of purchasing a newly constructed home.
“Housing affordability should not mean rental housing alone,” Gordon said. “A healthy community needs places people can afford to rent and realistic opportunities for families to own a home. King’s Landing gives us an opportunity to demonstrate both.”
Anhart is also working with ATCO Structures on a proposed permanent modular construction strategy for King’s Landing, subject to final design, financing, commercial agreements and project requirements.
The project is intended to test how land, modular construction, impact investment and long-term housing financing can be combined to reduce the barriers to producing new housing in smaller Ontario communities.
Pembroke Neighbourhood Modular: Building the Capacity to Produce Housing Locally
The second part of the Renfrew County initiative is Anhart’s acquisition of industrial land in Pembroke for Neighbourhood Modular, a proposed small-project housing manufacturing operation.
Anhart gratefully acknowledges the efforts of Brian Abdallah , Deputy Mayor of Pembroke, whose encouragement, local knowledge and support helped advance the discussions leading to the proposed Pembroke initiative.
The operation is being designed around a challenge that is common throughout rural Ontario: many important housing opportunities are too small to attract conventional large-scale developers.
A municipality, nonprofit organization, Indigenous community, private landowner or community group may have land suitable for four homes, eight homes, a small apartment building or several infill units. These projects can be critically important to the communities they serve while remaining too small to support the overhead, financing requirements and construction model of a conventional urban development.
Neighbourhood Modular is intended to help fill that gap by creating local capacity to manufacture smaller modular and prefabricated housing systems that can be delivered repeatedly across Renfrew County and the broader Ottawa Valley.
Potential applications include infill homes, small multifamily developments, secondary and laneway homes, affordable ownership housing and other neighbourhood-scale projects that can be adapted to the needs of individual communities.
The Pembroke initiative is intended to do more than manufacture buildings. It will seek to combine local production, skilled employment, repeatable housing designs and partnerships with municipalities, nonprofits and landowners to make smaller rural housing projects more practical and financially achievable.
“King’s Landing allows us to demonstrate what can be done on one larger site,” Gordon said. “Pembroke is about creating the capacity to complete smaller projects over and over again. One gives us scale. The other gives us repeatability. Together, they can help demonstrate a practical model for housing affordability in rural Ontario.”
A Demonstration Model for Rural Ontario
Impact Investment Is the Catalyst
Private impact investment is central to the model.
Both King’s Landing and Pembroke Neighbourhood Modular require capital before conventional long-term financing can fully take over.
Anhart uses private impact investment as catalytic capital to move projects through the difficult period between opportunity and construction: acquiring or securing property, completing design and approvals, establishing manufacturing capacity, assembling the development team and preparing projects for construction financing.
“There is capital available for finished housing and there is financing available for projects that are ready to build,” Gordon said. “The difficult part is often the middle—getting a good housing opportunity from the starting line to construction readiness. That is where impact investment can make an enormous difference.”
Anhart is therefore beginning discussions with private investors interested in earning a reasonable financial return while helping create measurable housing and community impact in Renfrew County.
The King’s Landing and Pembroke opportunities will have separate financial and legal structures, and detailed investment information will be provided privately to appropriate prospective investors as the projects advance.
Building a Long-Term Housing Platform
Anhart does not intend the Renfrew County initiative to end with King’s Landing or Pembroke.
The longer-term objective is to create a regional platform capable of identifying land, assembling financing, developing projects and manufacturing housing for communities throughout the Ottawa Valley.
That platform could ultimately support nonprofit organizations, municipalities, Indigenous communities, private landowners and other groups that have viable housing opportunities but lack the development or manufacturing capacity to move them forward.
The success of the initiative will be measured not only by the number of homes created at King’s Landing, but by whether the development, investment and manufacturing systems established in Renfrew County can be repeated.
About Anhart
Anhart Affordable Housing Corporation is a Canadian nonprofit housing developer that works with community organizations, private impact investors, governments, housing operators, architects, builders and other partners to develop financially sustainable affordable and mixed-income housing.
Anhart’s development model uses catalytic private capital to acquire and advance housing opportunities through planning, approvals and construction readiness, and then transitions projects toward appropriate construction and long-term financing.
Anhart and its affiliated nonprofit and investment organizations are working to develop and preserve housing in communities across Canada.
About the Ottawa Valley Affordable Housing Association
The Ottawa Valley Affordable Housing Association is a regional community housing organization working to encourage and support affordable and attainable housing development throughout the Ottawa Valley.
The Association is working with Anhart to identify housing needs, partnerships and development opportunities that can contribute to a longer-term regional housing strategy.
Media, Partnership and Impact Investment Enquiries
Keith Wiebe Gordon
CEO
Anhart Affordable Housing Corporation
Web: anhart.ca
Email: info@anhart.ca
Phone: (866) 498-7143