An affordable housing project with 150 apartment suites is planned for Winnipeg’s St. James area.

The $51-million development on Portage Avenue, between Ronald and Harcourt streets, will be owned and operated by Shoal Lake 40 First Nation — the first project like it for Shoal Lake.

MP Doug Eyolfson called it “a powerful example of economic reconciliation in action.”

More than $43 million is being provided through the federal government’s affordable housing fund.

“It means Indigenous communities are not just participating but leading major developments, creating jobs, building capacity and ensuring that long-term benefits go back to their members,” Eyolfson said.

The City of Winnipeg is contributing $2 million from its allotment of the housing accelerator fund and another $4.4 million in tax incentive financing. The rest of the funding is from Shoal Lake 40 and a grant from Manitoba Housing.

The development is a major step in reconciliation for the First Nation, which suffered so Winnipeg could thrive, Chief Herb Greene said.

In 1919, Winnipeg tapped into drinking water from Shoal Lake, building an aqueduct that forced the First Nation at the Manitoba-Ontario border into isolation.

The community was severed from the mainland by a canal created to protect the intake for the aqueduct.

Shoal Lake 40 was under a boil water advisory for 24 years, from 1997 until September 2021, when it got its own water treatment plant. That was made possible by the construction of Freedom Road, which finally connected the community to the outside world in 2019.

Shoal Lake 40 was sacrificed back then for the benefit of Winnipeg and “we are now coming to the city’s aid again … providing a cost-effective housing solution to the city’s critical housing shortage,” Greene said.

The new homes will consist of one, two and three-bedroom units, with more than 40 per cent available at discounted rates based on income.

The official opening and ribbon cutting will take place “in about 700 days,” Greene said.