Maisons PAJ, made up of president Michelle Poirier Asselin, her boyfriend Matthieu Jodoin who takes care of sales, and her father Michel Poirier who supervises the sites, is currently building 11 new apartment units on three separate lots in Shawville, scheduled to be completed this fall, and has plans for another 30 or so units to be ready by the end of 2025.

“They move quickly,” said Shawville mayor Bill McCleary. “Our building inspector loves them, because they come in, they’ve done it so many times they have all the procedures in place, and it’s just a matter of checking the zoning and signing the permits. They’re very well organized.”

The furthest along is the apartment building at 518 King Street. It will host four two-bedroom units and Jodoin figures they should be ready to receive their new tenants by October.

Another identical four-unit building is in the works at 360 King Street, in what used to be the large parking lot between King Street and Bristol Street. A third building, this one a triplex, is planned for Main Street, across from the United Church. Jodoin said these second and third buildings should be ready by the end of this year, and apartments in all three buildings are already spoken for.

“They’re all rented and reserved by some residents of the area,” Jodoin said.

Maisons PAJ builds the units, and then sells them to real estate investors who then rent them out. Jodoin said the two-bedrooms were listed at $1,300 a month, which he figures is affordable, compared to the city.

“They’re as nice as the ones in Aylmer and Ottawa, it’s just that they’re in Shawville,” he said, highlighting details such as their quartz countertops, nine-foot ceilings, concrete floors and heat pumps to prove his point.

He noted the apartments on the main floor are built without any stairs, so they’re well suited for seniors. While they’re not adapted for wheelchairs, he said if he got a request for that, he could accommodate.
“It gives the access for some people to live in a nice apartment for a reasonable price.”

The company has already built other apartment complexes in the Pontiac – two by the PPJ on Centre Street in Shawville, which were finished this spring, and another 16 one-bedroom units on Church Street in Quyon. All are rented.

Jodoin said by the end of 2025, Maisons PAJ will have built another 18 units on the lot at 360 King Street, and about a dozen more elsewhere in town.

He said those on King Street will be a combination of three-bedrooms and one-bedrooms, and he’s already getting requests for some of them.

Jodoin and Poirier Asselin moved to Luskville from Gatineau a few years ago.

“We knew about Shawville and the area a little bit. We saw the potential over there,” Jodoin said. “I thought personally it was undervalued a lot, and that there was some opportunity over there with the hospital, and it’s pretty close to Aylmer and Ottawa, so we decided to invest and develop some land over there, and it’s going well.”

Michel Poirier (left) and Matthieu Jodoin (right) are two thirds of the team behind their housing construction business Maisons PAJ. Photo: Sophie Kuijper Dickson

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