No, that is not a new strain of COVID. What we're talking about is the conditional certificate of occupancy that basically says our building complies with building codes and is suitable for human occupancy.
Back in February 2022, the city's inspectors granted conditional CO for our individual units, which allowed community members to move into their apartments. This helped to alleviate a lot of difficulties some of us were facing at that time with leases or rentals expiring, and with some mortgage situations.
The wrinkle was that the CO did not extend to our common spaces so we could not move furniture into the first-floor lobby, second-floor common area, the hallways, the balconies, each floor's storage closet, etc.
So, since February, we have had to squeeze past all the extra furniture that we had to store in our units and look longingly at all those empty spaces crying out for decoration and furnishing.
Finally -- at last! at last! -- on April 27, we had in hand the conditional CO that grants us the use of our common spaces. A few more minor milestones need to be hit before we can call the construction phase done, but that's by the by; getting the conditional CO is a tremendous psychological boost for the community and a practical help in managing our physical resources.
As you can see from the pictures below, some folks wasted no time in making sure our common spaces are now living spaces.