Few turn out for fire hall session
Minds already seemed made up at last night’s on-line information session at city hall with only a couple residents present to ask questions to city staff and council regarding the fate of Fire Hall No. 1.
Members of the media, however, were eager to voice their concerns on behalf of the community regarding the proposed rebuilding of the 61 year old fire hall.
“Council highly values community engagement and part of our outreach has been through these two town halls and tours,” said Mayor Lyn Hall.
The city hopes this will encourage voter participation on the upcoming referendum to replace Fire Hall No. 1 and the Four Seasons Pool.
Located next to city hall at Seventh Avenue and Dominion Street, the city’s main fire hall has reached the end of its useful life according to Fire Chief John Iverson.
“We have maximized the use of this building.
“We are definitely in need of a modern municipal fire department.”
A new fire hall is estimated to cost $15 million and the proposed new location would be at the south corner of Massey Drive and Carney Street.
According to Iverson, being more central will expand the eight-minute response zone by 50 per cent.
“The proposed location will improve fire protection optimizing locations for both Fire Hall No. 1 and Fire Hall No. 2,” Iverson said.
“We are not increasing coverage in one area and we are not taking away from another. We are covering a larger area.”
About four other locations were considered by the city, both city and privately owned, but the end decision was based on the increased eight minute response time in that area, according to Ian Wells, general manager of planning and development for the City of Prince George.
City manager Kathleen Soltis says there were many factors which helped determine the need for a new fire hall.
Along with being susceptible to flooding, the building no longer meets standards as a fire and rescue facility, emergency operations centre and fire operations communications centre according to a Fire Underwriters survey report.
Soltis says the current building is unable to accommodate all fire trucks, there is an array of electrical problems, storage limitations and cramped conditions for dispatchers who handle 911 responses from 79 fire rescue agencies throughout central and northwestern parts of B.C.
A new state-of-the-art fire hall would offer a spacious location outside of a flood plain, with many opportunities in training along with an emergency operations centre that would be able to handle all that comes it’s way according to city staff.
“The lesson we learned this last summer is that the E.O.C. is not something you can take down. It stays,” said Hall.
With over 10,676 evacuees making a temporary home in Prince George over the summer, the E.O.C. at Fire Hall No. 1 felt the impact.
“As our group grew, we were on top of each other at meetings and we had to leave the fire hall,”said Soltis.
Iverson says the importance of an operational E.O.C. is vital.
“We need to have the ability to run for extended periods of time. The current building is not suitable for this type of location,” Iverson said.
The proposed location would have no effect on neighbouring properties other than minor changes to fencing and access points at Spruce City Stadium and Citizen Field with no impact to the field according to Wells.
If renovations were to take place the current fire hall it would cost approximately $8 million to fix the structural damage along with electrical issues according to city staff.
Regarding taxes, the city has estimated that residents will pay $8.45 per year per $100,000 of assessed value.
And there are no plans for the old fire hall if relocated.
It will remain city-owned and reserved for future development.
If residents vote yes to a new Fire Hall No. 1, designing will begin in 2018 and construction will commence in June 2019 with a completion time set for two years.
The online information session for the Four Seasons Pool will take place tonight at 6 p.m. at city hall.