KOOTENAY COLUMBIA SENIORS HOUSING COOPERATIVE
PRESENTATION
PUBLIC HEARING
CITY of CASTLEGAR FORUM
April 16, 2007
A) Introduction
My name is Elmer Verigin. I admit that I am a Senior. How many more of you are there in the audience? Raise your hand.
I am a semi-retired General Contractor and Professional Engineer who spent part of my life building Hospitals, Schools, Care Facilities and Seniors Complexes. Some local projects are Talarico Place and Maranatha Court in Castlegar with subdivisions in South Slocan and Glenmerry Village in Trail.
I returned to Castlegar after being eight (8) years away to the Lower Mainland because I, like many others, wish to retire in Castlegar.
A seniors housing project in Castlegar was necessary and I was commandeered by my fellow seniors to project manage this exciting endeavour.
B) Who are the Kootenay Columbia Seniors Housing Cooperative?
We are part of a group of local Seniors who have sponsored several seniors projects with the assistance of British Columbia Housing, in developing housing for seniors in:
- Grand Forks at Parkside Villa (26 units)
- Castlegar at Rosewood Manor (10 units) and
- White Birch Manor in Delta (48 units)
This same group developed Whatshan Lake Retreat that sponsors Freedom Quest, a Youth Drug and Alcohol Treatment program in the Kootenays, that operates in Grand Forks, Nelson, Trail, Castlegar and through to Kaslo and Nakusp.
We asked the question, once we agreed that we were seniors; why not develop a complete senior's project where we could reside for the rest of our lives. It was decided that a non-profit cooperative would be the best method and in September 2005, the Kootenay Columbia Seniors Housing Cooperative was incorporated with 18 members. This Co-op has now grown to 141 members with many of them in this audience.
Where do we come from? The majority are from Castlegar, many from the valleys through to Nelson. We have members from Trail, Creston, Kelowna, Victoria, Lower Mainland and Nanaimo now.
We will substantially add to the tax base of Castlegar.
C) Castlegar Seniors’ Needs
Sixty years ago the greatest public need was for schools to educate the sudden increase in young people. Now these schools are empty and are being demolished because School Districts cannot afford to maintain the empty buildings. Now these students have become the seniors in our society. They require housing and the Governments of the day are advising that they cannot afford to provide the immense capital required construct this housing.
We decided to take the equity in our homes and invest in this seniors housing project. We cannot depend on our governments to assist us and cannot wait for such an action as eight (8) of our members have already deceased since incorporation of the Kootenay Columbia Seniors Housing Cooperative.
You might say that we are dying to get this project going as quickly as possible.
D) Grandview Heights Project
Seniors are living longer and the life expectancy continues to rise as the ability of Health Technology improves, with research, to accomplish quality life with age. We now expect to live to the late eighties. Active seniors are usually healthy seniors. We are designing our own project where we can have a mix of independent bungalows, duplexes and townhouses that will surround a Care Complex where medical assistance and Assisted Living will be available to all of us.
Hobbies and crafts will be intermixed with coffee houses, recreation rooms. A Commissary, Pharmacy and a Clinic will limit the need for our members to travel off site. Much of our travel will be with a bus which we intend to operate as part of our development.
We are proud of the fact that local Engineers are designing the Infrastructure and a local Contractor will construct same. Our housing Contractor is also local and we are finalizing housing plans and preparations with that Contractor.
We are very happy to boast that Castlegar Seniors have:
- Conceived this idea of Grandview Heights
- Designing their own housing
- Hired Local Engineers and
- Local Contractors
And we intend to boast the economy of Castlegar with construction jobs and the resulting property tax base by paying our own way.
E) Site Selection
Castlegar is the centroid of the Kootenays and it is obvious that a project such as Grandview Heights will draw seniors from Trail, Nelson, the surrounding communities as well as from outside.
Our Committee has researched twenty (20) sites in the Castlegar area and found that community sewage and water are fundamental in siting such a project. We needed at least twenty (20) acres to achieve the economic model that would make our project viable.
There were no sites comparable to Grandview Heights and the fact that the Official Community Plan showed a secondary access through Castlegar along 14th Avenue from Highway 3, via 37th Street, through to the Blueberry Creek Junction convinced the committee that this site had the closet access to the Regional Hospital as well as the most sunlight hours available in Castlegar. It was also affordable.
F) Funding for Project
British Columbia Housing and the Interior Health Authority, publicly state that Castlegar has a higher than the Provincial average of subsidized seniors housing and Care Facilities and; therefore, will not be the recipients of future funding even though the Nelson Hospital, Castlegar Hospital, Mater Miscordiae and Kiro Manor have all been shut down in the Kootenays in recent years.
Castlegar Seniors are funding Grandview Heights from the equity they have within their homes that they worked so hard to build and pay for.
The Seniors do not want to be a burden on the tax payers and intend to be independent for as long as possible.
G) Access to Grandview Heights
The City of Castlegar intends to develop the entire 14th Avenue via 37th Street as a through street. The South portion of 14th Avenue that leaves Grandview Heights is intended to be constructed by the City of Castlegar once full build out occurs at Grandview Heights and Emerald Green.
The Seniors will be funding about 1 km of this 14th Avenue arterial route from 37th Street to the Southern edge of Grandview Heights. 37th Street is the collector that will be used in the interim to access Highway 22. It is expected that improvements will be required at the Junction of 37th Street and Highway 22 for which the seniors are prepared to contribute funding when required.
We studied an direct access via 43rd Street from Kal Tire to the site but City Planners did not want residential traffic through an Industrial area and could not agree with that option. At this time Grandview Heights will use a graveled 43rd Street as a Construction Access and a future gated Emergency Access to Grandview Heights
H) Street Design in Castlegar and the Kootenays
I was born and raised on a farm in Saskatchewan where everything was flat. Castlegar, Nelson and Trail have one common geographic feature… they are founded on either side of a river at the base of mountains. This provides a challenge for urban planners as to how to access residential properties that are located on those mountain sides.
I now live on the corner of 6th Street and 9th Avenue in Castlegar. 6th Street is on a bus route and has priority 1 for snow clearing; however, I have difficulty in being able to go up either hill once it is snowing. I take my life in my hands when I back out onto 6th Street as the people living in that neighborhood must have had driver training at the Indianapolis 500.
This seems the same with 24th Street at Columbia and at 11th to 14th Avenue, 33rd Street, 12th Avenue from 24th Street, Merry Creek Road and all the streets that start from 2nd Avenue near the Park. We choose to live in Castlegar and winter driving here is a challenge.
Seniors don’t drive at rush hours between 6 and 8 in the morning and 4 to 6 in the evening. We are either sleeping or having dinner at those times respectively. The intersections at Talarico Place, Castlewood and Crestview are good examples of the traffic that we will cause. We will prefer buses when we travel and are more likely to be found participating in activities within our project. That is another reason why we are creating services within our project so that there less need to travel off site.
I) Summary
The seniors are part of the Castlegar Community and choose to live here because Castlegar is the best place in the Kootenays to reside. We want to live in harmony with our neighbors and we want to do our part to make Castlegar a homogenous community with the aging population a large part of that equation.
Time is of the essence. We have local Contractors and their labor, ready to construct this premium senior's facility right now.
We urge the Castlegar City Fathers to expedite Third Reading on our Zoning Application and Amendment to the Official Community Plan so that our Engineers may complete the infrastructure designs that meet the City Bylaws and comply with good Engineering practice.
We are your independent senior's community trying to make a difference and improve life styles in Castlegar! Don’t let us down!