Condition Assessment Says New Public Works Building Needed In Quesnel

Aging buildings in an area that is very susceptible to flooding, ineffective with a lack of modern building code compliance and a lack of seismic design for each building.

That was the general consensus of a Condition Assessment on the City of Quesnel’s Public Works Yard that was released at this week’s City Council meeting.

Here is how City Manager Byron Johnson described each of them…

“The existing site is very susceptible to flooding, it has been temporarily abandoned a number of times due to flooding and my understanding is the flood plain level of certain buildings is eight fee above where the building is, so it would be a substantial level of water if it was fully flooded out.”

“The advanced age of each building with expected building condition issues. The buildings were built from 1940 to the final building that was built there in 1980, so significantly old and all of them past their lifespan.”

“Lack of effectiveness of these buildings. Each one, with the exception of one storage building, was built for different purposes by different companies.”

“There’s also a lack of modern building code compliance. This includes a lack of compliance and building safety issues such as fire separation and ventilation requirements, a lack of adequate washrooms, a lack of gender balanced facilities, a lack of insulation, so therefore building heating effectiveness.”

“Finally a lack of seismic design in each building.”

Johnson says all of these reasons also led to a very clear recommendation from West Edge Engineering out of Kamloops…

“In that it would be uneconomic to attempt to renovate or rebuild the existing buildings. It will be lower cost and yield a much better long term result to build a completely new facility at the Sword Road site.”

The assessment took place on May 31st and June 1st of this year and was done in advance of a referendum during the Municipal Election next month that will ask Quesnel residents for permission to borrow up to 8 1/2 million dollars to build a new Public Works Facility.