$48 million for new RCMP building is money well spent

MONDAY, 02 DECEMBER 2013 02:00 RON SEYMOUR Kelowna Daily Courier
Desk-sharing among police officers will be a thing of the past when Kelowna's new RCMP detachment opens in late 2017. But city officials say the proposed 90,000 square-foot complex - more than twice the size of the current detachment and currently estimated to cost $48 million - is not being overbuilt. "The new building is designed to accommodate current functions (as) well as growth in staffing levels over the next 10 years," says John Vos, the city's director of infrastructure. Council will receive a report today that highlights key aspects of the proposed new RCMP detachment, which must still be endorsed by voters in a so-called alternate approval process set for early 2014. Unless 10 per cent of city voters, or about 10,000 people - sign petitions against the project, it will move forward with an anticipated opening date in late 2017. Between 2015 and 2017, the average Kelowna homeowner would pay an extra $41 in municipal taxes to cover costs associated with the new detachment. Parts of the existing police station on Doyle Avenue date back to the early 1960s, and though it has been modernized and expanded several times over the years, the building is said to no longer be suitable for continued use. "The building has reached the end of its productive lifecycle and can no longer effectively meet the city's need to provide space for the RCMP," Vos writes in his report to council. Planning for a new building has been underway for several years, and land for the new site near the northwest corner of Clement Avenue and Richter Street was bought by the city in 2010. The new building will be used by police and civilian staff who currently work out of three locations around Kelowna. Almost 500 people currently work out of the main downtown detachment, and a space crunch means up to five officers can share a single desk, Vos says. Other failings include a tiny public reception area, lack of private space for confidential interviews, poor design of forensics and identification departments, inefficient off-site storage of exhibit areas, and lack of administrative areas. City officials are clearly alert to the possibility of criticism concerning the currently estimated cost of what some members of the public might see only as a vastly expensive new office building. They are describing the new detachment as "part prison, part high-tech lab, part library, and part armory or high-security storage facility". The cost of building the 29 jail cells and incorporating the necessary security features is said to account for about 20 per cent of the entire building cost.
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P.42-78 of Council Report Here: RCMP Building