The future looks bright for the Northern Supportive Recovery Centre for Women proposal for Haldi Road - but the same can't be said for the numerous residents opposing the project.
City of Prince George council voted six to three to keep the proposal process going last night, despite neighbours' concerns over the facility's access to water - which the proponent recently partially answered by saying water would be trucked in - and the impact a drug recovery centre would have on the secluded neighbourhood.
After over four hours of presentations and debate, Mayor Dan Rogers and councillors Shari Green, Dave Wilbur, Debora Munoz, Garth Frizzell and Cameron Stolz voted in favour of rezoning the site from rural residential to a special therapuetic community zoning. Councillors Brian Skakun, Murry Krause and Don Bassermann opposed the rezoning.
Before the vote, a heated debate raged in council chambers for over four hours during a public hearing on the proposed centre.
The proposal calls for a 30-resident women's addiction treatment centre to be developed at the former Haldi Road school on Leslie Road.
Centre proponents requested city council rezone the former school from rural residential zoning to a special therapeutic community zoning.
The clients will be women who are attending of their free will and with a readiness for recovery.
Detox services will not be offered on site.
The proposed centre would be an absitnence-based centre offering long-term treatment for up to one year, Smith said. If the rezoning is successful, the centre is scheduled to be ready to open by spring, 2012.
"During this process, which admittedly has been rocky, we have held open houses on the site," centre project manager Marshall Smith said. "The daily life of residents will be based on "order, routine and a restrictive schedule."
In his presentation, Smith said the society plans to form a community advisory board to respond to concerns raised by neighbours.
L & M Engineering president David McWalter said the site is technically ready to house the facilty.
The existing sewage lagoons will be used, however they will be expanded to increase the capacity, he said.
Water for the centre will be trucked in and stored in large on-site cisterns, McWalter said.
City staff recommended a covenant be placed on the property requiring the well on the site be capped, which McWalter said the proponent agrees with.
Neighbours oppose centre
Residents of the Haldi Road area packed city council to voice their concerns and hear the outcome of the hearing. A petition with 533 signatures opposing the rezoning was sent to council.
A community group presented council with a colour-coded map showing the properties opposed, in favour or neutral on the proposed centre. The majority of the 287 properties in the surrounding area opposed the proposal.
"This clearly shows the desires of the community," resident Tracey Kettles said.
Resident Laura Jagodnik said the proposed centre would permanently alter the character of the neighbourhood. "We fully believe this project is distinctly out of character for our neighbourhood," Jagodnik said. "The potential for property devaluation is very real. Long-term residents have noted an increase in the properties listed [for sale.]"
In a letter to city council Birchill Crescent resident Dale Printz said the proposal is the wrong fit for the neighbourhood. "These women were drug users - their sources are not going to be happy they are no longer customers," Printz wrote.
"Their spouses, partners and friends who are still using will be looking for new sources of income in a new neighbourhood."
Printz said the centre will also bring additional traffic into the neighbourhood. Jensen Road resident Paul Hanky worked in addition treatment services since 1974.
Hanky said he had worked in the Nechako Treatment Centre for many years before it closed three years ago."There will be drugs present for the facility. There is no treatment facility in North America that does not have drugs in them," Hanky said. "And there will be people who show up who will cause problems for the neighbourhood."
Women's addiction programs are difficult to manage, he said.
"The women that were using our programs came from a variety of backgrounds, many horrific," Hanky said. "They tend to attract mates of a similar background."
Area resident Shannon Isaac said the centre would bring unwanted elements into the neighbourhood in a letter to city council.
"I feel the city already has many areas that are riddled with drugs and violence, and we all have to deal with the overflow from this in our daily lives..." Isaac wrote. "I think city council should think twice before ruining a perfectly nice family neighbourhood."
