Members of city council gather before a meeting on  January 16, 2019 in Chatham-Kent. (Photo by Allanah Wills)Members of city council gather before a meeting on January 16, 2019 in Chatham-Kent. (Photo by Allanah Wills)
Chatham

Council pushes back $1.6M decision on moving council chambers

With many of them believing the cost was too high, local councillors have opted to defer the decision to relocate council chambers until they can get more clarity on the matter.

During Monday's night meeting, a report went before Chatham-Kent Council that looked at the possibility of relocating council chambers in the Civic Centre from the second to the first floor at the cost of around $1.6 million. The cause of the relocating was largely in part to make council chambers more accessible for people with physical disabilities.

Before they made their decision, Mike Gerard, the acting chair of the committee of the Chatham-Kent Accessibility Advisory Committee, spoke to council and pointed out many of the things in the chambers that are not up to standards with the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA), including non-accessible washrooms on the second floor and nearly impossible evacuation options in an emergency situation for people using a wheelchair. Because the Civic Centre and council chambers were built in compliance with the code in place at the time of construction, the space is legally permitted to remain as is.

"We understand there are many challenges facing the municipality we also understand that major renovations only happen every 40 years or so," said Gerard. "If we do not act now, another 40 years may pass before we can make these changes and that damage will be irreversible."

However, in an order to optimize efficiencies, relocating chambers would trigger a proposed $16.6 million in renovations to the Civic Centre over a three year period.

Although Councillor Michael Bondy said he understood the benefits of making the room more accessible, he couldn't justify spending the money on upgrades to the Civic Centre.

"This is primarily a Civic Centre renovation, principally benefiting staff and council. I speak only for myself, but in the last eight and a half years, the amount of complaints I've received about the state of the Civic Centre is zero. Complaints about potholes and roads, hundreds, maybe a thousand. If we're prioritizing what to do with taxpayer money this isn't it. This place isn't perfect but an incredible renovation isn't in the taxpayer interest," he said.

Some of the suggested renovations include better security and making the building more energy efficient.  However, according to Thomas Kelly, general manager of infrastructure and engineering services for Chatham-Kent, the largest and most necessary renovation would be replacing the centre's heating and cooling system for the first time in the building's history.

"This is a 42-year-old building and at the heart and soul of it is the HVAC system," Kelly explained. "That HVAC... failed 65 times last year. In 2017 we said it's going to go any time."

Putting councillors in a catch-22 position is the fact that if the HVAC system were to fail suddenly, fixing it would require such major renovations that, by law, the whole building would have to be brought up to current AODA standards.

For Councillor Carmen McGregor, there were too many unanswered questions to make a decision for such a large sum of money. McGregor put forward a successful motion that will have staff come back with more information on the issues including retrofitting the current second-floor bathroom and elevator, looking at relocating council to a different building altogether, making the current chambers more accessible without relocating, and the cost difference between the planned and emergency replacements of the building’s HVAC system.

"If the HVAC system goes down, we've got some issues but I think we need to look at all avenues and find our best way moving forward," McGregor said.

Major renovations were voted against by former members of council in 2017. According to Kelly, there are currently government grants available that would help offset the large price tag, grants that weren't available in 2017, and he is hopeful they would be eligible at the present time. McGregor's motion also requested further information about available government funding.

Councillor Mary Clare Latimer voted in favour of getting more information so that the public and council get a better understanding of how the money is spent.

"It's not that we're just wanting to spend $16.3 million. The HVAC system, it's just like your house, if you don't take care of it you end up paying more," Latimer explained. "We already put it off for three years. If not if it's going to fail, it's going to fail. And when it does, we'll have more costs. Along with the fact that when that happens we're going to have to meet the accessibility code anyways."

The Civic Centre was built in 1977 with the only major renovations happening during amalgamation in 1999.

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