Dear Editor,
Re: “City must rein in spending,” Letters, June 7.
A recent letter to the editor provides a timely opportunity to remind Richmond residents why it has been necessary to replace and upgrade our fire halls including the Brighouse No.1 Fire Hall. Given the importance of ensuring the current and future safety of residents and property throughout the city, these investments will play a prominent role.
With the opening of the Brighouse No.1 Fire Hall later this month, city council’s ambitious program to bring all our public safety buildings up to modern standards is complete. In addition to providing a new home for Richmond RCMP, since 2001 we’ve built five new fire halls and undertaken a major retrofit of a sixth. Some of the buildings replaced were more than 50 years old and obviously inadequate to meet the present or future demands of our growing community.
Design and construction of the new Brighouse No.1 Fire Hall cost $24.4 million. For decades to come, it will serve both as the city centre’s primary fire hall and provide a home for Richmond Fire-Rescue’s administration offices among other core public safety services.
Being built to post-disaster standards, each fire hall can now survive a major seismic event, thus ensuring effective response when fire crews are most needed. Other improvements will enable them to meet modern health and safety standards for staff in addition to containing many features that will enhance efficiency and response times. The construction also meets the city’s commitment to sustainable building practices as the new buildings are designed and constructed to achieve LEED Gold certification, among the highest measures of environmentally-sensitive building practises.
Through careful management of spending and reserves, this building program was accomplished with minimal impact on property taxes or civic borrowing. The dollars invested in each new safety building, including the Brighouse No.1 Fire Hall, have been carefully managed and will serve to make Richmond a safer community.
Malcolm D. Brodie, Mayor
RICHMOND
