Funding welcome, deadline 'impossible'; Day care grant comes with unattainable start-up schedule
Richmond News
January 8, 2008
By: Nelson Bennett

Given a chronic demand for daycare in Richmond, one would think a new pot of money to create more spaces would have prompted a stampede from daycare providers.

But only one entrepreneur has asked for the city's support in a request for provincial start-up funding, thanks to what is being described as impossible deadlines.

…. who lives in Richmond and works in Vancouver, plans to open a new for-profit daycare in the Ironwood area.

It would provide 32 spaces, including 12 for toddlers -- an age range where there is a chronic need -- in the Ironwood area.

Richmond Youth Services Agency also wants to apply for funding to create 25 new after-school care spaces for kids aged seven to 12, but needs a publicly owned site -- something planning committee chairman Harold Steves said the city simply doesn't have.

"The only place I can think of where there is space is in some of the schools," he said.

…. said there is a huge demand for daycare in Richmond, especially for infants and toddlers. She cites her own friend's experience as an example of how bad the problem is in Richmond.

"She's 325th on the list," she said.

The $112,000 in capital funding …. is applying for under a new provincial program would cover roughly 55 per cent of her capital costs, she said.

The money comes from a $12.5 million fund the B.C. government announced in October to help cover the capital costs of building new daycare centres or adding capacity to existing ones.

There's just one hitch: successful applicants have to start construction within four months of signing a funding agreement, according to a report to the city's planning committee.

"We require lead times of at least a year, maybe two," Steves said.

"To do it in four months is impossible."

"The requirement to commence construction within four months of the funding agreement is challenging, given the current conditions of the construction market and the timelines to obtain development permits," a report to the city's planning committee states.

A new day-care centre in Hamilton is a good example of how unreasonable the deadlines are.

In May, the city and B.C. government had a ground-breaking ceremony on the site of the former Hamilton fire hall, which will become a new day-care centre. Seven months later the project is still in the development permit approval stage.

"These things do grind tremendously slowly," said Nicky Byres, executive director of Richmond Child Care Centres….

While it may be possible to execute an agreement elsewhere in B.C. in such a short timeframe, she said the construction market in the Lower Mainland makes a four-month deadline next to impossible to meet....

Deadlines may not be the only reason only one private operator has stepped forward so far to apply for funding in Richmond.

Changes to day-care subsidies at the federal and provincial levels also mean less government funding for licensed operators.

"You can't just build the spaces and they will come," Byres said. "You have to operate those spaces."

Simply finding qualified day care workers willing to work for low wages is also a challenge, according to Lesley Sherlock, the City of Richmond's social planner.

"It is extremely difficult for child care centres to attract and retain qualified early childhood educators because of the wages and lack of benefits," Sherlock said. "If they're having difficulty staffing their existing spaces, then they're unlikely to seek added spaces."