Parents rally to save East Side daycare space: Park board aims wrecking ball at Mount Pleasant Community Centre
Vancouver Courier
February 25, 2009
Sandra Thomas

Parents with children attending Simon Fraser elementary want the park board to keep the daycare centre open at the adjacent Mount Pleasant Community Centre until at least June 2010.

The former park board voted to demolish the popular facility, …once the new Mount Pleasant Civic Centre, also known as 1 Kingsway, is complete.

Kerri Abramson, a parent with the Simon Fraser parent advisory committee, said parents with children registered in before and after-school care at Mount Pleasant were aware the new centre would provide daycare for children and toddlers. But up until last month the opening date for 1 Kingsway was September 2010, which would have left families time to make other arrangements.

"Right up until December they were saying it would be next September [2010]," said Abramson, who also chairs the childcare portfolio for the Mount Pleasant Community Centre Association's board of directors. "Now they're saying the building will be finished and they'll be in there by September. That's going to mean a gap in [daycare] services."

In 2003, $26.5 million was approved for the joint park board/city 1 Kingsway project, which will include residential units, a community centre, library and daycare centre. But the costs quickly skyrocketed, and in 2005 the city determined the cost at $50 million.

In July 2005, the city estimated the project would take between 18 and 20 months to complete, but 43 months later the building is still under construction.

Abramson said initially that delay was good news for parents with children attending daycare at Mount Pleasant because they were promised the old community centre would remain until the new facility opened. Once 1 Kingsway opens, the aging centre is scheduled to be demolished and the land converted to a park.

Parents are excited about a proposal to construct a stand-alone daycare on the school's grounds, with an opening date of September 2010. The association, Simon Fraser Parent Advisory Council, park and school boards, the city and provincial government back the plan. But that option leaves a year-long gap during which parents will have no before and after-school care for their children if the park board sticks to its plan to tear the centre down, Abramson said. The park board estimates it will cost $200,000, which is money it hasn't budgeted for, to operate the centre for the extra year. That means fundraising will be left to parents and other members of the community, including the school board.

Parent Mallory O'Connor is also concerned about what will happen to her two children if there's a school-year long gap in childcare services, particularly for her youngest in kindergarten.

"Parents with children in kindergarten are registering for daycare now," she said. "I don't know what to do."

Vision Vancouver park board commissioner Constance Barnes said the recently elected board is trying to find a solution. … "Childcare is huge to us and this is a very serious situation."

Barnes said she counted on the daycare services at Mount Pleasant when her children were young. She said as a single mother she's aware of the importance of finding suitable childcare, but added the board is dealing with tough economic times….