Residents will get a chance to vote on a $4-million plan to replace the Dashwood Fire Department’s main firehall.
The Regional District of Nanaimo board gave three readings to the project at its regular meeting April 23 as well as to a staff recommendation to start an alternative approval process to determine whether electors endorse establishing a service and loan authorization bylaw to borrow funds for the project.
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The board has also endorsed the elector response form that will ask electors from participating services area of Electoral Area F, G and H who are opposed to the project to submit their response to the RDN by 4 p.m. on Friday, July 26.
If at least 10 per cent or 175 of eligible electors signed and submitted a completed elector reponse by the deadline, the RDN board may not go ahead with adopting the bylaws.
The option to replace the firehall was chosen as the cost to renovate and retrofit the facility to make it conform to today’s building code and requirement, as well as add more space, would have cost more. Much of the building is more than 35 years old and has undergone several upgrades over the years.
A detailed conceptual plans for the replacement of the fire hall have been completed and construction cost is estimated at $4 million. The Dashwood design will be a template the RDN plans to use in building future new firehalls as it will reduce architectural and engineering costs. The regional district has six volunteer fire departments under its mandate, with three main and three satellite halls.
