Members of the public will soon have their chance to sound off on a proposed recovery house for men with drug and alcohol addictions.
Turning Point Recovery Society is proposing to build the 10-bed facility on a District of North Vancouver-owned lot on Burr Place. Previously, the non-profit and district had considered locating the home on Windridge Drive but community backlash caused the district and Turning Point to abandon the plan.
Council gave first reading to a bylaw Monday night that would see the district hand the single-family lot between the Kiwanis Care Centre and Canlan Ice Sports arena over to B.C. Housing, which will spend up to $1 million to build the home for nine residents and one staff member.
Turning Point, which operates a similar facility for women on Lloyd Avenue as well as other recovery houses in Vancouver and Richmond, will run the house and Vancouver Coastal Health has committed to providing operational funding. The public is invited to speak to the merits of the proposal and question district staff and the project’s proponents at a public hearing scheduled for Tuesday, Sept. 15.
“It was a long process. We learned a great deal. We had to counter a lot of misinformation to get the facts out straight to the community and now we have the process by which we’ll ask the community their position on it,” said Coun. MacKay-Dunn, a former police officer and strong Turning Point proponent. “I think by this, we’ve addressed maybe 85 to 95 per cent of the concerns that the public had.”
The new location on a treed lot ought to provide for more tranquillity, MacKay-Dunn added later.
“It’s always been my position in my 31 years in the business that it’s very important for people to get their act together and to be free of distractions. If you’re close to nature, that is a recipe for success,” he said.
There was little question among council members that such a facility is needed on the North Shore.
A survey of medical professionals and service groups found North Shore residents are routinely referred to get treatment elsewhere in the Lower Mainland as there aren’t enough options for treatment on the North Shore. That message driven home as numerous addictions and medical professionals attempt to address neighbourhood fears at a community information meeting held in March.
“I certainly left that meeting believing a facility of this type, in our community, could offer many benefits to many North Vancouver residents, both those who directly need the services and their family members...” said Coun. Jim Hanson.
The vote to send the recovery house to a public hearing was unanimous, although some on council were wary of using a district lot to provide a service that is out of municipal jurisdiction.
Though he cited the recovery house as another example of “continuous downloading of provincial responsibilities onto municipalities,” Coun. Roger Bassam said he supported the partnership on the grounds that it was the provision of land for health-care services.
