JOHNSON – Why build the new police station downtown at all?

THE STUART WOOD SITE  is a dumb idea for an RCMP station.

Not for the reasons already discussed when this came up, like the heritage designation of the school. I will let those that know the ins and outs of that to argue it from that side. Let’s look at this from another perspective.

Why are we putting a new RCMP facility downtown … at all?

The Kamloops downtown region is full to the point of needing to expand upward, as in not just the new buildings happening at 5th and Nicola, but add to those the number of new residential buildings now built in the downtown core.

Land values and land usage intent have increased over the years, and have become more specific to needing careful considerations as to what should be built.  Recent history shows that public infrastructure like a PAC is appropriate usage in the downtown core, as well as health services facilities and the aforementioned vertical living buildings.

Why are we considering that an RCMP building should be located anywhere near the downtown core at all?

The only access to services provided by this facility by law abiding taxpayers, is to the front desk foyer where the admin intake desk is.

People need to go here to get a work or volunteer criminal record check completed, as well as adoption applications, tenancy screenings, paperwork required for legal name changes, security licenses, immigration paperwork, documents required by foreign governments for travel visas, international work permits, or permanent residency applications as well as local services like lost and found, retrieving seized property and legal firearm licensing and special event permits and the like.

It sounds like a long list but in the end, it’s a pretty small percentage of people needing this work done at any one time.

By a long shot, most people will never enter the building past the small front foyer … so why do we provide a massive building on prime real estate, in a downtown core to house these legal and the obvious crime enforcement services?

If we need to get, renew or update our driver’s licensing, we go to an industrial park on McGill Road to do so. If we need to access certain health services, we can do so in most communities spread around the city, we do not ‘have to go’ downtown (hospital itself obviously aside).

But for some reason, the RCMP get a purpose-built facility in the downtown core, which most residents don’t get (or honestly … don’t need) to access.  Why are we not considering giving them a nice parcel of land to build a large, proper police services building, on less expensive or needed land outside of the downtown core?

Perhaps there’s a spot in the industrial area of west McGill near the Fire Dept training ground, near the cities own infrastructure and maintenance yards in that area, or out in Valleyview on vacant land, or Aberdeen by the mall, or above near the jail?  Or even on Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc lands … which seems easy to consider, given the federal connection with the RCMP.   But that might open a can of worms with the TteS’s own detachment.

If we really want it in the city proper and closer to residential areas, look at the rather large parcel of land near the Fortune, Tranquille and 8th Street corner where the old Toyota dealer was a generation ago, and a boat retailer was more recently … which stands pretty much empty today.

The thought is; I can think of a dozen spots in town that are not in the downtown core. Automatically building this downtown is a waste of land use and land value.

We don’t need to have a police station a block or two from the courthouse, bad guys and people transferring between the two can drive for 10 minutes to a different area; these two buildings don’t need to be neighbours.

As well, because it’s a police service that is essentially a mobile operation, officers can just as easily get to any area of town in need of their emergency services, regardless of where their home base is.

It’s a government provided service, and even though it is a public service facility, the average citizens don’t use it as such, therefore let’s consider moving it out to somewhere else, more appropriate for what it does.

So, rather than talk about whether the heritage Stuart Wood site is appropriate, why don’t we question this assumption that it needs to be downtown.… at all?

David Johnson is a Kamloops resident, community volunteer and self described maven of all things Canadian.