{"id":7838,"date":"2013-10-16T08:45:24","date_gmt":"2013-10-16T15:45:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=7838"},"modified":"2013-10-29T13:15:53","modified_gmt":"2013-10-29T20:15:53","slug":"college-struggles-to-keep-buildings-in-good-repair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2013\/10\/16\/college-struggles-to-keep-buildings-in-good-repair\/","title":{"rendered":"College struggles to keep buildings in good repair"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a new multimillion dollar trades building is being erected at the Interurban campus, Camosun College is also facing a constantly growing deferred maintenance debt that, if not addressed, could result in college-wide safety and occupancy issues, according to Ian Tol, director of physical resources.<\/p>\n

Researchers at the provincial government estimate Camosun College requires over $100 million to address all of its maintenance problems, including renovations to aging buildings at both campuses. Tol says the college is working hard to \u201cprotect its assets\u201d by lobbying the government and exploring other funding options.<\/p>\n

This year the college received a paltry $1.7 million in provincial funds, $900,000 of which will go towards new roofs for the Fisher building at Lansdowne and Trades and Technology building at Interurban.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s tough to prioritize our maintenance projects because it\u2019s like a constantly growing debt if you don\u2019t address it,\u201d says Tol. \u201cThis is only going to get larger, so we\u2019re struggling. We\u2019re trying to provide an environment that\u2019s safe, but also appealing to students.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
A window fell out of a classroom in the Fisher building in 2011 (file photo).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Camosun College Student Society (CCSS) is also worried about the general condition of the college. Other postsecondary schools in BC are facing similar predicaments.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe CCSS is concerned by the lack of funding that the BC government makes available to maintain the college,\u201d says Lansdowne campus executive Madeline Keller-MacLeod. \u201cCurrently, the college is protecting students from issues arising from the crumbling state of many of our buildings.\u201d<\/p>\n

Keller-MacLeod points to an incident in 2011 where a window fell off the side of the Fisher building and crashed onto the pavement below. The question is if the college can\u2019t secure enough funding to eventually address the myriad problems, what options will they have left?<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, that\u2019s a good question,\u201d says Tol. \u201cI suppose that if we aren\u2019t able to address a failure in a building and it becomes such that it can\u2019t be occupied, then we\u2019d have to close the doors. I\u2019m not saying that I think we\u2019re imminently at the doorstep of that happening, but if we\u2019re not able to address the issues that face us, and a building can\u2019t be safely occupied, then we\u2019d have no choice.\u201d<\/p>\n

And while Tol says the college is \u201cvery grateful\u201d for the funding to erect its new multimillion dollar trades building at Interurban, he also admits the irony of building new when existing buildings are badly deteriorating.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can see that it seems to be a bit of a competing interest,\u201d he says, \u201cbut the existing buildings would require such a level of investment to bring them up to standards that it would almost cost the same in the end. Also, with the programs running year-round in the existing buildings, we decided a new building was the best option.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As a new multimillion dollar trades building is being erected at the Interurban campus, Camosun College is also facing a constantly growing deferred maintenance debt that, if not addressed, could result in college-wide safety and occupancy issues, according to Ian Tol, director of physical resources. Researchers at the provincial government estimate Camosun College requires over […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7840,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,115],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-october-16-2013"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7838"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7838\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8052,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7838\/revisions\/8052"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}