I love how the residents of this town want better policing but don't want to spend any money on it.

How does having a fancier building relate to better policing? Will it decrease the number of drug related crimes, decrease the number of residential break ins?

Drive around the city and see how many signs there are out there with residents having private security system installed in their dwellings at a cost of $400.00 - $500.00 per year or open the phone book at look at the number of private security firms advertising their services.

Seems like we are already paying twice to protect our property because the RCMP just can't get it done.

New building ok, but why a fancy expensive marvel for a cop shop. Use the money in crime. It seems to me the taxpayer builds fancy building and the private sector builds nice but practical, thus saving money.
Hello mayor and company use the money for crime not building your legacy with the taxpayers wallet.
Fill a few potholes!

I see on the tube last night that Summerland, I believe actually had a vote on building a new police station there. What a novel idea, actually letting the people have a say. It would be a breath of fresh air if Prince george would do the same without the reverse BS.

The City of, Red Deer with a population of 83,000 and growing has 135 RCMP. It takes up 16% of their budget. In PG its 30% for policing our City.

We dont need a referendum we need to clean out City Hall.
Cheers

I think the design looks like a dog's breakfast! It is needlessly complicated, too many different roofs, angles, curves, nooks and crannies.

Too expensive to build, too expensive to maintain, too much of an architectural missing of the intended purpose.

Of course if it isn't fancy enough some might balk at the design fees which are probably sky high.

Get back to the drawing board and come up with a clean uncomplicated purpose driven design!

Agree 100% with you PrinceGeorge. The most efficient and cost effective building from the point of view of heat loss/gain as well as exterior envelope to usable floor area is a cube. In other words, something like the shape of the Scotia building or Oxford building, or the existing building extended up to a total of 5 floors.

Elongate that to look more like the Native Friendship Centre in shape and it becomes less efficient.

If you want to get fancier, create a multi storey atrium inside that basic cube, similar to the Plaza 400 entry lobby and open up the offices to that.

Set it relatively close to the sidewalk on Victoria and put the entrance to the south on 5th to give it sun, and we will have a much more pleasant building fitting in with the existing surrounding.

With a smaller footprint it will provide more surface parking on site that could become a parkade with office or residential space above it if the City ever takes off to an actual population increase.

It will enhance the downtown nature of what Vitoria Street is supposed to be and will represent the "densification" of the CBD.

In fact, is someone wants to really become daring, they could make a long term lease agreement with Starbucks and/or Tim Hortons for a prime spot on the corner of 4th and Victoria as part of a retail rental space.

Voila ... a P3 of sorts.

Hey, but what the heck do I know about such things, eh?

more taxes and more parked police cars at the local tims

Gus, you keep making sense like that and somebody may just go and steal your good ideas! Intellectual theft!

(Wishful thinking....).

Hey, PrinceGeorge, the very reason I am posting some like that on here. We all know that some of the people with the ability to make them happen are reading this. I just think that none of them want to go there at this late stage.

Once they engage an architect and give them very little to work with, the architect comes back with what they think is wanted, very few have the balls to tell them they have not provided them with an inspired design that meets the needs of the City.

That design is a birthday cake. It is nothing that addresses urban planning issues or issues of economy. A good architect can design aesthetically pleasant buildings that meet other urban requirements as well.

A cut and paste, sorry....

Was there any doubt? Just raise taxes! We all have endless pockets. Total waste of tax payers money! I'm sick and tired of all forms of government reaching further in to our pockets everyday while their corporate buddies and themselves just get richer. Whats wrong with this country? And don't forget user fees and rising Hydro, Telus, Terasen bills etc going up day by day. Just can't get ahead anymore.

Camoose, you are right. I checked Summerland newspaper and they held a referendom October 2. No result yet.

It passed easily ....

It is all those people on a fixed income who made their money elsewhere, and ran with it, leaving places like ours high and dry .... LoL

http://www.bclocalnews.com/okanagan_similkameen/pentictonwesternnews/news/104224029.html

"The building is expected to cost between $4.1 and $4.5 million and last for around 50 years."

At the rate that Summerland will grow over that time period .... dream on ... they will need an expansion within 15 to 20 years.

So they have 12 or so staff .... we have 10 times as much, so we 10 times as much space for 10 times as many dollars ...... but our base building is an RCMP building, not a restaurant.

From Summerland

"We expect to finance most of the construction costs through the Municipal Finance Authority. The taxes required to pay these costs will be approximately $11.00 per thousand dollars of assessment. Therefore, a property with an assessed value of $400,000 will pay $44.00 more in property taxes. This amount is likely to decrease over time as the total assessment values for Summerland grows."

Look at the value of a "representative house there. Two different solitudes ..... we do not appreciate what we have .... with such low cost housing ....

http://www.dist.summerland.bc.ca/Local%20Projects/RCMP_Station/RCMP_STAtion.htm