Saturday December 21, 2019 ~ LANGFORD
~ West Shore Voice News
On Friday night December 20 after the 86 tenants at the Danbrook One building in Langford were notified by the City that the building’s occupancy permit had been revoked, two key things happened: a response centre was set up nearby (at 780 Goldstream Avenue) and a GoFundMe page was set up (at https://www.gofundme.com/f/residents-of-danbrook-one-fund ).
Tenants are being assisted today and tomorrow (December 21 and 22) with information and arrangements for temporary accommodation in hotels, all paid for by the City of Langford. Meanwhile, Mayor Stew Young says the GoFundMe page with a goal of $20,000 is to cover other support expenses for the displaced tenants, such as “food and essentials and holiday compassion”.
By 11:20 am today Saturday December 21, there had already been $7,020 in pledges made on the GoFundMe page. The page says it is launched by Danbrook One (under the category of Accidents and Emergencies), with supporting text by the Langford Economic Development Committee as the organizing proponent. The Langford Economic Development Committee is a city-affiliated group mostly contributed to by the development community.
Tenants learned last night that a third-party engineering review of the brand new Danbrook One apartment building at 2766 Claude Road in the Langford core shows that “certain aspects of the building’s structural design and its as-built structure do not meet engineering requirements and are not sufficient to mitigate risks to lie safety of the tenants”. The engineering review was done by WSP consulting, who submitted their preliminary summary to the City of Langford on December 20.
The WSP report confirms that the Danbrook One building is “not in compliance with the BC Building Code” and as such the City has “temporarily revoked the occupancy permit of 2766 Claude Road until the recommended immediate repairs are made”. The occupancy permit will be reinstated once remedial repairs have been completed. The building owner Centurion Property Associates is cooperating with the relocation effort, but says they did not themselves ask the tenants to relocate.
Langford Mayor Stew Young says the structural changes to be done includes column support for beams in the basement and second level. He says that it should take about two weeks (or a few months) for the work to be done on a temporary basis, and that a permanent fix will follow.
There are 86 units rented in the 90-unit building. Tenants were notified on December 18 of this possible eventuality, and then on Friday evening (from 6:15 to 7 pm) were told about the Occupancy Permit being revoked. In a letter they were asked to relocate immediately into temporary hotel accommodation.
Why all this disruption for tenants so close to Christmas? Yesterday Langford Mayor Stew Young said that it’s about ‘safety first’, even before the engineering issues had been made known to Langford or the developer.
“Unfortunately waiting till after Christmas to inform residents was never a professional or responsible option,” says Mayor Young. “It’s about making sure the tenants are aware no matter how bad the news was, public safety is the first priority for Langford,” he told West Shore Voice News.
===== Previous Articles:
- December 18 – Danbrook One renters taking up relocation options
- December 19 – Danbrook One owner is shocked by engineering deficiency allegations
- December 20 – City of Langford revokes Danbrook One occupancy permit