City Council to receive report on increasing washroom access downtown

Prince George City Council will receive a report on public access to washrooms in Downtown Prince George.

Council voted to request the report at tonight’s (Monday) meeting.

This stems from a Notice of Motion that Councillors Tim Bennett and Trudy Klassen brought forward.

As part of the Notice of Motion, the report will detail the cost of two recommendations from a 2019 staff report.

The first option is to open the washrooms at Canada Games Plaza from 7:00 am to 11:00 pm daily with an experienced and skilled monitor on-site during operating hours.

The other option is to enhance access to washrooms located in selected downtown service provider locations by providing funding to enable dedicated monitoring services.

“A lot has changed in five years, at that point administration recommended that options two and one would probably be the more cost effective of the two,” Bennett said.

“What the recommendation today is asking for administration to basically look at those two options and determine what an updated price would be so council had the information to consider.”

Councillor Brian Skakun added that when the City opened washrooms at Canada Games Plaza, it was a trainwreck.

“That helped the destruction of Canada Games Plaza, because those washrooms got beat up,” Skakun said.

“As soon as they moved in there, the folks that used those washrooms that destroyed some of the property down there, moved into the library, and the library, it just compounded the problems in that area, so we have to keep in mind, if we’re going to talk about washrooms, and I agree we need them downtown, where are they going to be, and what is the fallout going to be if we just have open washrooms downtown because there’s a history with those.”

Councillor Cori Ramsay suggested the potential to have a key for the washrooms.

“We now have Tourism Prince George in the Civic Plaza, so I am curious about the possibility of them having fob cards for access for tourists and visitors,” Ramsay said.

Additionally, the Notice of Motion also calls for staff to build a question or option in appropriate future surveys about public washroom access to determine need and demand, as well as exploring grant opportunities to expand washroom access in the city.

It also refers to Council’s Standing Committee on Intergovernmental Affairs to develop an advocacy plan to lobby both the Provincial and Federal Governments for increased capital funding to communities to ensure safe and clean access to washrooms for all residents.

Other items discussed tonight included a public hearing on a residential development in College Heights, and an interim Housing Needs Report.