UBC-Okanagan will replace damaged Kelowna building, citing ethical responsibility – Okanagan

A year and a half after residents were forced out of their affordable housing complex near downtown Kelowna, B.C., the roughly 80 residents received news this week they will never return to the building again.

“I was a little caught off-guard to hear that there was a new building intended for Wilson-Hadgraft Place and Pathways,” said former resident Megan Beckmann.

The single mom of three was among the dozens of people displaced from Hadgraft-Wilson Place in April of 2024 due to structural damage.

The building was home to residents on low income, many of them with disabilities.

Cracks started appearing in the newly-constructed building not long after UBC-Okanagan started its downtown campus build behind it.

It was eventually deemed unsafe, prompting the building to be evacuated.

Now, a year and a half later, a working committee made up of UBC Properties Trust, the City of Kelowna and Pathways Abilities Society, the building’s operator, has reached a deal that will see the university-controlled developer step up to replace the building.

“We have legal obligations to the community  but we also also have ethical responsibilities in the community,” said Lesley Cormack, UBC-Okanagan’s deputy vice-chancellor and principal.

“You know, I’m very sorry. We’re collectively very sorry about what happened at the Haggard Wilson Place, and we really did want to make it possible for a new space for residents to live in.”

That new space will be on a UBC-O purchased parcel of land near Capri Mall.

Once the building is finished, the city and university will do a land swap.

UBC-O will acquire the old Hadgraft-Wilson property and the new site will be owned by the city.

“We had tenants that were what they thought was their forever home in HWP had that disruption, so certainly there has been a lot of pain and suffering throughout this,” said Alan Clay, Pathways executive director.

“And I think that’s why it was so important for us to focus on a positive outcome and resolution.”

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Demolition of the structures currently on the future site of the news pathways building will begin in October, with construction of the new building expected to be completed about two years after that.

However, Pathways said it cannot confirm whether the former tenants will be given priority in securing a unit.

“We’ll be looking at the roster of tenants that we had in the previous building, where they are now, what their plans are and, you know, obviously, because it’s an affordable housing complex, tenants will have to meet B.C. housing guidelines for affordability,” said Clay.

It means former residents, like Beckmann, will have to re-apply if they want back in.

Beckman said making residents do that doesn’t seem right.

“Just because of the damage that we have suffered already,” Beckmann said. “Our people deserve more.”

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