TRI-CITY NEWS Feb.24,06

SPCA planning to build new local facility

COLLEEN FLANAGAN/THE TRI-CITY NEWS

By Janis Warren The Tri-City News
Feb 24 2006

Port Coquitlam city hall will back the SPCA's drive to get a new regional shelter built by 2013.
Council's letter of support for the SPCA comes after the city received a complaint about the state of the 50-year-old Coquitlam shelter, which has a five-year contract with PoCo to provide animal-control services.
"The shelter absolutely needs to be replaced," branch manager Hugh Nichols said at last week's protective services committee, which is sending the letter on the city's behalf.
Nichols said the BC SPCA will launch a capital campaign in 2008 - when the PoCo contract runs out - to build the shelter, serving both the Tri-Cities and Maple Ridge/Pitt Meadows.
The proposed mega-shelter would likely be on at least five acres and would offer new programs. As well, Nichols said, the shelter would have larger, heated pens for the animals.
Nichols said the current Coquitlam shelter was built in the 1960s when no residents lived nearby. Now, some homeowners are complaining about noise from the facility.
This month, PoCo city hall got a letter from a resident who said she was "appalled at the substandard and dilapidated facility" that PoCo taxpayers' dollars are supporting.
BC SPCA spokesperson Lorie Chortyk said the charity has been wanting to replace the Coquitlam shelter "for some time. Now that it's firmly in our strategic plan, we'll do that."
The society is replacing its Penticton shelter this year and, in 2010, there will be a new Surrey facility. The Tri-Cities/Ridge-Meadows shelter is on the books for 2013.
The cost for the new regional building (excluding land) is budgeted at $5 million, though a location has yet to be determined. "At this point, we have to deal with, Where is the greatest need? We just don't have the answers yet," Chortyk said.
Currently, the SPCA has animal-control contracts at its Coquitlam site with PoCo, Anmore and Belcarra. PoCo's contract - worth $812,266 over five years - ends in 2008 (the city has had a contract with the SPCA for more than 33 years).
Last year, the Coquitlam shelter took in 1,115 animals while the Ridge-Meadows shelter handled 1,743 animals.