Three dozen new child care spaces are set to open up this summer in downtown Kamloops, with a focus on City employees.
“The City of Kamloops is pleased to announce that with the recent success of a ChildCareBC New Spaces Fund application, it will be moving ahead with the development of a 36-space child care facility in Station Plaza at 510 Lorne Street,” said the City in a release on Tuesday.
“Construction has already begun on the site, with an anticipated grand opening scheduled around August 1, 2024.”
The City says the new Lorne Street Child Care Centre will be managed by the Vancouver Island-based Saltair Childcare Society, which runs the daycare at Ralph Bell Elementary in Valleyview.
The new daycare will have 12 spaces for children up to 30 months, as well as 24 spaces for children aged 30 months to school age.
The City’s Human Resources Director Colleen Quigley says while municipal employees will have priority access, the Lorne Street daycare will not be subsidized through municipal property taxes.
“The rates are set based on the affordability benchmarks in the province’s childcare fee reduction initiative, and they will not be further subsidized for city employees,” Quigley said.
“All the pricing, registration, it will be finalized once the facility is fully licensed, and the Saltair Childcare Society will be responsible for that.”
She says city employees will be able to register their children starting next Tuesday, April 9, at 6 p.m., when the childcare contact list opens.
“Kamloops staff will get priority on a first come, first serve basis, and then after two weeks, if all the spots are not filled by city employees, then Saltair will open up the contact list to the community,” Quigley said.
Speaking on NL Newsday, Quigley says work on the new facility began after 45 per cent of respondents to a 2022 survey of city employees said they had trouble finding adequate child care.
“We were hearing things like staff turned down promotions or they couldn’t take certain shifts. We even had staff off on parental leave that didn’t know if they’re going to be able to return to their job because they didn’t know if they’re going to have day care,” Quigley said.
“We really sat back and said, ‘okay, what can we do.'”
The City also says it is “actively engaged” with a community working group to address the broader needs for child care in Kamloops, saying it is still working to “partner where it can” to try to create more child care spaces. That work, they say, includes policies like a ten-year municipal tax exemption for new commercial daycare buildings.
“With the much-appreciated ChildCareBC New Spaces Fund, offering access to child care is now a cost-effective way for the City to maintain and attract the workforce we need to provide core services to Kamloops residents,” Quigley said, in a City news release. “As we work to assess and meet the needs of City employees, the needs of the broader community have been a key consideration.”
“Spots unfilled by City employees will be available to other families in the community, and the overall increase in local child care capacity is a win for everyone.”
