After almost a decade without a place of convenience, Nelson Park finally has a washroom which should be ready for use this summer.
The timing couldn’t be better because after almost 10 years of writing about the long-awaited loo, editors at the Courier were struggling to top past headlines such as “Nelson Park going to potty” from 2006, “Community leader raises stink over washroom plan” from 2008, or this nugget from 2011, “Nelson Park residents flush with relief.”
Vision Vancouver park board commissioner Aaron Jasper was a director with the West End Residents Association (WERA) in 2006 when a redevelopment design for the park was unveiled with no plans for a washroom. The park’s fieldhouse and washrooms were demolished as part of the redesign. At the time, staff said the board’s budget lacked the money to build washrooms during the initial phase of the redevelopment.
Estimates for the tender on the project came back twice what was budgeted — while the board was hoping to spend $800,000 on the project, the lowest bid came in at $1.26 million.
In 2011 Jasper told the Courier: “I feel like I’ve been working on this forever.” More than two years later, Jasper said a casual conversation that same year with Peter Judd, the city’s general manager of engineering, got the ball rolling.
“I said ‘do you happen to have any of those self-cleaning, wheelchair-accessible toilets hanging around?’” said Jasper. “And he said ‘no, but we can order one.’”
But because CBS/JC Decaux makes the washrooms in France, it took almost two years for the unit be ordered, built and shipped to Vancouver.
“We probably could have had one in place two years ago, but I insisted it had to be accessible,” said Jasper, who added once the washroom arrived it was decided the original location wouldn’t work. Jasper said the washroom now has to be hooked up to a sewer line and a paved accessible wheelchair ramp must be built before it can be used.
Over the years, West End resident Brent Granby also argued against the loss of the washroom. In 2010, the then-president of WERA went so far as to hold a “Potty Power” protest in the park including babies, toddlers and green portable potties he gave away to families who took part. Granby’s slogan at the time was, “When you have to go, you have to go,” and the protest was designed to demonstrate the need for a washroom in the park.
In 2006, Granby argued unsuccessfully the park board should keep the fieldhouse and washrooms as programming space. At the time, the park board said a washroom would likely be built sometime during the 2009-2011 capital plan but that didn’t happen. Granby was out with his camera last week taking photos of the toilet and posting them on social media.
The Nelson Park washroom issue was also of concern to Spencer Chandra Herbert, NDP MLA for Vancouver-West End, who wrote park board general manager Malcolm Bromley last year requesting an update on installation of the washroom.
“West End residents have been holding it since 2006 and they’ll be greatly relieved that this washroom is finally being built,” Chandra Herbert told the Courier this week.
sthomas@vancourier.com
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