City of North Vancouver childcare service providers such as Park Place Daycare are being forced to pack up and ship out due to limited spaces and rising rent prices. Stephanie Snider, whose children go to Park Place, has led a delegation to City of North Vancouver council asking for their help in “[identifying] barriers to the provision of space in the city” for daycare spaces.
Snider has pinpointed an important disconnect between the city’s ambitious development plans and their provision of necessary amenities. Snider, whose family lives in the quickly developing commercial hub of Marine Drive, said the city should be aware of the need to provide for the type of families who will reside there.
“There are many condos going up along Marine Drive as part of a move to provide more affordable housing in North Van, so where are all the new young families supposed to take their kids?” she said.
Carolyn Peters, the owner of Park Place Daycare, is now moving her daycare near the North Shore Winter Sports facilities, kilometres away from Snider who used to only walk two blocks to drop off her children.
Part of the reason Peters had to leave was because the property owners of the building said they would not make the changes to the building that would make it seismically safe, a potential risk Peters wasn’t willing to take.
Peters said it has been difficult finding a space that was both seismically sound and affordable, and only found her new space after more than a year of looking. She also pointed to the fact that as it is, parents from Vancouver are driving their children over to the North Shore just to find a daycare space – it’s already difficult enough for Vancouver residents to find a good daycare space, and now North Vancouver is facing similar issues. With growing wait lists, the city needs to recognize that the provision of child care is a necessity.
Samantha Johncox and Amy Danks of Sweet Peas Cottage, a daycare centre in North Vancouver, seconded the notion that the city needs to step up and recognize the importance of affordable child care for its growing number of young families.
At a Feb. 6 council meeting, council unanimously carried a motion to have the city work in tandem with the provincial and federal governments to begin prioritizing child care services.
Peters, Johncos, Danx and Snider have created a Facebook page where updates on the development of their cause are posted.
A recent North Shore News article detailed some background on this issue.
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