Dear editor:
Many islanders will have noticed the recent site preparation work for the new health centre on Miller Road next to the municipality’s site for the new fire hall.
This marks a huge milestone for the community. After more than five years of planning, consultation, design, and permitting – and, of course, fundraising – we’ve begun actual site work for our health centre and plan to break ground in a few months. Thanks to the generosity of Bowen Island, better access to health care is becoming a reality.
In clearing the health centre lot, our aim was to preserve as many trees as we could. As the work proceeded, we had a professional arborist on-site to make the call on the potential risks to our building and to the trees themselves – their root systems and water supply – resulting from our building and infrastructure footprint. Everyone who worked on the site was dedicated to saving trees wherever they felt it could be done. It is a small site with extensive coverage required for the building footprint and requirements for parking, pedestrian and vehicular access and site services, and we were unable to safely retain the trees. Once construction is completed on the building, we will be able to proceed with landscaping to restore a natural beauty to the site.
The health centre foundation is a charitable organization and is able to issue tax receipts for donations. Our thanks to local contractors and consultants who contributed time, labour and/or equipment for their generosity, expertise and hard work, including Randy Arnott of Twin Island Excavating, Shane Tweten of Greenscape Enterprises, and Daron Jennings of Bowen Island Properties.
For their advice and direction helping us stay between the lines, thank you to Bonny Brokenshire, Patrick Graham and Paul Gaudet at the municipality.
Thanks as well to Eddie Weismiller of J&E Backhoe, who is donating the use of a woodchipper to help deal with the debris.
On Saturday, March 6 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., the wood chips will be available to the public by donation at our Lot 3 site on Miller Road.
Thanks to Andy Rainsley at Bowenshire Stonework & Landscaping, who has volunteered to be there to help with loading— bring your own container and transport. We hope the chips from our site find good uses in the gardens of Bowen and they continue to nurture us all!
Tim Rhodes
President, Bowen Island Health Centre Foundation
