Elevator installation pledge up, up and away

Concerned after the postponement of an elevator's installation to a seniors' community centre in Pointe Claire to help shuttle users up after the city and provincial government could not come to an agreement, residents are planning to take the matter into their own hands. "I first want to study exactly what kind of exchanges occurred between the city and the Régie du bâtiment du Québec," said resident Yvon Calbert, but he added he has not ruled out renting a bus and going to Quebec City with a group of like-minded citizens himself. According to Pointe Claire council meeting minutes available on the city's website, Calbert has occasionally shown up at meetings since last March to remind elected representatives of the need for an elevator at Centre Noël Legault on Lakeshore Road.. He did so again Monday Nov. 16, when Mayor Bill McMurchie told him the Régie, a provincial agency which governs building code and safety in Quebec, has declined the city's request for permission to build an elevator on the grounds that any update would require bringing the building fully up to new provincial norms. That, McMurchie said, would come up to around $600,000, simply outside of the city's budget. "They could not approve of a proposition with just the addition of an elevator inside the community centre," McMurchie later told The Chronicle. McMurchie said the city has not forgotten its pledge to have an elevator there by next year, and is currently looking at various options as council prepares both the budget for 2010 and its triennial capital expenditures budget. If it proves cost-efficient, one option may even be to demolish Noël Legault, which was originally built as the city's water filtration plant and then converted once Pointe Claire built a new plant right next door, and rebuild a seniors' community centre in its place, he said. The mayor added he welcomed citizen involvement on the dossier. "I wouldn't discourage anyone from taking an action that they thought would be appropriate under the circumstances," he said. Meeting minutes show that a call for bidding on an elevator and wheelchair-accessible bathroom was first delayed by Pointe Claire's council in January 2008. Another delay occurred the next month, and no such item has appeared on council's agenda since that time. As they played card games last Wednesday in a hall on the second floor of the community centre, accessible only by a turning stairway, seniors were not happy with the situation. "I fell off the stairs once," recalled Yvette Dupont. "I fell down eight steps," she said, and even had to be rushed to the hospital, though her head injury proved to be minor in the end. Marie-Berthe Séguin, president of the city's Club d' Âge d'Or, a social group for golden-age residents of the city that includes about 165 members, estimated that up to 20 more seniors would show up for activities if the second floor was more accessible. She flipped through a notebook where attendance at each such activity was carefully written down, showing about 30 to 40 attendees every time. "We have friends who live in the Villa St. Louis (seniors' residence) that would love to come play cards, but they don't because they aren't capable," Séguin said. Calbert, who is also a member of the club's executive, said there are no other problems at the centre, except for the lack of a wheelchair-accessible front entrance. The Régie du bâtiment du Québec did not return telephone calls for comment.