Peachland POST YOUR COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER
The week of May 16, 2025
BREATHLESS Your body is trying to tell you something, says Dawn Boys P.6
ALL PURPOSE Klip hails the benefits of having an all-purpose retail store P.8
Visit our website at peachlandpost.org • Vol. 1 Issue 20
ABOUT TOWN Find out what’s going on and where it’s happening P.11
CAR CLASSIC Old autos take over Beach Avenue this weekend P.3
PUBLIC INFRASTRUCTURE
To P3 or not P3… That is the question…
Peachland is suffering the misfortune of having a crumbling firehall while lacking the funds to pay for a replacement By John McDonald
W
Staff Reporter
hile the Downtown Revitalization Strategy is recommending increases to allowable building heights along the main drag, the first truly tall building in Peachland is not likely to be anywhere near downtown but on 13th Street where it meets Highway 97. And it’s probably not going to be a high-rise full of gleaming market priced condos but more likely affordable rental housing apartments stacked on top of a Peachland Fire & Rescue Service
firehall, a community policing office, a B.C. Ambulance station and possibly even a new city hall. At least that’s the vision of Peachland Mayor Patrick Van Minsel, who is pushing for a so-called public private partnership to secure what he calls a “desperately needed replacement” for the current crumbling firehall on 3rd Street. “We need this building very urgently. It’s already overdue,” Van Minsel told the Peachland Post, listing off the reasons why the building, which is over 60 years old, no longer fits the bill. “It currently does not meet health,
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John McDonald photo
Both the Peachland Fire & Rescue Service building and the District of Peachland municipal hall are in need of replacement.
safety and fire code requirements. It’s too small to accommodate everything. It’s not centrally located. It wasn’t built as a fire hall but as a public works facility.” While Peachland voters agreed through referendum in 2022 to borrow $17.5 million to build a replacement firehall, Van Minsel said the price of the
Youth Account & Book
building as it was then envisioned has ballooned to $28 million, without considering the cost of temporarily relocating the fire service during construction. Peachland’s city hall is of a similar age and condition, Van Minsel says, and the sale of the SEE FIREHALL PAGE 7
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