Whereas the Province of BC has committed to supporting universal childcare and launched the New Spaces Fund to create thousands of new childcare spaces across BC; And whereas many rural and remote communities in BC face higher-than-average construction costs, including additional hazard mitigation and flood construction level requirements, also face a high unmet community demand for safe, affordable, and licensed childcare facilities: Therefore be it resolved that UBCM request that the Minister of State for Child Care work with the Ministry of Children and Family Development to define exceptional circumstances within the New Spaces Funding criteria to include consideration of the impacts of the following: - Demonstrated high need for more child care spaces - Flood and other hazard mitigation construction costs - Higher than average land, labour and construction costs - Limited availability of public lands fit for child care use - Low commercial vacancy rates - High cost of commercial spaces to enable the approval of applications that exceed the current 40,000 per space threshold.
