Vancouver also has the highest
level of opposition to new residential
development from city council and
community groups. Moreover, the city
has the highest costs, on average, to
comply with residential development
regulations. Estimates show it costs
almost $78,000 for every new unit of
housing built, whereas the typical cost
of regulatory compliance in Port
Moody, New Westminster, Pitt Mead-
ows and Langley is less than $10,000
per unit. Even in neighbouring Burn-
aby, typical compliance costs are ap-
proximately $15,000 per unit of new
housing. ALBERTA
Indigenous training program
receives $500,000 in
government support
Governments are granting $500,000
for the Indigenous Trade Winds to Suc-
cess Training Society’s 16-week pre-
apprenticeship program, which offers
classroom and hands-on instruction to
students pursuing careers as carpen-
ters, electricians, ironworkers, mill-
wrights, plumbers, steam/pipefitters,
welders or insulators.

The training program also incorpo-
rates Indigenous cultural practices,
such as elder mentorship and a daily
smudge ceremony. As well, instruc-
tors have a better understanding of the
unique issues that Indigenous stu-
dents can face and are able to help
them overcome challenges and barri-
ers to success.

Fabio Filice to lead Calgary
Construction Association
Fabio Filice has taken the helm as
president of the Calgary Construction
Association as Dave Smith retires,
concluding a career there that started
in 1984.

Filice, who began his new role May
1, is new to the industry, the Calgary
Herald reported. Chairman Chris
Bardell, the senior project manager at
Ledcor Construction, says the new
president was eagerly endorsed by the
selection committee due to his work
experience, leadership and ability to
build relationships.

Felice played football as an offen-
sive lineman with the Calgary Stam-
peders, retiring after the team’s 2008
Grey Cup Win. In business, he has
been an accountant (he has an MBA in
Finance from McMaster University in
Hamilton) and most recently worked
as president and general manager of
Gridiron Drilling Services.

Smith will stay on until the end of
June to assist Felice before moving to
the Okanagan in B.C.

Blatchford redevelopment
starts at former Edmonton
Municipal Airport
Work has started on the Blatchford
project at the site of the former Ed-
monton Municipal Airport.

“It’s a big day,” site executive direc-
tor Mark Hall said in early May, while
standing in the decades-old airport
control tower. “We’ve spent a lot of
time and energy planning to do some-
thing and now we’re actually starting
to do something.”
The development was delayed in
March 2016 because city councillors
wanted to learn more about the district
energy system, the Edmonton Journal
has reported. In December, however,
council voted to approve $19 million to
kick-start the project’s first phase.

Hall says it is gratifying to have
crews finally working on the ground.

“We’ve spent four or five or six years
planning on what we’re doing,” he
said. “But now it’s got to a point where
you can hold the plans and the ap-
provals, and then turn around and look
out at the site and see something be
done with it. There has been lots of
hard work and it’s taken a while.”
Later this year, workers will begin
drilling boreholes under one of the
site’s storm water ponds for the
geoexchange, which is one of the re-
newable energy sources for the sys-
tem, Hall said.

Once the utilities are installed, the
city will then begin the local road con-
struction. Crews will recycle about one-third
of the former airport runways (by
crushing them into concrete, asphalt
and gravel) to construct the commu-
nity’s future roads.

“One of the overall objectives is that
we have to create a sustainable com-
munity,” Hall said. “If we had chosen
to just pull up the runways and take all
the material to the landfill, there would
have been a huge environmental cost
in driving to the disposal site and actu-
ally disposing of it.”
Hall said residents can expect build-
ings next year. The builder selection
process will begin this summer with
presale of the first units expected in
2018. SASKATCHEWAN
The work includes installing storm,
sanitary and water services, as well as
piping for the district energy system –
which will provide heating, cooling and
hot water to buildings via heat from
the ground, sewer and sun when com-
plete. Saskatoon area building
permits spike to $219.8
million in first quarter
Saskatoon area building permits
have spiked 26 per cent, to $219.8 mil-
lion from the $175 million recorded in
the first quarter of 2016, says the pres-
ident of the Saskatchewan Construc-
tion Association (SCA).

The Canadian Design and Construction Report — June 2017 – 37