Due to a change in the provincial funding that Wollaston Township believed would help them build their newly designed fire hall, they’re now shifting gears to building a “municipal hub.”
Reeve of Wollaston Township Barb Shaw says that while the funding opportunity is lost for the fire hall, they will continue to work on building a new one. “The fire hall is still a top priority for us,” she says. The plans for the hall will be scaled back and Shaw says the building of it will be self-financed. “Wollaston Township luckily is in a pretty good financial state so we should be able to achieve that,” she adds. Shaw credits Coe Hill’s firefighters for doing great work in “less than satisfactory” conditions with their current fire hall.
As for the municipal hub, Shaw says it will incorporate a library, a new municipal office and a co-working area. She says a new library is “desperately” needed and the municipal office isn’t in good shape. Shaw points out that the library in Coe Hill is situated in “leaky portable.” She says she’s excited about the co-working area because it can be used by community groups or those in the community who are self-employed to get work done. She adds that the firefighters could also take advantage of the space for training. “That’s why we’re scaling down the firehall plans because we can use the community hub space for some of the needs that we would have been met in the firehall,” she says.
Shaw says both buildings will be located on main street in Wollaston.
Greenview Environmental was working on the plans for the new fire hall and Shaw says they will now begin developing preliminary plans for the municipal hub. They will also work on scaling down their previous designs for the new fire hall.
There will be a public meeting on October 30th to discuss the new plans. The location of the meeting has yet to be announced.