The contractor working on the Royal Columbian Hospital expansion project is trying to address the concerns of Sapperton residents.
In order to do concrete slab surface finishing work that’s required as part of the RCH redevelopment project, EllisDon Design Build applied to the city for a construction noise bylaw exemption. The original request would have allowed work to be done from 8 p.m. to midnight Monday to Friday and 6 p.m. to midnight on Saturday – on an average of six evenings each month from now until Jan. 31, 2023 (excluding Sundays, statutory holidays and the period from Dec. 24, 2022 to Jan. 1, 2023).
Serena Trachta, the city’s acting manager of integrated services, told council Monday night that staff had originally submitted a noise variance request on behalf of EllisDon for those dates, but the company revised its request in response to a recent meeting between Fraser Health and area residents.
“We have submitted a last-minute change that EllisDon has requested to reduce the number of hours and days that they are going to be asking for the noise variance exemption, in order to mitigate some of the concerns from the neighbourhood,” she said.
Instead of requesting a variance for an average of six evenings a month, EllisDon reduced its request to three days a month, Trachta said.
“They have cut back the hours a bit, so that it’s 11 p.m., as well as agreeing not to do Fridays and Saturdays on long weekends, to try and minimize the impact to the families in the neighbourhood,” she said.
A report to council stated that surface finishing work is essential to meet the operational specifications in the hospital.
“One of the things to be aware of, part of this process is a little bit unusual because, once they pour the concrete they need to vibrate it to meet the operation room and operational standards of the hospital,” Trachta said. “So it’s a bit unusual. You don’t have this second step in some construction projects, but we do with the hospital.”
Coun. Nadine Nakagawa said it’s nice to hear that EllisDon is being so responsive to the neighbourhood’s concerns. She said some community members have stated that RCH is not actually abiding by the construction times allowed by the city.
Trachta said the city contacts EllisDon about these concerns when they’re raised in the neighbourhood.
“They have not found subcontractors on some of these days that are producing this noise,” she told council. “There are a couple of other construction projects that are occurring in the area, and what we are trying to do is work with the neighbourhood to be very specific about identifying where the noise is coming from.”
Trachta said it can be difficult for residents to identify the source of construction noise if it’s happening at night or in the early morning hours, but efforts are being made to find the source of those complaints and to take action. She said the contractor has informed trades people that they’re not to be on-site outside of the approved work hours.
“The other thing that we have done is we have reached out to police because our team is not working in the evenings. We have let the residents know they should call the police non-emergency number. … They will respond to those calls,” she said. “They will manage those calls if they come in and then we will triage with them the next day to try and find out the location of the sound as well, if they’re able to identify it. So we are taking steps to try and identify these locations. We do not have proof at this point that those breaches are actually coming from the hospital site.”
