On the way to becoming a university, Red Deer College is also paving the way for local partnerships with Collegiate Sports Medicine and the Central Alberta Child Advocacy Centre.
Red Deer city council gave initial approval Monday to a land use bylaw amendment that would allow these two operations to move onto college property.
While RDC’s land is designated as ‘Public Service,’ college officials wanted to add ‘Commercial Service Facility’ and ‘Health and Medical Service’ discretionary uses to 100 College Boulevard. This would permit RDC to partner with Collegiate Sports Medicine and the Central Alberta Child Advocacy Centre.
In a letter to the City of Red Deer, RDC’s vice-president of college services, Jim Brinkhurst, said both the business and the advocacy centre would allow for enhanced student learning opportunities if they were allowed to operate on campus.
The Central Alberta Children’s Advocacy Centre will be offering treatment and support to abused children, youth and their families. The centre’s addition to the RDC campus will also allow RDC to become a “centre of excellence for child advocacy services” by developing training and professional development, credit and non-credit education programs, and research opportunities related to these services.
There are also plans for Collegiate Sports Medicine to have minor occupancy in RDC’s new Gary W. Harris Canada Games Centre sports complex. This would allow RDC to have similar teaching and training opportunities “to augment our current physical and occupational therapy programs,” said Brinkhurst in his letter.
City administration recommended in favour of RDC’s requested bylaw amendments, providing RDC provides a more detailed letter demonstrating the specific training and applied learning opportunities this would create.
Council gave unanimous approval to the first reading of the land use bylaw amendment (Councillors Tanya Handley and Ken Johnston were absent).
While Coun. Vesna Higham had a problem with this “piece meal” approach to determining land use, she was prepared to support the bylaw amendment’s first reading in hopes there would be further discussion about taking a “broader” approach in future.
lmichelin@reddeeradvocate.com
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