Société Francophone de Maillardville is calling on the city of Coquitlam to support its effort to build a new facility dedicated to the preservation of French-Canadian cultural heritage.
With redevelopment plans getting underway for Place Maillardville community centre, the society’s executive director, Johanne Dumas, said there is the potential for finding a location on the Cartier Avenue property to build a separate space for her organization.
“Coquitlam has an opportunity to celebrate its unique Francophone Maillardville heritage that we are at risk of losing,” she told city councillors during a presentation last week. “Opportunities for program expansion is needed, especially with French-speaking newcomers, Korean and Chinese families who are interested in the Canadian linguistic duality.”
During the presentation, Dumas cited some of the findings from last year’s Community and Facility Needs Assessment, which states that there is sufficient demand for a new building in the region. The cultural centre is necessary, she added, to expand programs for arts and culture as well as to offer services for children, families and seniors.
There are opportunities to receive funding from higher levels of government for the project bit city approvals are needed before the grants can be sought, Dumas told council.
Ruben Goinden, a member of the society’s board, said the group would like to see a standalone centre but is open to other arrangements that could be worked out with the city and organizations in the neighbourhood.
Ideally, he told council,+the new space would be approximately 6,000 sq. ft., which would be used for administrative offices and public spaces for a bistro cafe and gallery as well as an exhibition space for film screenings, performances and meetings.
“We are open for co-location with Place Maillardville or a separate standalone facility,” he said. “Our preference is a separate facility with distinctive signage adjacent to the proposed new Place Maillardville community centre in the heart of historical Maillardville or wherever the city sees fit to establish this new building.”
He explained the difference between Place Maillardville, a multicultural centre that would serve the broader community, and the cultural centre, which would have “a distinctly cultural and historical Maillardville theme with French-Canadian cultural heritage, Francophone focus and bilingual Francophile appeal.”
Raul Allueva, the city’s general manager of parks, recreation and culture, said staff is aware the society is looking for a larger space but it is too early in the process to determine how the organization may fit into plans for a future Place Maillardville.
“It is very early,” he said. “There have been discussions with all of the groups but it is not at the point where we are presenting out to the public.”
According to Coquitlam’s Parks, Recreation and Culture Master Plan, Place Maillardville facility planning is expected to take place this year, while renewal of the facility is slated for 2019.
Bill Boons, president of Place Maillardville’s board of directors, said he, too, has had conversations with Dumas over the years and that the two organizations have a good relationship. But he noted that proposals for the future community centre cannot move forward until the city makes some significant decisions about its plans for the property.
“We aren’t looking at this point to compromise our space until we know a little bit more about what is coming,” he said, later adding: “Once decisions are made about the site and what the building may look like, then we will have more information.”
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