The city’s lone NPA councillor wants city staff to look at options for building a scrapped Burnaby pre-trial centre in Vancouver.
“A centre like this is a big economic driver for a city,” said Coun. Suzanne Anton yesterday. “It has lots of jobs and lots of economic activity just in maintaining the building and the facility itself.”
A planned jail for people awaiting trial at the former Willingdon Youth Detention Centre was cancelled in March when it met community resistance and Burnaby city council rezoned the site.
John van Dongen, then B.C.’s solicitor general, threw the hot potato back to Metro Vancouver, giving area mayors until September to select one of 60 sites for the facility. A report in 2007 identified one site in Vancouver near Marine Drive and Fraser Street.
