Almost six weeks after tenants at Charter House in James Bay were dislocated due to concerns about a renovation-related disturbance of asbestos, they’re moving back in, four weeks later than first advised.
Re-occupancy has the approval of both WorkSafe B.C. and Island Health, “following test results and analysis provided by certified environmental consultants,” Danny Roth, spokesman for Devon Properties Ltd. and Starlight Group Property Holdings Inc., said in a statement. Clearance to return was received late Wednesday afternoon, and he estimated half the tenants from the previously occupied 61 units have returned.
In a letter Wednesday from the Vancouver Island Health Authority, tenants were told that asbestos was found in four of 58 air samples taken on the top seven floors before cleanup of the building begun — with one fibre found in three of the four samples, the fourth being unreadable.
“This is not unexpected and would be within what is considered background levels of asbestos in an indoor environment,” said Dr. Murray Fyfe, medical officer for Island Health. It was not possible to determine the chance of exposure to asbestos from settled dust samples, which revealed fewer than 12 fibres apiece in four of 44 samples, he added.
In summary, “these findings suggest that the chance of exposure to airborne asbestos was not elevated at the time and locations of sampling. While these results are reassuring, it cannot be determined with certainty if they are representative of each suite within the building or at various time points in the past,” Fyfe wrote.
The relocation of tenants to a downtown hotel began on Jan. 27 after isolated samples were found to contain elevated levels of asbestos that required further testing and remediation.
There is always a challenge in setting a date for something as unusual as evacuating a building, Roth said.
“We’re all cognizant of how difficult this has been,” he said Thursday, thanking tenants for their co-operation considering the “incredible burden and challenge” the situation entailed. That said, he thinks that the company could have “probably done a better job” of keeping tenants in the loop.
Tenant Paul Mitchell said Thursday he believes some Charter House tenants will apply for compensation through the B.C. Residential Tenancy Branch due to the impact of renovations and dislocation on their lives. He will seek “a dramatic rental reduction from the beginning to the end of construction as well as compensation for lost income and other expenses incurred,” he said in an email.
Tenants did not pay rent during their five-week absence and the property owners paid for their stays at the Doubletree Hotel, as well as $200 a week for food.
Mitchell has questions such as whether the cleaning included personal possessions, storage lockers, and why it did not include testing for silica and lead.
There is “great concern about the conditions in the building over the next year as construction continues,” Mitchell said, adding it’s difficult to “maintain any positive feelings about the building after what we’ve experienced over the past year and with more construction ahead.”
He said tenants have the sense that Island Health was demanding and that recent testing has been thorough, but “as Island Health has acknowledged, these tests can not indicate what our past exposures may have been, and there are valid reasons to still have concerns about the ongoing exposure we’ve experienced in the months leading up to the December work-stop.”
A renovation contractor also stopped work voluntarily in December, and there had been two previous stop-work orders made by WorkSafe in 2016.
Roth could not say when renovation work would recommence.
