Premier David Eby, alongside Vernon-Monashee MLA Harwinder Sandhu and OC President Dr. neil Fassina at the new student housing building at the Vernon campus (photo by Liam Verster / Vernon Matters)

By Liam Verster

Student Housing and Childcare Building

Student housing, childcare facility to be ready for OC Vernon students this fall

Aug 23, 2024 | 2:52 PM

Students attending courses at the Okanagan College Vernon campus will have a new housing option this fall.

The college and the province announced that the first-ever student housing building at Okanagan College (OC) Vernon is nearly fully built with a ribbon cutting ceremony Friday, August 23.

The new building will be home to 101 students. There will be 83 single-occupant rooms that have their own washrooms and kitchens, three two-bedroom units with shared amenities, and three four-bedroom units which will also have shared washrooms and kitchens. Four of the one-bedroom units will be accessible, and so will one of the two-bedroom units.

The main floor of the building will have shared amenity spaces and laundry, and each floor will have shared study spaces and balconies.

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Dr. Neil Fassina, president of OC, said Friday that the majority of the bedrooms are ready, and the rest should be ready for students in time for the fall.

“What we’re going to see is the top two floors [which have already been furnished] will be fully occupied starting right in the beginning of September, and then as the lower two floors start to finalize their last elements of the construction, literally just final throws, we’ll start adding students to the final two floors,” Fassina said.

“So anticipating full occupancy, easily, by next September.”

A representative for OC told Vernon Matters noted the rooms on the bottom two floors may be able to accommodate students attending the college in January, with the whole building ready for new students the following fall.

Harwinder Sandhu , MLA for Vernon-Monashee, noted that a quarter of the new units will be available at below-market, affordable rates.

Fassina added the housing project will open up education opportunities for more people in the OC’s catchment area which spans from Revelstoke to the U.S. border, as making the daily commute from any of the communities inside that boundary to their nearest school may not be possible for some potential-learners.

Premier David Eby said this and the other OC housing projects in Kelowna and Salmon Arm will help alleviate some pressure on the overall housing market.

“By building student housing we don’t just support students, we support the broader community because students aren’t competing for rental housing in the broader market,” Eby stated, adding they also get the full college experience with the new building.

“They’re living close to campus, where they want to be, building community, having a really positive experience, and freeing up that rental housing for the rest of the community.”

Eby added the B.C. NDP in 2018 set a goal of building 8,000 new student housing rental units over the coming decade, and that figure has already been surpassed so a new goal of 12,000 units by 2028 has been set.

Sandhu added at the event that the student housing in the Okanagan are an investment in the next future, helping create jobs and opportunities for people.

Politicians and students getting a tour of the new student housing building (photo by Liam Verster / Vernon Matters)

A one-bedroom unit at the new student housing building at OC Vernon (photo by Liam Verster / Vernon Matters)

Sandhu and Eby in what will be a shared study room at the OC Vernon housing building (photo by Liam Verster / Vernon Matters)

The new student housing building will also be home to a childcare facility.

The Sunflower Childcare Centre, operated by Maven Lane, will have enough room for 12 infants and toddlers, and 32 spaces for children aged two and a half to kindergarten age.

“All those spots are officially full,’ Fassina said.

“What we’ve done is partnered with Maven Lane to make sure we are prioritizing students that are looking for childcare support, and then once those student’s priorities have been taken care of then we work with Maven Lane to make sure we’re identifying other community members that can use the Sunflower Childcare Centre as well.”

The new childcare facility will not be offering $10-a-day services right away, though a representative from Maven Lane indicated that work was underway to get that designation.

The Sunflower Childcare Centre has three rooms for the kids, a kitchen, washrooms, and a playground was planned for the site but wasn’t installed as of Friday.

Elsewhere in the Okanagan, the new Kelowna OC 216-student housing building was completed in the spring and will be ready for full occupancy in September, while the 60-unit building at the Salmon Arm campus was delayed in the winter but is expected to be ready for students in January.

The province is also investing in a 101-bed building at the OC Penticton campus, which is expected to be ready by fall of 2026.

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