Burst pipe floods vacant BC Housing apartment building in Kamloops
A vacant BC Housing apartment building in Kamloops had a pipe burst as temperatures plummeted last week.
The building on the city's North Shore has been vacant for three years. There was a fire in 2021.
The province bought it in 2023 and initially announced new tenants would move in before the fall.
Now already delayed, it's not clear how long the flood will push back renovations on the building.
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"BC Housing is currently assessing the damage and it’s not yet known how this might impact the timeline for completing renovations to the building," a BC Housing spokesperson said in an emailed statement to iNFOnews.ca.
BC Housing didn't say what day the flood occurred or where the pipe was.
The cold snap dropped temperatures to around -20 Celsius in Kamloops and the apartment building at 435 Cherry Avenue wasn't the only building in the city to have problems with frozen pipes.
The 42-unit apartment's flood isn't the first vacant BC Housing purchase to flood before it finishes renovations.
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It bought the Fortune Motel in June 2021 and after falling behind schedule, one of the two buildings flooded in a January 2022 cold snap.
The motel finally reopened as a supportive housing site in the fall of 2022, one building and 12 suites shy of its original plan.
At 435 Cherry Avenue, the $13 million purchase hinged on the previous owner taking on certain renovations. The last owner didn't do the work, so BC Housing held back $250,000 on the purchase, attributing the initial delay to the uncompleted renovations.
"We are working hard to open all of the units at 435 Cherry Ave. as soon as possible, but the building quality and standards must be addressed," the BC Housing spokesperson wrote.
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