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Retirement Community 6 LIFE IS ALL ABOUT CHOICES AT WALDEN CIRCLE RETIREMENT COMMUNITY! Oakville Beaver | Thursday, January 26, 2023 | 12 With so much included at no extra charge, you will find it’s easy to plan your day exactly as you like it. * Independent Living * Assisted Living * Trial Stays * Winter Stays * Respite Care * Personal On-Site Care WORRY FREE RETIREMENT LIVING in the heart of Clarkson Village, Ualden Cele 9 Graham Paine/Metroland Anew plan would see universal washrooms rolled out at all HCDSB facilities over a 13-year iod. perio PLAN FOR UNIVERSAL WASHROOMS IN CATHOLIC SCHOOLS RELEASED ROLAND CILLIERS rcilliers@metroland.com A plan for universal washrooms at all Halton Catholic District School Board facilities has been revealed, but they won't necessarily be soon, or cheap. At the Jan. 17 meeting of the HCDSB board, staff presented a report on the feasibility of creating uni- minutes away from Oakville To make Walden Circle your new home, (oro}al kalol MU IM Roe l-\Vai (ol mi nalelcemialiolgenr-lsroal 905-403-8660 1907 Lakeshore Road West, Mississauga www.WaldenCircleRetirement.com insidehalton.com vel allthe board's schools. The esti- mated cost for the project was set at $4.2 million and would roll out over a 13- board's facilities presents a real problem. “What do we do in those situations where we have what do we do in those situ- ations? I mean, to me, it's just human rights, right?” said Agne Out of the 59 HCDSB fa- cilities looked at, only 14 of them have an io Building Code compliant The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act mandates the installa- tion of universal wash- rooms in public buildings with the goal of making the p more user-friend- ly for people with disabili- bes. renda Agnew, Burling- ton trustee, said it's about privacy and dignity for peo- ple ofa all abilities and that those wash- rome on ee of the universal sible from the main corri- dor. Seventeen of those fa- cilities would need only mi- nor improvements to have a compliant washroom while 28 would require sub- stantial renovations. ‘yan Merrick, superin- tendent of facility manage- ment services, said irene re- quirements are very ticular for what qualifies as a mere washroom. Over the what's mandated tobe be included in an accessible washroom has changed as has the name given to that type of facility. “There's very specific building code items that have to bea part ofit to clas- sify as a universal was] room. Allnew construction has to have them, so we're doing new builds, they have to have one, as we do new additions even. Whenever we pull a build- now; it will likely evolve to a different place in the fu- ture. I'm not sure if term will be ‘beyond uni- versal,’ but there'll be something beyond that and it will bea different term as well." Mandatory require- ments include the wash- room be large enough for a wheelchair to turn, have a power-operated door and an emergency call button. The implementation plan aims to complete roughly three to five wash- rooms per year.