Maple Ridge’s First Yennadon Scouting Group is looking for a new home after their rent was jacked up from $180 per month to $4,800, for two nights per week at the Eagles Hall.
The group is based in the hall at 23461 Fern Crescent, a site it has called home since the 1940s. The property was originally donated for the community’s youth, but is now owned by a numbered company that is effectively pushing them out.
The Eagles sold the hall to the company, but the Scouts have not been able to speak directly with the new owners, and now the group commissioner Cory Krausher said they are essentially being evicted by the exorbitant rent increase.
“I can’t imagine anyone renting that hall at five grand a pop,” he said.
READ ALSO: Eagles Hall in Maple Ridge in process of being sold
“It’s a soul-crushing thing to have happen,” he said, but added they have a strong group, with a group of parents who are friends outside of Scouting, and they want to keep it going.
There are about 50 kids who use the hall each week, in the Beaver, Cub and Scout age groups, and now they need a new facility where they can meet weekly.
Getting ready to move, they were sorting through items in storage, and came across a framed statement from the builder of the hall. The manifesto seems to warn against selling the property for profit. Krausher said it illustrates how the intention of the donors to provide a space for youth has been pushed aside for financial profit.
“The founders of the Yennadon Youth Association had a dream. A piece of property was donated to the Scouting Youth of the Yennadon area. The dream continued when many volunteers put their hands and skills to work in building the First Yennadon Youth Hall,” it reads. It describes how the hall was replaced by a new hall built by “believers in the Yennadon youth.”
“If the dream is maintained it was all worth the effort. But if any one individual or special interest group shall gain any personal profit then it was a wasted effort and the Dream will die.”
It is signed “The Builder.”
The approximately one-acre site was sold for $3.7 million last year.
Unfortunately, Krausher explained, the Yennadon Youth Association ran into financial problems, and in 1987 the hall was sold to the Fraternal Order of Eagles, who assumed the $85,000 mortgage. The Eagles built a new hall there in 1992.
Now sold, he expects the property will be redeveloped, after the Scouts are pushed out. They can use the hall until the end of June at the current rent.
Krausher’s personal hope is that city council will rebuff potential rezoning, and maintain the property with an institutional zoning it has now. He said the city needs more halls and community gathering places. The city declined to purchase the site when approached.
“The city has turned a blind eye to any community spaces,” said Krausher.
A historic cabin at the site known as the DeWolf Den has recently been moved to a Scouting property at Whonnock Lake (27660 Dewdney Trunk Rd.) The cabin is the home of the 31st Alouette Baden Powell Guild – a group of adults who support Scouting groups in Maple Ridge, Pitt Meadows and Mission.
Krausher explained his youth group needs storage space for its camping gear, arts and crafts supplies, snowshoes and other equipment it has accumulated over the years, and that is a consideration as they look at school gymnasiums and other options for a new home.
“We’re still looking – obviously there will never be a perfect location, which is what we have right now,” he said.
Krausher asks that anyone who has a potential location give him a call at 604-288-7415.
READ ALSO: Historic Maple Ridge scouting cabin has a new home