Council finds funds to spend on design work
Penticton city council has agreed to spend $166,000 on design work for revitalization of the 300 block of Main Street. At Tuesday’s meeting, Coun. Campbell Watt presented a motion to reconsider council’s original decision to not fund the project, which came up in last month’s budget deliberations. The redesign plans will not impact the 2017 budget as the project will be funded from 2016 capital surplus.
“We made this (downtown revitalization) a priority, in fact this was one of our top priorities,” Watt said.
“We’ve had two workshops on this and both times it came up as a top priority. We’re talking about $166,000 to be shovel-ready in case something happens. We’re not committing to the project, although for the record, I’d like to commit to the project.”
Between 2014 and 2016, major upgrades have been made on the 200 block of Martin Street, the 100 and 200 blocks of Main Street and part of Westminster Ave. E.
Council’s original wish was to repair one block annually of Main Street. Staff is presently working on a detailed study on infrastructure issues. Additional projects, such as Memorial Arena, are expected to be ranked as priorities well ahead of Main Street.
General manager of infrastructure Mitch Moroziuk said the total cost of revitalizing the 300 block would range between $2-4 million.
“Having this project shovel-ready is extremely important,” Coun. Max Picton said.
“It is in line with our upgrading of infrastructure. Perhaps it’s not the most critical area in need of upgrade, but you get downtown revitalization and infrastructure upgrades both at the same time.”
Coun. Judy Sentes referenced a similar situation in the late 2000s when plans were in place for a swimming pool upgrade at the Penticton Community Centre. When a grant became available, staff of the day was immediately ready to apply.
“This is a strategy that has proven to work well in the past,” Sentes said, adding that it cost the City of Penticton only one-third of the final total for the pool and other amenities.
Coun. Helena Konanz was “dumbfounded” by the debate. She said higher levels of government are not funding downtown revitalization at the moment and instead the focus is on crumbling infrastructure.
“Even if we were to receive a grant, we’d have to match it and that would cost millions of dollars,” Konanz said.
“We have severe infrastructure issues. The $166,000 is not going to affect the 2017 budget, but what it will affect is it could be used for other things that need to be done in this city.”
Presenting a hypothetical scenario, Coun. Andre Martin asked if council were to proceed with the upgrade in 2019, would the plans be out-of-date by then. Martin later asked if there would be any significant cost saving to doing two blocks at the same time.
Moroziuk said design plans would require almost no tweaks. As for cost saving by doing two blocks, there would be some, but very little.
The motion passed 4-3 with Picton, Tarik Sayeed, Sentes and Watt in favour and Jakubeit, Konanz and Martin opposed.