Voters can have say on new library branch
A new 15,000 square-foot library in West Kelowna won’t trigger a big tax hike for homeowners in the city.
The average homeowner currently pays about $80 a year in taxes to the Okanagan Regional Library system.
“That amount would go up marginally, if at all, if the new library is approved,” Don Nettleton, chief executive officer of the ORL, said Friday in an interview.
A new library is proposed as part of a civic complex that would include a new 30,000-square-foot city hall.
The project is planned for the southeast corner of Highway 97 and Old Okanagan Highway in downtown Westbank.
Between June 1 and mid-July, an alternate approval process will be used to gain consent of West Kelowna property owners for borrowing that’s necessary to build the library.
The project would automatically proceed unless 10% of West Kelowna voters sign petitions against it.
Building costs are still being worked out for the proposed library, Nettleton said, with that
information to be released in the months ahead.
But whatever the project cost ends up being, it won’t be borne only by West Kelowna taxpayers. Capital costs for new branches are shared by property owners in all the 31 communities where the ORL has branches.
“That’s an advantage of the regional system, that these costs are distributed throughout our service area,” Nettleton said.
Unlike the Central Okanagan School District, the ORL does not produce a yearly capital works program, identifying the most urgent building needs.
But Nettleton said it’s been apparent for some time that West Kelowna needs a new library to replace the space it has rented for more than two decades.
“We’ve been keeping our eyes and ears open for a new space,” he said.
In 2020, City of West Kelowna officials approached the ORL about partnering for a new civic building. “It’s a good location and it would meet our needs,” Nettleton said.
To proceed, however, a skatepark that’s located on the site proposed for the new building would have to be moved. Its proposed relocation onto nearby farmland must still be approved by the Agricultural Land Commission.