Elevator along for ride in City Hall renos

An interior renovation at City Hall is going ahead this year – and it’s going to include an elevator in the main lobby, after all.

The plan had been to put off adding the elevator until 2019, to save more than $600,000. But now council wants to increase accessibility in the building and install the elevator in 2017.

The original list of renovations – which was expected to cost $1.5 million – included:

A new, larger women’s washroom on the second floor. A gender-neutral washroom.

Upgrades to the clerk’s department.

Upgrades to the second-floor boardroom.

Workers were also going put in a shaft for a new elevator, in the lobby; the installation of the elevator itself was going to wait two years.

But on Monday, Coun. Keith Riel, the city’s accessibility chairman, suggested that the elevator be added this year – never mind the wait.

He said he thinks it’s not right that anyone who needs the elevator currently has to enter City Hall through a back door.

He said he asked city treasurer Sandra Clancy and she said the money for an elevator - $625,000 – could be found in the city’s capital reserve levy.

Riel also said perhaps some of that money could later be recovered if the consulting fees on the project isn’t as expensive as anticipated, for example.

Councillors voted in favour of Riel’s suggestion.

City staff said the project can be put to tender as soon as Thursday.

In other city council business Monday night:

Museum:

Council voted a final time on a plan to give nearly half the property belonging to the city’s museum to the Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board so it can build a new school on abutting lands.

The land belongs to the Peterborough Museum and Archives, which neighbours King George Public School.

The school board’s plan is to close King George, along with nearby Armour Heights Public School, in September 2019; by then they will have built a modern new school on the property to replace it.

But to build that new school, the board needs a substantial slice of the museum’s property.

In exchange, the school board says it will help the city help pay for a new watermain and repairs to Museum Dr. (including a new sidewalk).

Council approved that idea last week, and also wants a staff report to consider ways the city could potentially use the 100-year-old King George (the school board has said it is open to suggestions).

One possibility mentioned last week was moving the overcrowded Art Gallery of Peterborough into the existing King George school.

Library:

Council voted a final time on a plan to keep the Peterborough Public Library operating out of its temporary location in Peterborough Square until next June (which is three months longer than expected). A $12-million renovation and expansion project on the main branch of the library on Aylmer St. is three months behind schedule after excavations turned up conditions that were more difficult to work with than were expected.

Council pay:

Council will vote a final time on a plan to keep councillors’ base pay at $27,720 annually. A citizens’ committee has reviewed their pay and says it’s enough.

Police budget:

Council voted a final time on a plan to give Peterborough Police the full sum of money requested for capital assets in 2017.

The police had asked for $547,700 to replace assets such as police cruisers and computer hardware.

The sum was $102,000 more than more than what council was prepared to give.

But the police board says they need that money to buy a special emergency vehicle capable of transporting six officers at once.

The plan is to give police the full sum they requested.