Fast-tracking road pays off

Developers’ willingness to foot bill for South Perimeter Road will free up $1.4 million for other transportation projects

The acceleration of South Perimeter Road would free up $1.4 million in public funds for use on other transportation projects, city officials say.

Normal practice would be for taxation revenues to pay 15 per cent of the road’s estimated $9.2-million construction cost.

However, developers in the Upper Mission see the road as so vital to the marketability of new homes in the area, they are willing to foot the entire cost up front.

They would then be repaid, over a period of five to seven years, from development cost charges collected by the city and earmarked for the Southwest Mission.

South Perimeter Road will provide a third access to the Upper Mission, to go with Lakeshore Road and Gordon Drive. South Perimeter will extend about two kilometres from the end of Gordon to Stewart Road West.

Because the proposed funding strategy involves a commitment of city funds beyond five years, voter consent must be achieved by the city.

As Monday’s meeting, council agreed to engage the so-called alternate approval process to try to gain that consent.

Essentially, the process means the project will automatically proceed unless 10 per cent of all city electors, equivalent to about 9,500 people, sign petitions asking it be put to a referendum or cancelled outright. The petition deadline is March 16. Aside from seeing the road built a decade sooner than planned at no cost to taxpayers, city officials see other benefits with the acceleration of South Perimeter Road.

These are said to include more direct vehicle access to new schools in the Upper Mission and the potential for enhanced transit service.

As well, the road will increase the viability of a new shopping centre in the Ponds area and lessen the need for residents to make longer drives toward central Kelowna for basic shopping.