City railroaded, councillor says

Ron Seymour 2009-02-24 Kelowna Daily Courier:


The City of Kelowna greatly overpaid for land needed to develop the first phase of the Rails with Trails project, Coun. Andre Blanleil said Monday. Close to $1 million was paid to CN to acquire a 1.8-kilometre-long right-of-way on the south side of the railway tracks between Gordon Drive and Spall Road. It has been used to develop a bicycling and walking path. “That‘s a ridiculous amount of money,” Blanleil said, for a relatively small amount of land he derisively called “our little piece of paradise.” But Mayor Sharon Shepherd defended the price paid to acquire the right-of-way. “We did put the money on the table,” she said. “Maybe it was the wrong amount, but that‘s what the deal was.”

The amount paid by the city to CN for that first phase of the Rails with Trails project came under discussion because of a problem that has arisen with the next planned link, a two-kilometre stretch from Sexsmith Road to UBC Okanagan. Though announced with great fanfare last fall, with the city and province agreeing to pay for construction costs estimated at $4.2 million, it has emerged that CN has not yet agreed to provide the right-of-way. “We‘re still uncertain whether or not the project is going to be approved by the railway,” city staffer Ron Westlake told council.
With the project in limbo, council passed a resolution that calls on the federal government to change legislation so that Rails with Trails projects could proceed more easily, even without the co-operation of railways. Blanleil said the price demanded by CN for the necessary right-of-way was particularly galling, since it was his understanding the railway had obtained the land free of charge decades ago. “How CN can get away with charging a million for what we got (in the first phase of the Rails with Trails project), that‘s just wrong,” Blanleil said.