The final phase of Vernon's downtown revitalization has got the green light to proceed this spring. At a special meeting today, city council voted 5-1 to approve an extra $286,000 for the 2.4 million dollar project to upgrade 30th Avenue from 33rd to 35th streets. Councillors Juliette Cunningham and Catherine Lord changed their votes after a 3-3 tie Monday. Councillor Mary Jo O'Keefe wasn't present for the meeting as she has a conflict on the issue. The extra funds will come from two trail projects which will be put off until next year. Lord says she was more comfortable with that, than taking the money from a needed road upgrade. "My whole concern originally was where they wanted to take the funding from, restructuring existing infrastructure. I wanted to foregoe some of the new infrastructure projects because I wanted to make sure we keep up with our current infrastructure," said Lord. Cunningham explains why she changed her opinion. "I love our downtown. I think it's a great place and maybe this will spur further interest and investment in our downtown." However Cunningham is still concerned merchants had to pay a much larger share of the revite cost during earlier phases. "I still don't think it was an equitable split for those business owners." She says many of those are owners are still paying "good dollars" for that on their taxes. The lone opponent was Bob Spiers who has been against the project from the start, calling it cosmetic, and something that could be put off until later. "I've voted against it five times and I would be a hypocrite to vote for it going forward and adding another $250,000 potentially of taxpayers money and another $80,000 out of the water rates, but it's gone through and hopefully it wil end up being a nice project and it will bring commerce to the downtown area," Spiers told Kiss FM. The trails put off are near Gentle Waters off 39th Ave and a cycle route on 25th Street.--------
Revitalization full throttle ahead
The final phase of the 30th Avenue Revitalization project will get in
gear this month after engineering staff managed to steer around a
financial obstacle. After
the budget rose by $267,000, several city councillors refused to give
the project a green light until staff came up with a new way to find the
extra cash. At a special meeting of council Wednesday morning, the city's
infrastructure engineer Mark Dowhaniuk presented a financial plan which
involved using the budgets of two other city projects as cushioning. "These projects aren't deleted, we're just holding off on the
construction until we know the status of our expenditures," Dowhaniuk
told InfoTel News. One of the projects would improve an existing trail and the other would add a bicycle corridor on 25th Street. "Those are still a priority, but right now, this (revitalization) is a
bigger priority," Dowhaniuk says. "It has economic drivers because it
improves downtown, and the main reason it's a priority, is the project
was initiated by the public." Mayor Rob Sawatzky is pleased the project was accepted by council,
despite earlier reservations about the fairness of how it's being paid
for. Merchants further up 30th Avenue paid more for revitalization of
their shopfronts. "I had second thoughts when I realized there were different costs than
were paid by the merchants in earlier phases," Sawatzky says. "But city
standards have changed, that's just the way it is, and businesses could
either benefit or suffer from it." Coun. Juliette Cunningham was hesitant to approve the motion because
she didn't think it was fair for 30th Avenue's west end shops to pay
less than those up the street. "I've not made it a secret I take issue with how this evolved in terms
of previous merchants paying total costs," Cunningham, who owns a
downtown business, said. "We're still paying." Cunningham made it clear she wanted staff to "tighten up" exactly what
the city's new standards for expenditures are. In the end, Cunningham
voted in favour of revitalization, with Coun. Bob Spiers the lone
opposer. Dowhaniuk says the construction will begin in a week or two and
hopefully conclude before tourist traffic sets in to mitigate the impact
on businesses. A public input session on the project will be held Thursday from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. at city hall.
No comments:
Post a Comment