Central Green, IHA sites help fund Kelowna's railway purchase

Updated: 9:40 pm, Wed Dec 10, 2014.Ron Seymour Kelowna Daily Courier:
The sale of city-owned lands in the past is helping to finance Kelowna’s purchase of the Okanagan’s abandoned railway corridor. Most if not all of the city’s $10-million contribution will come from a fund built up through the previous sale of city properties.For example, the $6 million earned by the city through the sale of the Central Green development site, at the southwest corner of Harvey Avenue and Richter Street, will be put toward the railway purchase. So, too, will funds derived from the sale of a city-owned parking lot, at the southeast corner of Ellis Street and Doyle Avenue, for a major new Interior Health building. Surplus land sold by the city for a housing development along Clement Avenue, and land sold for construction of a new retail and office complex at the southwest corner of Benvoulin and KLO roads, are among the many other transactions that have generated money for the reserve fund being tapped for the planned railway purchase. As a result of the financing strategy, Kelowna residents will face no tax increase related to the purchase of the railway line, says Doug Gilchrist, community planning and real estate director. The total railway corridor, from Coldstream on the south side of Vernon to downtown Kelowna, is 48 kilometres. Eighteen kilometres are within Kelowna, 16 kilometres are within the District of Lake Country, 11 kilometres are within an unincorporated area of the North Okanagan regional district, and two kilometres are in Coldstream. In addition to paying $7.6 million for that portion of the railway that runs through Kelowna, city officials are helping Lake Country manage its $5-million share of the purchase. The plan is for Lake Country to borrow $2.5 million, a strategy that must still be endorsed by Lake Country residents in an alternate approval process. Kelowna will also spend $2.5 million to buy part of the railway corridor in Lake Country. At an unspecified time in the future, Lake Country will have to repay that amount to Kelowna. One likely way the municipality will raise money to repay the debt is by selling off some railway land it will acquire in the planned purchase, but which is not considered integral to the goal of developing a long-distance recreation corridor.