FILE PHOTO – The beach at Boyce-Gyro Park in Kelowna can be seen in this undated file photo. Eight landowners on the shores of Okanagan Lake on Watt Road, north of Boyce-Gyro Park, have designated their lots from the city as future parkland.
(ADAM PROSKIW / iNFOnews.ca)
July 13, 2021 – 6:00 p.m.
Led by Councilor Luke Stack, Kelowna City Council opposed strong lobbying by eight landowners on the shores of Okanagan Lake on Watt Road, designating their lots as future parklands.
But it could take decades to buy and develop the land.
“If we really believe that this is part of what we need as a community, we should have enough courage and stand up and say, ‘This is what we need,'” said Stack at the end of an hour-long discussion of the country at the city council meeting on Monday July 12th.
“I think what happened here is that we have eight really vocal property owners who don’t want anything to change,” added Mayor Colin Basran. “This is an ideal location for a future waterfront park – the connectivity and proximity to a large urban center – it all just makes sense. It’s a great beach. ”
City officials are nearing the end of a year-long process to create a new official community plan.
They decided that the eight eight lots on Watt Road would make an ideal park as they have a sandy beach that is protected from erosion. It is north of popular Boyce Gyro Beach and south of a new Pandosy Waterfront Park under construction on Cedar Avenue.
The plots that the City of Kelowna would like to designate for future park landscapes are marked in red at the bottom left.
Photo credit: Submitted / City of Kelownala
Information packages were sent to the eight property owners last autumn, and the employees have met and spoken to them ever since. Faced with strong opposition, staff took the matter to the council yesterday, suggesting that the city buy only two of the lots and reconsider the idea of buying all eight if they draft a new parking plan at some point in the future.
This triggered intense lobbying by property owners last weekend. They told city councils, among other things, that this would drastically reduce their property values, they were not properly informed of the planned changes, and city staff were threatened with expropriations.
The staff informed the council that they had never issued a threat of expropriation, but could not rule out that a future council would choose this route.
The designation means that the landowners can develop their land as required within the scope of the current single-family zoning and never have to sell it to the city.
It reminded Coun. Flack council stacks took over real estate years ago that the city bought around Cedar Avenue when it proposed selling some of the land to pay for the park to be built.
“We really got our feet up to the fire by a lot of people in the community who said you just don’t listen to the public,” said Stack. “’You’re not calling this what it’s supposed to be. We demand, we demand that all of this land be park. Don’t even think about building anything on it. ‘
“After we were thoroughly beaten, we finally said ‘OK’. The will of the public was, “We want to protect this parkland land,” and we ended up doing it, knowing we didn’t have the resources to build it.
“Now I find that we are under pressure to say, ‘Don’t be transparent. Don’t put it on the table. Don’t let the community know that these could be future parks. We want to keep it off the table. We don’t want to discuss this stuff. ‘
“I think how can we do that. If we think this is what the community needs for our long-term growth in the Pandosy area, to ask us now to get this off the table for another 20 years, we don’t even want to talk about it, I think is completely disingenuous. I think we have to say if we believe in acquiring quality real estate for the general public of our city. We know we are growing. We know that we will need some of it. ”
In the end just coun. Charlie Hodge – who said the consultation process was flawed – voted against designating all eight lots as future parkland.
Another property on the east side of Watt Road has also been designated as parkland to provide a connection to Walnut Avenue and the new Pandosy Waterfront Park.
At today’s prices, it is estimated that the purchase of the nine properties will cost $ 30 million. This usually happens when they are put up for sale.
Once one or two of the lots are purchased it may be possible to develop them as parks and open the beach to the public, but that is a decision that needs to be made in the future.
Currently, a retaining wall at the north end prevents public access along the coast.
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