It has occurred to me that this mayor and council have absolutely no love for land called “parks.”
For instance, while all eyes are on Skaha Lake Park, the mayor and council have ignored the Official Community Plan (OCP) by allowing a development on Kinney Avenue adjacent to Cherry Lane Towers and saying the city could not afford to purchase the property.
I would like to remind the taxpayers that the city purchased a piece of land on Westminster Avenue at a cost of $1.5 million and paved it into a parking lot. They also took over the disastrous hockey dorm property and paved it into a parking lot. These two properties now must be worth about $3 to $4 million. Both properties would be very suitable for a high-rise, but now obviously, they are off the market. They are parking lots.
We have more parking lots in this town than we’ve ever had, even though the mayor is telling us the population is decreasing and not increasing. The $4 million now covered with asphalt surely could have been used to build a parkade on the west end of the events centre. Then we would have had two properties, very appropriate for low-cost housing.
Having said this, I just wonder what’s going to happen to the Lions Park on Warren Avenue. That area of our city with Cherry Lane Towers and adjacent towers, condos, housing, etc., have a population of well over 1,000 people.
The OCP had it right. Why wouldn’t a park from one side, Warren to Kinney, be appropriate for the health and welfare of our citizens in that area?
Keep an eye on these issues taxpayers. Don’t get distracted by smoke and mirrors.
Peter Osborne
Penticton