A roundabout way to spend $1 million — and many aren't buying the official story about why
Read to the end to learn about snorkeling with salmon
I finally visted the new 18th Ave. roundabout yesterday (photo by David Greenberg/Proudly PG)
The city says the cost came in at under $1.4 million and is designed to increase traffic safety at this particular intersection.
But lots of people wonder: Why?
This is just a sampling — the speculation that this roundabout is step one in a multi-year plan to build a road through the Ginter’s greenspace area is widespread enough that the city has included that question on their official fact-check website under the heading ‘Is the City building a road through Ginter’s Meadow? Why is a roundabout necessary at Foothills and 18th Avenue?’ and while they are not currently building a road, they also aren’t not building a road, either:
While building a road extension of Massey Drive and Foothills Boulevard through the area commonly referred to as "Ginter's Meadow” is on the capital plan as a possible future project, it is not a funded project in the 2023-2027 Capital Plan. In other words, it is not an immediate priority. Municipalities are required under the Community Charter to provide a financial plan spanning five years. When drafting a five-year plan, staff bring forward their highest priority projects for consideration based on factors like facility assessments, asset master plans, public consultation, and social, economic, and environmental impacts.
The City’s Official Community Plan (OCP) states that the Ginter's Meadow area could be used to build a road to accommodate future need as defined in the Growth Management Plan. In October 2022, staff prepared a report to Council to provide an overview of the process to amend the OCP bylaw after Ginter’s Green Forever requested the City remove the proposed Massey Drive and Foothills Boulevard road extensions and designate the area from 18th Avenue to Ferry Avenue as Parks and Open Space. Council directed staff to include consideration of the requests as part of the review and renewal of the OCP in 2023.
Short translation: It’s not on the books as an immediate project but if so inclined, the current zoning/planning documents in place would allow for a road to be built at some point in the future.
For now, though, the city says is that this is all just to accomodate the new apartments going in on University Hill and the additional traffic they are expected to generate. Lots of other people, though, see the first step in a project that has long been on the books to build a new road right through a walking park. This is part of the broader trend I wrote about last week where planned development has been nascent for so long that it’s meeting new opposition from people who have gotten used to using greenspace that was never on the books as official parkland.
If you want a privately-owned lot to remain as greenspace, you're gonna have to buy it
At last night’s council meeting, a series of residents who live along 22nd Ave and Weber Crescent spoke about their opposition to the development of a new apartment in their neighbourhood. The construction would clear a plot of land used by locals as greenspace and replace it with a multifamily housing unit.
In this case, though, there is actually room for the city to do something: As indicated in their answer above, it is possible for the city to take the road off the books as it reviews it official community plan.
This is just one of many, many areas up for consideration as the OCP review happens. You can give your feedback online or attend an open house on Oct. 17 from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. at Two Rivers Gallery.
But wait? Does anyone actually use the Official Community Plan?
I do think it’s worth attaching to this conversation a few of the opinion pieces that have been published recently questioning the value of the Official Community Plan process.
Citizen editor Neil Godbout writes that OCP’s essentially amount to “thoughtful suggestions and wishful thinking”:
City councils across B.C. routinely alter the OCP once it’s passed. In Prince George, mayor and council tinkered with the OCP in 2014 to allow the Treasure Cove hotel and casino development to go ahead. More recently, the current OCP was changed so the aboriginal housing project at 17th Avenue would comply.
The uselessness of the OCP likely won’t stop city politicians and employees in 2023 from wasting time and money on the look-busy-but-get-nothing-done work of putting together a new OCP and asking for the public’s input, as if it actually matters. It’s not if but when and how many times this current city council and the ones to follow in 2026 and 2030 will vote to change it.
If the Ginter’s Meadow folks or anyone else still think the OCP is binding in any way, just ask the Haldi Road neighbourhood about the proposed recovery centre a decade ago. When the residents mounted a legal challenge, a judge agreed with them that city council’s approval violated the existing OCP.
No problem.
The city council of the day changed the OCP and approved the project again. The recovery centre never happened only because the proponents backed away in light of the neighbourhood opposition, not because of lack of support from local politicians.
More recently, James Steidle who ran for council last election and has more recently been a Citizen columnist/Ginter’s advocate writes:
If there’s one thing that’s made me cynical about civic politics it’s how useless the Official Community Plan (OCP) is.
It doesn’t matter how much thought, energy, and public consultation goes into the over-riding visionary statement of our community, it appears it’s not worth the paper it’s printed on if it gets in the way of development.
On the flip-side, Colleen Mahoney, another attempted city councillor wrote:
I think we should not take the cynical view that because the 2011 OCP (Official Community Plan) has been changed, modified and evolved over the last 10 years by the city council that we should not do the hard work to update and modify the plan for the next 10 to 15 years.
…
If this exercise is to truly be a waste, it would be because of a failure to engage with the citizens of Prince George. It would be a waste if the only "Consultation and Engagement" would be posting a public notice on the city's website or Facebook, brushing off their hands and sticking a 2023 sticker on the 2011 OCP.
So put it on your calendar. Or don’t! I’m not the boss of you.
The B.C. Conservatives and B.C. United are pretty clearly planning to fight it out in northern B.C.:
It’s still up to two years one year before the next provincial election, but it seems pretty clear that B.C. United (formerly the Liberals) are preparing for an attack from the newly-minted-as-an-official-party B.C. Conservatives in northern B.C.
As a result, they are shoring up their political team in the region.
Aside from already having declared a candidate in the Prince George-Mackenzie riding, where school board chair Rachael Weber is running for the Conservatives, yesterday B.C. United announced that veteran MLAs Dan Davies of Peace River North (Fort Nelson to Fort St. John) and Mike Bernier of Peace River South (Dawson Creek, Tumbler Ridge, Chetwynd) will be running again. And, most significantly, they also announced who will be up against Conservative leader John Rustad in the Nechako Lakes riding: Houston, B.C. mayor Shane Brienen:
Elected as mayor of Houston in 2014 after three terms as a council member, Brienen was returned by acclamation in 2018 and again in 2022.
Brienen was one of several hundred Canfor sawmill workers to lose their jobs when the company closed the mill in that community this spring, saying the plant was too old and too inefficient to produce high-quality wood products.
The official election date is October 2025 October 19, 2024 but that could be moved up depending on how things shake out. But United clearly wants plenty of runway for Brienen to build up his profile — it would be huge for B.C. United if Rustad, who has represented the region as an MLA since 2005 — could be taken down, dealing a major blow to the Conservative movement which, as of now, poses a potential threat to B.C. United as the major right-wing party of the province.
The NDP, of course, holds government and also holds a commanding lead in the polls. They also seem content, for the moment, to let the Conservatives and United duke it out in the northern interior, a region that, historically speaking, has a very small likelihood of voting for an NDP candidate (though who knows what a split on the right could mean?)
Removed from this fray, so far at least, is the Prince George-Valemount riding which, according to popular political opinion, will be Shirley Bond’s to win for as long as she wants it.
Meanwhile, it was Rustad’s first day as the leader of an officially recognized party in the legislature yesterday:
Get resigned to more fighting at the school board level
The head of the Prince George District Teachers Association thinks the school board chair should resign for publicly supporting private education. An attempted-school-board-trustee thinks the head of the Prince George District Teachers Association should resign for, in the words of the trustee, being “anti-God and religion-phobic” which, ??? I’m resigned to seeing more of this for the forseeable future.
Quick news:
Helicopter crash victim Jerry Edwards remembered as caring boss, devoted family man.
September 2023 was the fifth-driest on record in Prince George.
So Good restaurant gets a high hazard rating after Sept. 29 inspection.
Special screening of Lay Down Your Heart set for October 16 at Playhouse.
The Caledonia Ramblers are hosting some introductory fall hikes.
Here’s a story about going snorkeling with salmon. I know people at Tourism Prince George read this newsletter, so throwing it out there.
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The roundabout is single lane which means it would require modification if a 4 lane Foothills were extended beyond 18th Ave. The apartments on Foothills between 15th and 18th have no access to Foothills northbound and a roundabout gives that access in a safer format than making a U-turn, this means better access to University Way as well.
I had thought the next BC general election was scheduled for October 2024, not 2025?