The Downtown Urban Design Strategy follows the same steps as the Downtown Master Plan - mother of them all - and the Railtown Plan.
Not so much Stores-to-Shores Phase 1 - there never was a coherent plan for this. It just sort-of evolved-or-not as "they" went along.
Anyway - with the other three an expensive consultant put together a catalogue of what we have and possibly could have - the could-have with a modicum of general-public-feel-good input, ultimately of little deciding impact.
These plans as such are of no immediate practical value.
Pictures
The Downtown Strategy goes on for 146 pages and takes close to an hour to download. Most of no real interest to the average Nelsonite, who just wants to see lots of clear, exciting images of what is to be. The very few sketches (all here) provided are little more than our given reality with a bit of zip. There's nothing substantially new to agree/disagree with.
www.nelsonurbandesign.com
City of Nelson
Words
The words are more interesting, with their emphasis on Baker/Ward turning into Nelson's navel. Large areas providing seating for hordes of weary shoppers - and Nelson's untouchables.
The latter already giving Mayor Kozak public hiccups within this context - while (grin-and-bear-it) she also calls the plan "a key piece in the city's overall vision to make Nelson a vibrant and livable community". Not quite livable yet - but soon, maybe without the untouchables.
Much expanded seating-arrangements would be but hardly will be a significant about-face from Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) Kevin Cormack's attitude towards the untouchables, made very clear when he - without Council - not that long ago on his own ordered amenities on Baker torn down, using funds from a treasure trove only he seems to have access to. This tear-down to remove seating for the untouchables and real people - together.
Then there was the CAO's Request for Decision to Council for an Aggressive Panhandling Bylaw, without any documented evidence whatsoever that such bylaw was needed, that Nelson actually had large numbers of aggressive panhandlers to deal with. Or even just many basic panhandlers - period.
With Council raising crucial questions within the lengthy process of adopting-or-not such bylaw - left unaddressed by Staff when putting its initial presentation together - the whole thing was shelved to be revisited come autumn.
The idea of more seating than ever - without a legal way of making it whites-only - seems a potential show-stopper, given the CAO does like getting his way!
The size of Nelson dictates the (finite) number of local-and-area shoppers. Nothing will change that. Neither will superficially guzzying-up downtown bring more tourist-shoppers to Nelson.
So - while putting a framework in place for possible future reference: all in all nothing much will happen soon with this Strategy.
Still - to have Nelsonites believe that their opinions do shape their environment - there will be another Open House for them to look at and listen to sales-pitches for this already done deal: the Final Draft of the Downtown Urban Design Strategy, already presented in exhaustive detail online.
Open House:
Adventure Hotel on Vernon
20 April
16:00 - 19:00
Of actual here-now consequence to the public is the needlessly complicated and dangerous to drivers Hall/Lakeside redevelopment (previously called Stores-to-Shores Phase 2) - supposedly coming before Council for final approval:
Committee of the Whole
Council Chamber - City Hall
24 April, 19:00
No Open House for today's driving public is planned for this prior to!
Mayor Kozak
dkozak@nelson.ca
Kevin Cormack, CAO
kcormack@nelson.ca
Megan Squires, Senior Planner
msquires@nelson.ca
Pam Mierau, Manager - Development Services
pmierau@nelson.ca
City Council
nelsoncouncil@nelson.ca
When the "Stores-to-Shores" project was announced - "public art" was one
of the bells and whistles promised on the way down to the lake.
But all we have is a redo of the mural on the PHARMASAVE wall - between Baker and Vernon. There since Oct. 2001 - redone in 2014.
The original: water, rocks, trees, fishing from an indigenous boat and flat round faces in the shrubbery. Creatively awkward and rather colorless (no greens, blues), it was endearingly earnest - we were used to it. As a whole easily forgettable, forgotten.
The redo is a mish-mash of 3 styles. 2 are Brian McLachlan's own in the very left and very right sections, and 1 - the center: marginally more successful, not necessarily local-sourced - is large-scale digital reproductions of old photos.
Like lumberjacks whacking at old-growth trees, which the white man actually hardly saw here, what with the wildfire of the 1850s burning down everything in the area.
The very left section still is a part of the original, in his #1 style. The very right section - in style #2, themed local-arts-and-culture - potentially is the most attention-getting. Partly because it is in several colors - the other sections' are rather monochromatic and old-photo sepia - and definitely because the people represented here all appear so uniformly grotesque.
Grotesque - because the painter - obviously oblivious - has absolutely no talent for painting people. This may sound harsh, but - no, I'm not sorry! - there they embarrassingly are! On a very large public(ly funded?) wall.
The Cultural Development Committee (CDC) could have taken the opportunity in 2014 - when the mural was damaged - to call the whole thing off and look at a new one altogether, more in tune creatively with out-of-town today. Instead of letting McLachlan - a minor local talent - loose one more time, unchecked (and financed?).
Let's face it - at that time he had had a good run of about 13 years with his oeuvre. So - was this an obligatory polite, feeling-sorry-for-him nod, or was the CDC simply obtuse.
For an historical mural - Trail's could have inspired. Yes - Trail's!
Ironically - Stephanie Fischer, CDC Chair, also runs the Capitol Theatre, the framework of McLachlan's arts-and-culture representation. But this section is poor advertising for her Capitol specifically - and not at all exemplary of how her CDC wants tourists to perceive us arts-and-culture jocks - period.
Yet there it is: she/they should have known (and decided) better!
Good enough is not good enough!
The mural - in its mostly dull shades and partly obscured by trees - has been there so long: nobody stops to look. I hadn't been aware of the redo until recently - and I'm a very visual person, usually seeing all around me.
Like - for instance - the 7 new, surely very expensive waste-bins in this single block of Hall: 4 at Hall/Baker and 3 at Hall/Vernon. Used by nobody and all too close to tiny natural settings they promptly overpower visually.
Oh, Public Works!
Then there are the latest 2 Nelson Hydro boxes, across from the mural. All downtown cross-streets have them, most go on-and-on about the wonderfulness of Nelson Hydro, and most are wrapped in dirty-green camouflage-variations. There's no joy in them, and enough already: all we need to know and do know is that Nelson Hydro is running our show. Some at its top among the highest earners at corporate City Hall.
One of these boxes is about Mayor Maglio, seemingly part of the Hydro thing. I didn't read his story. But we know the Maglios have been doing extremely well for themselves around Nelson: most recently - be still, my heart! - as the road-construction contractor of Stores-to-Shores Phase 1 - namely Hall St.
Now with Maglio's Hydro box on it!
Is it just me, or ...!
Will Alex Love be next with his very own box?
I digress!
Back to grotesque people. When a CDC meeting - some time ago - discussed murals for Nelson: it was agreed that painted outdoor-murals generally only have a limited life-expectancy. I was there.
So - with the Hall revamp needing a reason for being - beyond free parking, pipes in the ground and a place to put lots and lots of new, surely very expensive waste-bins: how about a taking-your-breath-away mural on the PHARMASAVE wall!
Consciously planned, designed - and executed within parameters contractually established prior to! By someone out-of-town with an exceptional proven track-record.
That and all Nelson Hydro boxes wrapped colorfully and telling different stories of common interest: taken-on as public-art projects.
Unless Nelson Hydro just won't have any of that!
Luis Seven Martins - l7m
"There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about,
and that is not being talked about."
Oscar Wilde
Stephanie Fischer, CDC Chair
sfischer@netidea.com
Valerie Warmington, City Councillor/CDC Member
vwarmington@nelson.ca
Anna Purcell, City Councillor/Alternate CDC Member
apurcell@nelson.ca
Pam Mierau, Manager - Development Services
pmierau@nelson.ca
Colin Innes, Director - Public Works
cinnes@nelson.ca
