Wednesday 12 April 2017

The Downtown Hangout



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  

2 comments:

  1. Likely, if any new seating is built in downtown Nelson, it will be rented out to business owners of cafés and restaurants. I wouldn't be at all surprised if new seating ideas are to generate revenue to the city, as was the changes to the amenity areas. Easy cash. Spend large government gravy train grants, ignore potholes, get folks into the area with big suspension trucks who can also ignore potholes and get their money! Because, after all, WE know what the meaning of life is...

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  2. I see new job opportunities in the city another "planner" and a legislative assistant? qualifications almost require an ability to work on the space shuttle program, but also must clean up the kitchen and do the dishes at city council chambers.....probably $100,000++ like everyone else in the big hall.

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