Nudging me in the early morning hours of my Park ritual - on one cup of instant, milk and sugar: highlights of the foregone-conclusion approval-performance in Council.
Heeere's Dave!
The necessary 190 parking-spaces are just like that whittled down to 100 and in individual size too by Dave Wahn, City Master Organizer. Prior to the Council presentation. Kapow - one variance down! Two to go - pow, pow! Done!
Reasoning away the whittling with: the Co-op will supply bus-vouchers to employees, and people will just have to start driving smaller cars. During this approval-charade - according to the Star - voicing another gem: When you live downtown, you don't need a car - you're already where you need to be.
Let's give our Dave a big hand! He already is where he is!
And not the first either - a director of the Co-op Board says in their recent AGM: an advantage of living in Villa Kelowna (don't you just love that name!) will be not having to use one's car so much.
A well-deserved hand for our Co-op!
All that topped by the Co-op's feel-good gesture: increasing bike-storage and adding a dedicated (sic) longterm parking-space for a Kootenay Carshare vehicle will compensate for the loss of parking spaces.
Our Dave now working on fitting a car into a bike-rack. If anyone can - it's our Dave! Let's hear it for our Dave!
Heeere's Russell!
And Russell Precious runs a bit of emotional blackmail with the project not feasible financially if the Co-op had to come up with an additional 2 mill for another underground parking-level. (We certainly wouldn't want that - seeing that the ground has been declared contaminated in the area, and who knows what lurks still deeper down...!). About feasible: the whole thing never was from the beginning. That's why the condos and for no other reason! So now - feasibly between 25 and 27 mill - they're talking about with an additional 2 mill the project not being feasible any longer? Not to forget - as repeatedly mentioned here before - this project being feasible or not means absolutely nothing to any of us (including even basic Co-op members) except the Co-op's decision-makers: they got themselves into this and now must put something there - even if it's not condos and heaven forbid cheaper. Like a store!
A warm round of applause for their Russell!
Heeere's Donna!
And Donna Macdonald, Mayor-Presumptive - as usual puts her only-me-stamp on things. Again according to the Star: The only place for them to add more parking without added cost would be on top of that beautiful green space. A little more emotional blackmail here: THAT BEAUTIFUL green space implies she comes from personal knowledge of definitive factual info - THAT beautiful green plan. How would she alone know what nobody else seems to? Right now it's all parking-lot, and even if: how beautiful and green - most of all practical-useable - will it be during most of the year? Particularly during winter when snow - in the parking-lot then next to it - has to be pushed/piled somewhere close RIGHT NOW: like RIGHT THERE! Because otherwise a whole lot of parking-lot will be buried under snow for possibly months.
Cheers for our Donna!
Heeere's The Tourist!
Parking-overflow at Villa Kelowna will spill farther into the downtown-core, making current difficulties even more current and more difficult.
Seeing that Nelson's future is tied to the cultural tourist (remember the costly cultural-tourist paper - and nothing?) and this tourist finding finding parking unpleasant at best already: if there ever should be more of him in the future - while even less parking than now! - won't he just keep on driving?
Let's wave good-bye to our could-have-been tourist!
Nelson Star, Oct. 4, opinion poll:
Do you like the proposed look of Nelson Commons?
Yes - 33 votes (33%)
No - 68 votes (67%)
Let's hear it from our voices!
Heeere's City Hall!
Anyway - the taylor-made pro-condo parking-variance is approved without a hitch - as is the project as a whole - by the mayor and his council of the wise - who all have any-time-any-length-of-time free parking in acres of privilege behind City Hall. Our Dave, too.
A round of applause for our administration! Well done! Well done!
It never fails to astound how narrow City Hall's focus is, but then:
Heeere's Smallishtown!
All images: Avalisa
"Ethical" investment I beg to differ.
ReplyDeleteActually, it's very well done.
ReplyDeleteI've said this before... most progressive and well planned cities recognize that if you constantly design for the car, you make people-unfriendly communities, and drive urban sprawl. Is that what you would like to see? more parking lots? Nelson spreading out across the countryside as it grows, forcing more and more people to drive everywhere? Because that's the trade off when you demand more parking. It's ultimately self-reenforcing.
Downtown parking is not bad. It just isn't. If people think having to go around the block once or twice is the end of the world, they've never lived in a big city. I have never not found parking within a few minutes of searching. I've had to park a block or so further away, but that's life. It's hardly the end of the world. Visitors who drive here from Calgary or Vancouver aren't going to up and leave if they have to spend an extra 3-5 minutes in their car.
If you think the city's current approach to parking is backwards or "small town", you really need to start reading up on what's going on in progressive planning departments around the world:
http://www.pps.org/blog/placeforparking/
And just because the poll indicates that 2/3rds of people don't like something, doesn't mean they shouldn't be allowed to proceed. It's not the business of the city to tell developers to keep going back to the drawing board just because they don't like the design. If that were the case, nothing would ever happen. No developer in their right mind would ever dream of attempting a project, because they wouldn't want to deal with the insane bureaucracy.
You have indicated that you would like to see a Gehry-like structure in downtown Nelson. (I wouldn't mind either), but how many people do you think would agree? Many who have objected to the Coop have done so for heritage reasons. How would they feel about one of Gehry's works? Probably no more supportive.
There are a couple of comments made by Coop board members that have made me very wary of the way this whole thing has been handled:
ReplyDelete1) In the Star newspaper, Jon Steinman said that 45 of the suites have "been spoken for." That is misleading. People putting their name down saying they want to buy is entirely different than someone signing papers.
2) On CBC radio, Deirdre Lang, the GM, said that after buying the building and land, the Coop "realized they had other opportunities" as if to say a eureka moment dawned on them that they were sitting on a cash cow. In reality, they jumped on this purchase in haste, only afterwards realizing they had gotten themselves in so deep.
I feel, as a Coop member, uneasy about their maneuvers. I also got a phone message asking whether or not I was in a position to loan them money and to call them back with my answer.
This coming from a store that can't even bother to label prices on much of their produce!
How many employees has the Coop hired from the old Extra Foods, after they got laid off? Some of them had families and mortgages, even. I haven't seen anyone from the old store working in the Coop.
ReplyDeleteI have mentioned this in previous posts here or elsewhere.
DeleteThere have been new employees hired including a senior employee from a competitor.
If Co-Op were what they "market" to be, arrangments could have been made for Extra Foods employees to be hired.
Co-Op a wolf in sheep's clothing.
None from Extra Foods
DeleteI don't buy into the notion that the old Extra Foods is in such bad shape that it has to be torn down. It is a cement block building. It is a fine start to refurbishment, as I'm sure folks in construction trades would agree. What is with all this chest thumping on the part of the coop?
ReplyDelete