Opponents of a plan to rezone the Queensway Jetty to allow it to become home to a new visitors’ centre say there are considering a lawsuit to stop the move.
The group held its first public meeting Wednesday and said it has researched the city’s move and believes the city contravened several of its own bylaw requirements, committed “breaches of procedural fairness,” has not disclosed all relevant information and is arbitrarily taking land out of a “dedicated” park without the consent of voters.
“Somebody needs to stand up for public parkland,” said meeting co-organizer Diane Varga, a Penticton resident who used to live in Kelowna.
She told the gathering of around 60 people—most of them seniors—she believes her research will give the group grounds for a court order to stop the rezoning.
Contacted Thursday, city manager Ron Mattiussi denied Varga’s accusations, saying the city has not contravened any of its own bylaws, has been open and transparent in dealing with the issue of a proposed new lakeshore visitors’ centre downtown and is not taking any land out of a dedicated park. Varga said Stuart Park is a dedicated park—a special designation that carries a higher classification than regular parkland zoning and part of the jetty was added to Stuart Park.
But Mattiussi said that is not true. After checking with other city officials, he said while there was talk in the past of making Stuart Park a dedicated park it was never done.
He said while opponents of the visitors’ centre plan have the right to take the issue to court, he doubted a legal challenge would be successful.
Following a lengthy, packed and clearly divided public hearing on the rezoning proposal last month, city council voted 7-1 to proceed with it. It is currently awaiting final approval subject to a number of conditions being met.
Varga was particularly upset about the city holding the public hearing in council chambers, as she said it was too small for the crowd it attracted, and some who had to watch the proceedings on monitors in the foyer, gave up and left.
At the public hearing, the number of speakers supporting and opposing locating the new centre on the jetty was equally split.
The city’s proposed lease with the non-profit Kelowna Tourism—described repeatedly Wednesday as a “for-profit” organization because its members are local tourism businesses—says the city will only provide water and sewer to the site at a cost of $11,000 with everything else needed to support the proposed 3,000-square-foot, one-storey building, provided by Kelowna Tourism. A lease payment of $50 would be payed to the city over the 29-year life of the agreement.
The city will, however, incorporate the land around the visitors’ centre site into adjacent Kerry Park.
At Wednesday’s meeting, several speakers blasted the city for supporting the Kelowna Tourism proposal, which would move the existing visitors’ centre on Harvey Avenue onto the downtown waterfront.
The jetty is currently zoned as parkland but has never been used for that purpose. It has been a paved parking lot since the 1950s when the ferry that used to take people and vehicles across the lake was replaced with the former Okanagan Lake Floating Bridge.