Kelowna News

Kelowna City Council remained defiant to the very end in killing the controversial CD21 downtown revitalization plan.

About four years of planning, designing and debating came to an end Monday as council voted 6-3 to rescind first reading and, go back to the drawing board.

"The waterfront is part of what makes us a great city. We should not mess with it, we should enhance it," says Councillor Charlie Hodge in putting forth the motion to kill the current plan.

"This plan does not do this. We can do better."

Councillors Andre Blanleil, Graham James and Kevin Craig voted against the motion which will, in essence take the process back to square one and look at a revitalization package that includes the entire downtown core.

Hodge says that should include the best parts of the CD21 Zone, the Spaxman Report and the current downtown plan.

"This is a very sad day in Kelowna's history, unfortunately. It says people are happy with what is there today and we are selling Kelowna short if we are happy with what is there today," says Blanleil.

"Today we have a very mediocre downtown. At best it's mediocre and some parts are below mediocre. The reality is the CD21 Zone is a comprehensive zone that brings Kelowna into the 21st century."

Blanleil says he hopes something can eventually come out of the exercise the city has undertaken in compiling the CD21 Zone.

"As our staff have said in the last 10 years we have had some of the strongest economic growth in the Okanagan, in B.C. for that matter, and we have not seen a single major development in our downtown core. I'm sorry, but I guess my standards of what I think Kelowna could be are higher than what other people's are."

The previous council had given first three readings to the bylaw, however, the current council rescinded second and third readings nearly four months ago.

From comments around the council table, Blanleil says it was clear to him that without compromise, Monday's final vote was inevitable.

"I guess I am a little disappointed that I don't see a lot of compromise from any of the councillors from their original position. I guess I go back to, it we can't make this thing work economically, or in reality I guess we should look at killing it."

Many of the concerns councillors had back in February were reiterated during Monday's debate building height and where those buildings were located, preservation of heritage buildings, revitalization zone boundaries and the issue of affordable housing in the downtown core.

Councillor Luke Stack, who had voted in favour of the revitalization plan all along, says he reluctantly voted to rescind it once he saw where the vote was going.

Stack believes that, whatever happens downtown, there needs to be a unified council that includes support from the mayor, something this plan did not include.

"You heard I got a bit emotional about this thing because I have been a big supporter of this all the way along. I made a comment that there is enough good stuff in this plan that I think we could have made it work," says Stack.

"When I read the mayor's comments and Councillor Reid's comments, there were just so many issues raised that I didn't see how we could move forward with any consensus to make it work."

He says the plan is the city's plan and without a majority of council and the mayor behind it, I think it sends bad signals to the development community.

Councillor Robert Hobson was willing to sit back and take another look at the current plan but also agreed that too many changes were on the table for the plan to work in its current form.

"It is kind of a death of a thousand cuts because there were so many changes people wanted to make to the plan that I don't think it can survive those changes," says Hobson.

"I am prepared to set first reading aside and go through another process if that is what council wants to do. I didn't want to go back to first reading with the intention of killing the CD Zone. I actually thought we would be able to find some ways of improving it."

While Hodge and Blanleil didn't agree on much of the CD21 Zone, they did agree it's time council takes a breather from the downtown revitalization issue.

"I think council is going to spend a week or two licking its wounds because all of us have been beaten up over this one. I think we are going to come together stronger than before, work with the public and come up with a plan that does work."