Tuesday, January 8, 2013

City of Nanaimo to Purchase 26.7 Acre Downtown Waterfront Rail Yards

Pending an environmental review, the City of Nanaimo have announced an agreement with Canadian Pacific to purchase its rail yards. The area was excluded from the 2008 Downtown Urban Design Plan and Guidelines and piecemeal redevelopment of Port Place immediately to the north has proceeded without a master plan for this area.

Redevelopment of these brownfields holds great potential of course but considering a track record here of opportunities lost over the last 10 years I fear the worst. Council will be asked to approve a budget for a "master plan [which] will include not just the land we’re buying but all of the CP lands and the waterfront lands,” says the City's GM Development Ted Swabey. The area should be the subject of a Design Competition geared to attracting top Planning and Architectural talent and badly needed fresh ideas.

There is an agreement in place with the Regional District to collaborate with them on a transit hub. The Snuneymuxw First Nation's reserve lands are to the immediate south and they hold both treaty rights and land purchase options which will directly effect the redevelopment of the site. The Island Corridor Foundation who own the rail line and stations on south and central Vancouver Island are among others who hold land rights and rights of way. 

Scariest prospect of all a popular idea for a 5,000 seat multiplex. There simply does not seem to be either the Planning talent or the political will here to, if this goes ahead, create anything other than a piece of brutal architecture floating in acres of surface parking doing  damage to existing downtown neighbourhoods. Much lip service has been offered here about making "place not space" with appropriated urbanspeak aside, nothing meaningful to show for it.

Here's City Councillor Fred Pattje re the Port Place plans proceeding without a master plan for the southern waterfront:

“This is not proper urban planning in my view,” he said. “The Nanaimo Port Authority wants to do something significant with the assembly wharf and the Snuneymuxw have an interest in the Wilcox property. This whole area is Nanaimo’s last urban frontier and there’s no connection in the planning for any of it, so eventually we’ll end up with something really unpleasant."

City of Nanaimo news release

Nanaimo News Bulletin report Dec 14, 2012 City purchases waterfront rail yard downtown


Staff Report to Council Dec 17 2012

1 comment:

Frank Murphy said...

My comment on the blog of the South End Community Association www.nanaimosouthend.ca/

Strikes me that the 3 inner city neighbourhood associations might want to get out in front of this without delay. As we’ve seen before (Port Place redeveloped as a suburban style strip mall the latest example) decisions have already been made between senior City staff and an investor (with or without the involvement of the Snuneymuxw and without consolation or collaboration with the neighbourhoods) What possible good can be brought to our neighbourhoods with a 5000 seat arena floating in another vast expanse of surface parking? Will it bring needed Community Centres, Public Squares? Affordable housing? Will it contribute to a more walkable, liveable downtown? Will we be asked to believe again that it will result in wonderful trickle down goodies and oh yeah, we promise to build condos so lots of people will live downtown? Just a few questions. BTW SECA you do a terrific job in updating folks through your blog…
Here’s Councillor Pattje quoted in the DN in 2010 in regards to First Capital’s fantasy proposal eventually approved unanimously if I’m not mistaken.

"Coun. Fred Pattje was the only politician at Monday’s meeting who spoke out against the highrise proposal. He wanted his fellow councillors to look at development plans for much of the south-end’s waterfront, including the Nanaimo Assembly Wharf and the Wilcox yard, before approving any major developments in the area. Part of Pattje’s campaign clearly outlined his opposition to highrises in the downtown.

“This is not proper urban planning in my view,” he said. “The Nanaimo Port Authority wants to do something significant with the assembly wharf and the Snuneymuxw have an interest in the Wilcox property. This whole area is Nanaimo’s last urban frontier and there’s no connection in the planning for any of it, so eventually we’ll end up with something really unpleasant.”"