Kelowna civic political party floats idea of city streets becoming canals

KELOWNA – It’s an idea that has sparked conversation and debate in the Kelowna municipal election.

The TaxpayersFirst slate of candidates is proposing the city’s downtown take on characteristics most often associated with Venice, Italy.  Imagine asphalt streets being replaced by water filled canals.

“It’s time we gave this community what it deserves, it could be world class. We’re in a unique situation and the city lends itself to water features like canals. We’re not talking about miles, we’re talking about a couple blocks,” says Carol Gran of TaxpayersFirst.

But a long time Kelowna professional civil engineer calls the proposal “pie-in-the-sky”.  Dave Cullen says it would take many years to complete and cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

“All the city’s (below road) utilities would have to be relocated. Plus all the private utilities such as telephone, cable, power and gas would need to be moved to new locations with new right-of-ways.”

TaxpayersFirst candidate Graeme James says the cost of the canals would be covered by selling or leasing city owned properties and through revenues generated by the canal builder and operator through the P-4 development model.

“This is a concept that the P-4 process can be used at. A profitable, private-public partnership that can pay for facilities like this and other features,” says James,

But Cullen questions the proposed funding model.  “A P-4 initiative? I don’t think so. P-4 initiatives barely support themselves let alone improvements around them.”

TaxpayersFirst points to San Antonio, Texas as an example of where downtown canals have proven to be popular with citizens and tourists. But Cullen says those canals were once rivers, not city streets.

Carol Gran says if TaxPayersFirst has its way, the canal proposal would be voted on in a city referendum.

“You could never do anything like that without the buy in of the public. But it’s all part of the vision we need to have here that we don’t have.  We just have someone putting up a hotel once in a while.”