PENTICTON – It’s now a cluster of low slung, single family homes along the Skaha beach lakefront in Penticton.
It could turn into multi-family developments of low rise condo buildings.
In the early 1990’s, Penticton council decided the city should try to purchase the private properties for future development into public parklands.
In preparation, the properties were rezoned from residential to parks and recreation.
Now council is considering abandoning the park land acquisition plan, changing the Official Community Plan, and rezoning nine parcels to medium-density residential.
The mayor says it could cost upwards of $25 million to buy the lands and the money might be better spent on other park projects.
“We could probably leverage our money elsewhere, more effectively, and get a bigger bang for our buck for the whole community. That’s probably a better way of going,” says Andrew Jakubeit.
But a former mayor, who was on council when the park acquisition plan was first endorsed, says reversing the zoning from park and recreation to residential would be a big step backwards.
“It’s just so rare to still be able to have have access to the shoreline for the public. And all that hard work has been done. Those residents know all that property is now dedicated parks and recreation. To rezone it I think is contrary to anything the public would believe in,” says Dorothy Tinning.
At a public meeting Tuesday evening, residents can tell city council what they think of the proposal to amend the OCP and rezone the nine properties.
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