It lost last month’s referendum, but the City of West Kelowna hasn’t given up on a new city hall.
The city’s chief administrative officer is going in front of councilors on Tuesday night with six different, brand new plans for the future of the municipal hall.
Jim Zaffino said that while the initial plans were rejected by voters, he’s confident one of the new ideas will be more successful.
“We are at capacity here and the council realizes that and they want to know what can be done,” he said.
The six options that are being proposed are to expand with more portables at the current centre, to build on city-owned land at the end of Bartley Road, to construct a building that is leased in part by Interior Health, to build a hall in Westbank that can be expanded over time, to look for land outside of downtown Westbank, or to completely forego the proposal and move ahead under new direction from council.
“Council has a lot of different options to choose from.”
All the options are still in early planning stages, but if approved on Tuesday, one could be put into action as soon as the summer of 2018.
The funding for the chosen option will come from the city’s reserves. It has $7.1 million that Zaffino said can be used for the project: half of what the planned civic centre would have cost.
Still, not everyone is happy with the new options.
The man who lead the no side in September’s referendum, Ian Graham, still believes the city isn’t listening to their citizens.
“I really don’t think they’ve put all the heads together and come up with a satisfactory solution,” said Graham.
“This council needs a waking up and to realize the citizens aren’t happy.”
The option that receives four votes on Tuesday will enter the business planning stage immediately.
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