KELOWNA — Developers, residents and other stakeholders have gathered in Kelowna’s Pandosy Village to help shape a vision for what the neighbourhood will look like in the future.
“It’s a clean canvas,” says major property owner Albert Weisstock. “It’s an area that we can start from scratch without having heritage buildings or other amenities that the downtown core has been encumbered with.”
Weisstock and 29 other volunteers will spend two days in a Charrette, a conference where ideas will be hammered out before being presented back to City Hall.
Weisstock, a partner in Witmar Holdings Ltd, also used Day 1 of the Charrette as the public launch for his own big plans on property he and his company own around Meikle Avenue, off Cedar Avenue.
“We’re putting it forward to the community to get their direct response,” says Weisstock. “Once we get a consensus from the community and what the community wants then we’ll approach the City and we’ll ask permission from councillors to build it.”
A rendering of Weisstock’s plan proposes a 24 storey tower surrounded by smaller buildings.
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“Store front, commercial, ground level,” he says about the plan. “Above that there’d be a mix of offices and other amenities and then above that would be residential.”
But Weisstock’s plan also includes converting 11 City owned lakeshore lots into a public park.
While the City did not know of Weisstock’s plans to go public Tuesday, a Kelowna spokesperson says the City welcomes all ideas brought forward in any fashion for the Pandosy Waterfront neighbourhood.
Among the more than 30 people invited to the Charrette, there are three representatives of the Kelowna Paddle Centre, three from the KLO Central Neighbourhood Association, and three from the Urban Development Institute.
While some attendees did not offer comment when asked to share ideas for the Pandosy Waterfront neighbourhood with Global News, many freely expressed a desire to see City owned lakeshore land turned into park.
“I don’t see any other recourse but to put in multifamily and higher density, but at the same token, I want to see greenspace: I want to see waterfront,” says 25-year-resident Jaqueline Tames.
Central Okanagan Naturalists Club representative Peter Courtney says his club would like to see the area remain natural and “that the wildlife be encouraged to come into the area and the environment generally protected”.
The Kelowna Paddle Centre would like the City to preserve more greenspace and create more places for families to play on the lakeshore, according to Doug Hahn.
Judy Dennison bought property across from the lake on Walnut Street after seeing City plans for a park.
“I would like to see park. I really would,” said Dennison.
The City is hoping the group can collaborate and come up with a consensus for the neighbourhood plan as well as what should be done with seven City owned residential lots on Abbott Street near Cedar Avenue. Ahead of the meeting, four City lots on Walnut are zoned for greenspace.
“A lot of different people have a lot of different visions for the site and a lot of those people are in this room,” says Graham Hood, Property Officer with the City of Kelowna.
The public can review the ideas that come from each day of the Charrette. Review sessions take place at St. Paul’s United Church, 3131 Lakeshore Road from 6:30 – 8 pm, Tuesday and Wednesday.
An Open House takes place at the same location Thursday, February 27th, from 5 – 8 pm.
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