According to a social media post by Kingston City Councillor Wayne Hill, Centre 70 in the city’s west end is the proposed summer location for the sleeping cabins currently situated at Portsmouth Olympic Harbour.
“Centre 70 is not used. There’s no programming here during the summer,” Hill tell Global News.
He says the arena offer amenities for the program that seem to fit the bill.
“The sleeping program needs some meeting space, it needs showers and washroom facilities, and it needs to be close to public transit. And there aren’t many of them available in Kingston right now. This is a pretty ideal combination of amenities and location in terms of public transit.”
The proposed location comes just weeks before the May 17 deadline for the project to wrap up at its current location.
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The plan is to relocate the 10 cabins for the rest of Spring and the Summer, before Portsmouth Olympic Harbour opens for boating and other seasonal activities.
Hills says while this is the very beginning of the approval process, they’ll have to move quickly.
“There’ll be consultations with the different stakeholder groups,” he says. “We have a sharing garden here, we have the school boards, we have different groups that are involved in the sharing centre behind the facility. All of those groups are going to be consulted.”
Then it has to go before council.
“This can’t happen without council approval, and that would happen on May 17,” Hill says. “Assuming everybody is able to bring it together.”
Hill says he’s enthusiastic about the proposal, and believes his community will be up to the task.
“To my knowledge there were no complaints from the community about the program, and the neighbours really embraced it,” says Hill. “And this is that kind of neighbourhood, these are great people that live out here. They will want to be a part of the solution and helping to assist their neighbours in need.”
“This is a great opportunity for them to do that and to make good use of this facility, when it would otherwise lie empty.”
Online public consultation meetings are set to be held on May 9 at 4:30 p.m. and/or May 10 at 7 p.m. to provide an opportunity for Henderson Place and Reddendale residents to ask questions and voice their opinions.
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