Loudon Park Improvements: motion to defer
Motion
That the motion be deferred to a future meeting .
This vote follows the minutes. The City’s vote record does not list it.
Sources
Procedural vote
That the motion be deferred to a future meeting .
Procedural vote
a seconder? Councilor Gesselbrock? Care to speak to it? We weren't considering the fact that the boat storage size is the exact same. In option one and two. I don't think that got fully brought into the conversation, and if we are going to be proceeding. With. A building that includes community space. I think that we need to be rescoping the project. And looking at ways. To simplify the design because, for example, like I pointed out, the fully glassed in boat storage. It's not making sense to me. As. Needing a compromise between form and function. Councilor Brown,
do you wish to speak to the deferral? I do. Yosha wish to speak to the deferral I won't be supporting. The deferral. For these reasons. First and foremost. Obviously, this project has gone to a significant point where a BP or building permit plans were completed. So that's fairly fair. Along, and then it was rescoped. And those options were presented to council. So there has been a rescoping exercise. That's not to say there can't be another one. And I've heard talks about expanding the park. If that was the will of counsel, then why select any design at all? Because if you were going to rescope with an expanded park, you would have the land and then you would do the design for the land. You wouldn't be selecting an option. Building it and then expanding and say, well, we're going to add this. Well, yes, you could do that, but. That's a different type of project. That's not. We'll figure it out and we'll scope it out as one cohesive unit. It might sound good. It might be easy to say it's here. Tonight. But that's not actually how things happen in reality. And my final point is why I won't be supporting this deferral is. There's been a lot of talk about the reserve funds and utilizing those reserve funds for other projects that we know have to be built. However, I think it's been presented to like, three times the public works yard. At no point did anyone raise their hand and say, oh, I want to use some of these reserve funds for these projects to help reduce. The load. Really, it was. We're going to borrow all of them. There was options presented about how we might utilize some of those reserve funds. I don't want to digress too far there. But. I think it's not in good faith to throw out a bunch of variables and say, what about this? What about that? Reality is, we have two options presented. If council doesn't. Want to go with any of those and wants to talk about expansion of the property and rescaping the project. I think that's a great conversation, except just. It's not. A deferral, it's a defeat, and then it's direction to staff, to go and. Do that so I won't be supporting the deferral. I will be voting in
on the deferral. Yes, I'm going to be voting against the deferral. I just. Want to remind counsel this has been on the book since 2006. 2006 is when this project for improvements first started, and I'm reading it right off of there it was an updated improvement plan was put through public process through 2009 and 2010. It was adopted, then. I remember. This has been on council since I've been here. It was brought forward. 20 18, 20, 19, 20 01, 20 22. How long do we keep putting it off and the longer we. Put it off. The bills keep going up higher and higher and higher, and we've had all sorts of time and discussions at in camera meetings on this, at other meetings, to bringing forward. These conversations that wasn't done. So I think it's time to vote on the next one. Thank you. Thank
you, Councilor Gesselbrock. Thanks. I would happily support a defeat. If deferral is not necessary. So. We can get to that point. I'll still support a deferral because you can. Buy a bit more time to get to defeat. But I think that this project. Was abandoned, actually. After Covid because it came in twice the amount that we budgeted for it. It was 4 million, and then it was like 8 million and the 9 million, and it kept growing and. Staff came back with alternatives because it got just too expensive, and then it got bought back, so the delays were legitimate, and this is the reason, and I actually hadn't really seen the full footprint of the first. Option up until. A little while ago and actually saw what it entailed and where the building was being. Put and what it meant for the park. So I support the deferral. But definitely more supportive defeat. Thank you,