Second Chance on Consultation, may bring second thoughts on city's parking plans

Council was 0 for 2 on Monday night in moving forward with bylaws designed to address long standing areas of frustration.

As we noted earlier, the City's plans for a Container Bylaw have been put on hold pending some additional work for staff to address a number of areas of concern raised by Council members. 

Also on the list of Bylaws now deferred until a later date is the city's long running work on a parking strategy for the downtown core. 

With their most recent plan towards the downtown area sent back to staff to await a consultation with a number of business owners from the Third Avenue area.

The Parking Bylaw was as close to a finish line as it could get on Monday, awaiting third reading following a Public Hearing held two weeks ago,  which brought two members of the public out to share thoughts on the issue in January.

However, a late interjection by a third business owner on Monday night seemed to sway council to put the program on hold. 

With Bruce Wishart taking advantage of the public comment period at the start of the session to express concerns over the proposed bylaw, while noting that some of the lack of awareness of the civic initiative was on him for not being engaged as much as he once was on civic issues.

Business owner Bruce Wishart speaking Monday's Council Session

We outlined what the City had done towards the notification process earlier this week along with some background on their previous work on the file, that noted as part of our look at a petition that was launched over the Weekend  and noted by Mr. Wishart on Monday night.

"On Friday, we started a petition with Paul from Sunset. It only ran over the weekend, I wasn't sure of the process at that point, we started the petition to just ask Council to consider tabling this until there's a bit more discussion and it only ran over the weekend, but we already have 60 signatures on it ... 

We also this morning walked a hard copy of the petition down Third Between City Hall and First and No business owner, or manager was aware of this, they had never heard of it. They have the same issues with it that we did ... 

All were asking is that Council table the bylaw and give a little bit more of a chance,  for particularly business, but we've also heard from customers and residents obviously on fourth, that they wold like to speak to it too. I don't know if that's another public meeting, that's Council's decision I'm just hoping for a bit more time" -- Business owner Bruce Wishart speaking to the city's plans for  parking changes downtown. 

The decision to defer the Third reading came up later in the Council session, with Councillor Barry Cunningham recommending the pause to allow staff opportunity to speak with the concerned group.

"I would like to see us defer this for this meeting and put it back to staff that they have a meeting with the interested parties and then get back to us if possible" 

And while during the container discussion Councillor Cunningham noted that that City staff doesn't have to meet with every special group that may have concerns about civic legislation, that does seem to actually be how things may be evolving.

While the group behind the petition may have very valid concerns over the city's approach to downtown parking, the interjection from the concerned group comes very late in the process, coming as it does with a mea culpa that they had not been monitoring civic issues enough to be aware of the plan. 

Their conversation ahead will seemingly be one that will be out of the public view through the consultation with city staff, which should suggest that like the recommendation for the Container Bylaw,  the Parking Bylaw process may also now require a Second Public Hearing. 

That to ensure that the public is informed towards any changes that may come and what may have influenced those changes.

The thing is, that in two instances on Monday night Council has set somewhat of a precedent where second thoughts on seemingly near completed projects will rule decision making; which in the end could mean extensive delays towards their goals, added work for city staff and a sense for the public of  a Council that never quite achieves what they have spent months working towards.

You can review the path towards deferral from Monday through the City's Video archive, Mr. Wishar'ts call for a chance to speak to the topic comes at the three minute mark of the session, the Council discussion later can be found at the 18:30 minute mark.

More notes related to Monday's Council Session can be explored through our Timeline Feature.

Further items of interest on Council themes can be reviewed through our Council Discussion archive.