Plea for Pine Valley
Monday, April 22, 2013 @ 4:59 AM
Prince George, B.C.- The Friends of Pine Valley will be making another presentation to Prince George City Council tonight, in an effort to have the sale of the golf course taken off the Core Review “to do” list.
The group argues that the City doesn’t need more commercially zoned land, that there is already 298 hectares of commercial zoned land in the City and the estimated demand is 19 hectares in the next 15 years.
The Pine Valley course appeals to a broad range of users, from Seniors to youth and special Olympics. It is considered rookie friendly and senior friendly. The group points out that in just 5 years time, 1 of every 6 Prince George residents will be over 65 and that will grow to one in four by 2038.
The Core Services review indicated the sale of the Pine Valley Golf Course for commercial development could result in raising $10 to $17 million dollars.
Also on the agenda for Council tonight, Council will be asked to give first two readings to the development of a “General Infrastructure Reinvestment Fund Reserve.” This would allow the City to add a new line on your tax bill, and charge that separate “tax” to deal with upkeep of an aging infrastructure. This year, the City plans to collect nearly $802 thousand dollars as a separate line item on your tax bill for that reserve.
The fourth reading of the OCP and rezoning application for the former Haldi Road School is also on the agenda.
There will be a public hearing to change the zoning for a piece of property in University Heights that had been set aside for the development of a school. School District 57 has indicated it is not interested in developing a school at that location. The developer would like to develop the site into multi family development.
Comments
use the 802 thousand to help fix the roads as we will never be able to upgrade this council
Sell The Land
A new owner might take down that chain link fence with barbwire
It looks like a jail
Build it up and make it look niceâ Make a new down town. the old down town is just scary… lots of walking dead down there
Leave it as a park and force people to build downtown. Commonsence, why do you want to make downtown worse. We have to put all the energy into downtown. 2013 is the year downtown makes a comeback!
Hopefully the Council members will have the fortitude to not sell off Pine Valley Golf course. This is an important green space in the City, and if properly managed could make a profit for the City.
Insofar as changing the tax bill to a one line item, this is just a ploy by the City to charge us tax on one line items, and then continue to increase regular taxes. What happens is we end up paying more. Problem is the increase in regular taxes goes to pay for increases in salaries and benefits, to the Police, Firemen, City Managers, staff, and employee’s.
So what we need is a one line item to tax us for these increases so that we can see immediately where and how much money is spent.
Playing tag with out tax dollars is very unprofessional and those people who come up with these types of ideas should give serious consideration to resigning.
Goldrush: “Leave it as a park and force people to build downtown.”
Nice thought, but it doesn’t work. If I had a business and council forced me to locate downtown, I would set up in another town without such restrictive rules.
As for Pine Valley, it was a nice course once upon a time. Unfortunately, the Pine Beetle took care of that. There are far nicer par 3 courses in town now.
JohnnBelt. It can be a nice course again. They have already planted new tree’s. You have to think long term when you are dealing with green space, or golf courses.
Calling the other two par three golf courses **nicer** or suggesting they are in town is a bit of a stretch. Just the cost of driving to and from them would be a huge cost to those seniors and juniors who use Pine Valley.
Pine Valley should stay where it is. Business has lots of locations they can choose. Why is it necessary to take the golf course.
I would prefer my dollars spent at this golf course which raises more of a profit in more ways than one.
Quit giving our money away to the PG Golf and Curling Club – it is suppose to be membership driven and we should not be paying into it as taxpayers.
Take a look on the city website – they changes the plans for Pine Valley in 2010 to include car dealerships……….
The city owns a lot of land! Why not allocate the proceeds from the sale of city owned lands to the newly developed infrastructure reinvestment fund reserve and use this reserve money to pay for infrastructure maintenance and road repairs throughout the city and not just in the downtown.
I know I’m tired of having additional line items added to my taxes against my wish. We have had a separate road rehab levy, a 2015 Canada Winter Games charge, seen huge increases to our utility bills all in addition to paying annual property taxes that have consistently been set at rates double or triple that of inflation.
The money from the sale of Pine Valley will NOT, repeat will NOT be used for road repair or infrastructure. The Mayor and Council state that we have taxes in place for roads, and infrastructure.
Sooooo. My guess is that the money will go into the Capital Project Fund, and at some point be used to finance the Citys share of a Performing Arts Centre. If this turns out to be true, then in essence we have sold out the citizens who use Pine Valley, to look after the people who want to sit on their butts in a PAC. Not a very good trade off in my opinion.
Pine Valley must stay where it is. Selling it off is short sighted.
“Pine Valley must stay where it is. Selling it off is short sighted”
I agree completely Palopu. That parcel of land and the adjacent PGGCC lands are some of the only visible green spaces left in the entire bowl. One actually don’t realize how little developed green space PG has until you visit other cities and look around.
If the city wants to get out of the golf business, then that’s fine. Turn that area into a large city park instead and possibly sell off areas along the outer edges for high density residential. Regardless, that space has to remain green. If and when the downtown does die, there has to be something near the core other than car lots or Tim Horton’s to attract people. That would be a good spot to build AROUND if they want to go that way. Imagine a skating pond, cross country ski trails, marsh lands, bird watching, a 5K trail or whatever else in that spot. It could be a gem if someone with some vision got involved.
I don’t think that area will ever be or should ever be the next downtown. With time, however, it could be a perfect spot for infill development including high density residential, offices and light retail. That’s a long term vision.
Selling it off right now virtually guarantees that the strip of land from the bottom of Peden Hill to the 16/97 intersection will never be anything but a wasteland of poorly designed/utilized commercial space that does nothing to help improve the community as a whole.
Unfortunately I think council has already made up their minds. Tonights council meeting will be like third reading of the Haldi Road fiasco, council members just going through the motions to make it look like they followed protocol.
Should be an entertaining/interesting meeting at any rate. I think I might just have to go.
Where’s Gus? Leave the course as it is. Nice course for seniors and beginners.
Comments for this article are closed.