Here is a novel idea for a city who is broke and it’s council thinks the only way to raise money is by taxing the crap out of it’s tax payers; instead of starting new unneeded projects… TAKE CARE OF OUR CURRENT INFRASTRUCTURE!

Let them build a hotel downtown. The city shouldn’t allow the scattering of tourist facilities all over the place and in out of sight locations.

I agree!

Well shucks, if we don’t need a new fancy entrance to the PGX, we certainly don’t NEED a Performing Arts Center, what a waste of money!

With concerts, sports coming to the plex a hotel on site makes perfect sense.

As for doing something council can be proud of.. How about start listening to the voters, instead of having your own agenda. I would love to have something to be proud of from council..hasn’t happened yet.

Awwww Really???? No hotel????

Corporate issue, eh?

Too many possibilities to begin speculating. :-(

Very interesting. I thought this was a “go” for sure.

Too bad. Would’ve been a good project at a good location.

Yup trying to run a “city” managed by the “village idiots”. Typical.

It is difficult to read between the lines of this info release. Are we looking at the City decision making or corporate decision porcess? Before we determine who the “idiot” of this potential deal may have been, I would need to know a few more things.

1. How did this “idea” come about?

2. Who was the orginal proponent of this – the City, the Best Western rep, or a third, unnamed party who managed to activate this notion?

At the moment, based on the article above, sort of sounds more like trying to run a hotel managed by corporate decision makers who may have gone beyond their authority or their understanding of the “details” of the potentials of this location.

In either case we have lost an aging Best Western without an equally strong replacement in place.

One of the rumours going around was that it was potentially going next to the Sandman on HWY16 West.

Whatever the location, I expect they will eventually build somewhere in PG in the not too distant future.

Whoever pulled the plug at the corporate level was either doing their coporate due diligence or had luck on their side.

The design reminds me of the Best Western in West Kelowna, water slide tower and all.

So someone had one so far at the corporate offices to patch tgether a quick, generic, architectural rendering for “show and tell”.

http://d1pa4et5htdsls.cloudfront.net/images/vfml/1/2/7/5/4/6/5/b69ca56c_4x6aerial_62121_06062012_s-original.jpg

That should read: “someone had gone ….” :-(

I think it would have been a great addition to our city in that location. What a shame they pulled the plug for what ever reason.

My bet is they looked at the debt PG had to service, thought about property tax risk, then met our mayor and council.

Agreed Eagleone. I am disappointed. Maybe another franchise will look at this as a good opportunity and jump in.

This is good – I live right there and this was a horrible idea to begin with. It’s considered parkland or greenspace – something that our city should not be selling off and developing because we will never get that greenspace back. Even though it is an ugly gravel lot, that is the city’s fault for not maintaining it.

I have a funny feeling this fell through because of all the unknowns at the public meeting. Planning department was asked if the parking lot would be replaced, as it is now people park on 22nd Ave and also try to park in my parking lot (townhouse). No plans to replace the parking. They were asked what their vision was for the rest of the property fronting Ospika – specifically the parcel of land on the corner of 22nd Ave. Again, they didn’t have a clue and couldn’t say what would or could potentially be developed there. They weren’t concerned about traffic – a certain firm was going to conduct a traffic study and we all know that would be skewed in the city’s favour (no impact to traffic to limit costs to the city). I think they saw the amount of concern and the lack of trust between the citizens at the meeting and the city representatives and wondered what the #%@ they were getting themselves into.

Gus – good questions. I would love to know the answers.

My vote would be to keep the hotels in the downtown. As for the Ex Grounds entrance, use the $300K that was earmarked for a consultant to study the swimming pools. Public pools are never going to be attractive to private investors.

NIMBY NIMBY NIMBY.

A hotel there is a great idea. If you call a gravel lot next to a busy street a park then you are nuts. Like I said earlier, pull down that ugly silver tin shack, move the horses out to Blackburn(or a similar place) and develop that area with the hotel, the CN Centre, the updated Kin Centres, the ice oval, maybe a PAC (when we can afford it) and the aquatic center. Complete the road that was planned to run behind the grounds to alleviate some of the traffic pressures and do it sooner rather than later.

If you live next door, you live on a busy street so what do you expect to happen on an empty lot next door. The city should wipe off the park moniker and call it what it should be called. A site of future development.

Fine – resort to name calling if it makes you feel better.

I’m concerned about what is happening in my neighbourhood. Technically, that land is parkland. It is zoned as such. Check out the “Master Plan” for the Exhibition grounds and you will see what I mean. I bought next to what should be devoloped trails and parkland – not a hotel and potentially a strip mall. I actually do agree that should they build a PAC eventually, that is a perfect location.

After watching the city rezone and amend the OCP numerous times I am seriously reconsidering my decision to live in PG. There is no planning department – they are ran by the developers and approve anything that goes before them. There is no consideration given to people who live in affected neighbourhoods. And the city can’t figure out why no one is moving here and the population is stagnant – they aren’t helping things at all.

It’s not name calling. It’s not personal. It’s my opinion regarding the proximity of the proposed development to where you live.

Technically it’s parkland but in reality it’s a gravel lot. I think they should abolish the OCP. Who wants to handcuff future decisions with a narrow minded document that is so easily changed. Call parks parks. If you call a chunk of land a park, make it into a park. If you call it parkland, that’s asking for subjectivity as to the proper or improper use of the land. I believe parkland can be easily turned into a school or a cemetery with a simple stroke of a pen. If it’s important to maintain areas for parks (which in my humble opinion it is) then maybe we should be employing something modeled like the Nature’s Trust Conservancy. They deal with larger areas of sensitive habitat but if a piece of land goes into that designation, it’s not going to be developed.

If applied properly, the OCP is a great tool for city planning. Unfortunately, as we’ve all seen too many times, this city is not one to plan ahead. Our planning department is a joke to put it mildly – they seem to work for developers and not the city. The OCP is supposed be there to provide some protection for homeowners in regards to what can and can’t be put in their neighbourhood – it is technically a legal document and not just a ‘guideline’ as the city found out after they lost in court (Haldi Road). And potentially (hopefully) will find out again in the new year when the second ruling happens.

They can’t abolish the OCP, it is required by every municipality and is supposed to offer a bit of certainty to those purchasing houses and land to make sure they know the plan for the neighbourhood. Problem is the race for planning now to change the OCP with each application of rezoning instead of placing things where they were ‘planned’ to go for years. Can’t be done for every development but changing the OCP should be a rarity and not the norm

OFF TOPIC: My god what would happen if this site ever went on Facebook? Lol, they would need to hire 10 moderators. Sorry but I had to ask that question before the site closes the comments to this like always when they get heated.

Not every proposal gets automatic approval. A nice neighborhood pub was proposed for the corner of chief lake road and foothills about 4 years ago and a petition from the area residents put the cork in it.