Get Some Park Land Without Paying For It -Maybe

By Ben Meisner

There must be a couple of questions swirling around the minds of those people who own businesses along River Rd in the city.

The area to the North of River Rd is being proposed as a park. That park would run along the north side of, surprise , the Berm constructed during flooding last winter, along the road past Winton Global and would then encompass what is now referred to as the Klein property to the east of Cottonwood park , across the road and over to 1^st Ave taking in a good chunk of CN property.

You may recall last winter when the local owners of property were calling on the city to construct the Berm alongside the river rather than increasing the height of River Rd, they didn’t receive much attention.

Well it would be much easier to zone that property on the north side of River Rd into park if it was deemed to be useless for any other purpose. Now the business along that north section of River Roadhould be squealing and if they are not they might want to consider that if the property they now own is deemed as a future park, what the value of that land might be when they decide to sell.

Brink Forest Products, from what I can gather, has not had its property listed under the proposed park, but the area to the east would pretty much become green.

The Winton family (who owned The Pas Lumber at the time it was called that) handed over to the Rivers Committee and me, $500,000 dollars to build the trails and turn the area along the river green.

I’m sure they didn’t have it in mind that down the road the city could re zone the property they occupied and turn the whole area into a park. It was they who saw the value of river trails; of course one would expect that if you wanted to expand on that park you would dig out your check book and buy that area up.

I talked to a couple of property owners who own property along that section and they advise that to this date, no one has talked to them. No one would argue that a park along the river is a good idea. If it is the intention of the city to zone it park and then wait because the value of the property becomes little or no value when it is zoned park thereby getting that property for nothing, I am sure that the taxpayers of the city would not agree with that type of conduct.

That however could be all redundant, because lurking in the shadows are a few people who feel they were wronged in this past winters flood, and the city moves have cost them dearly. That could set the stage for a messy little court battle. Of course if the city were to lose such an argument, never fear, there is always you the taxpayer to fall back on.

I'm Meisner, and that's one man's opinion.

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