Small steps, eh? I am afraid it will take more than that. The BIA had 10 years. How much longer do we give those of that group. Time to move over and give others a chance. Where is the group that called the BIA's bluff to expand? I would have thought we would have heard form them by now.

Can we get the names of those on this anonymous Task Force? Another "in" group that has no transparency?

What OCP? That review was to have been done a couple of years ago.

Too many meetings; too many obvious, no brainer words; too little real action.

The focus is still on the edges of town not downtown. Boundary Road is where the money is going. Boundary Road is where the planning is going. The golf course is where the planning is going. Two plans inside of a year? No plans for downtown. Why? Can anyone figure this out? I sure can't.

Smart Growth on the Ground?????

Why do they have to name themselves that? Why on the ground? Why smart? Does it need the adjective "smart" to tell us their ideas are smart? Won't it become obvious to everyone as the plan unfolds that this is the smartest plan that ever happened to the downtown?

Is City Hall still contesting the Census Canada stats coming out of the 2006 Census? What is happening to the population of Prince George. The perception of those in the Lower Mainland, that not much is happening as far as population growth is going.

Market housing versus non-market housing. Why do we need to couch our words in such euphemisms?

BTW, the root of the problem is not downtown. The root of the problem is City Hall wher both Administration and Council have sucked the life out of downtown over the decades as development after development was approved to nurture a sprawling city. Now, without any population growth, they cannot repopulate the hole in the donut with offices, retail, or housing.

With a few exceptions, such as Vancouver, this City was no different and the results in this city are not much different.

How much longer are we going to have to keep a chin up positive outlook? That is all those above statements are. How many times have there been other meetings of other gorups with some re-arranged deck chairs that have come out with similar statements whether made public or not?

So where is air qaulity in all of this? There is another effort that keeps on ticking, and ticking and ticking. Where are the results?

We are suffering from the lack of results. Where are past efforts? Where are the measuring sticks for those previous efforts? What can we learn from our past mistakes? Is anyone even willing to admit to mistakes or do people just look for excuses? Without that measure and retrospective, are we relegated to making the same mistakes over and over and over again?

http://www.ci.lewiston.me.us/development/dntf/index.htm

How long will it take us to go where this gorup is at?

http://www.ci.lewiston.me.us/development/dntf/dntf-files/DNTF-ActionPlan02-2009.pdf

What ever happened to the marketing plan for downtown Prince George? How old is that now? What were the actions to be taken from that $140 thousand or so study? Which ones were taken? What is the result? Where is the measuring stick? Was the money well spent?

smoke and mirrors. get rid of the drugs ,crime and panhandlers the rest will look after itself.

a 4 season design?
then why did city hall force the removal of the awnings?
it made the downtown a much less appealing place to shop in the winter, meathead. It is only a 4 season design if you consider going to a mall, which by the way is NOT in the downtown.

Honorable Dan: small steps is just more ban-aids that only look like you are doing things when in reality all you are doing is keeping city planners employed.

It is real simple.
Put RCMP boots on the ground, downtown. That means foot patrols specifically targeting the alleys and discreet areas where the unsavory elements like to hide their activities.

STOP building big box mega mall developments outside of the downtown, adding sprawl adds to infrastructure maintenance needs of the city. In simple terms Dan, it will cost more for snow removal, garbage collection, and pot hole filling. condense services to a smaller area, it will cost less.

Some building need to be removed, others need to be upgraded. Start a program of removing and activating unused premises.

Remove the bylaw prohibiting business owners from living above their business so at least some people don't have to drive to their business.

Encourage the installation of awnings, more bus shelters, and other weather sheltering systems throughout the city.

Stop pandering to the affluent. We do not need more nice to haves like a PAC or another stupid casino. We need a place for low income people to safely house their families and get quality academic and employment skills training as well as job placement. less unemployed equals more taxes for the city.

Create areas that are conducive to walking and prohibit vehicles such as Calgary's 8th Avenue. Possibly streets like George, dominion, Quebec and Brunswick from second to fifth.

Support the farmers market!

Support flea markets and community based markets. Support and encourage home based business and self employment.

Get those Realtors of any and all boards that have to do with city development. They are only interested in filling their own pocket by making realty sales. That is why they are always proposing these costly ideas.

It's amazing how many ways there are to hide the fact that it is taxpayers dollars being used to deal with certain issues.

Form a whole bunch of different groups and organizations that use taxdollars for their funding and call the funding "grants"

Sometimes I wonder if anyone from city council has ever taken a walk "downtown".Go ahead take a walk on the wild side.All the work that was done on 3rd ave a few years ago,does it look any better today? I think if we look back it all started when we moved alot of the business out of the downtown.Walmart,Costco and all the others pay alot of money for taxes, so one wonders if the previous city councils just saw dollar signs and in doing so sealed the fate for the "downtown".

gus... your questions were well answered had you bothered to attend one of the many public information sessions held by the city where any member of the public was welcome to participate in workshops to offer input into the design and development of downtown. I did make the time to attend these sessions because of my increasing level of frustration with the disjointed planning of the downtown. Myself and others were really impressed with the effort made by the city to organize these sessions and also by the diverse group of people who made the time to attend. Bitching on this site is a bit old. Loki... your ideas are exactly the kinds of things we discussed at the smart growth workshops. Members of the public are actually on the "charettes" or mini-design teams. They just signed people up to be part of this and they will be having another session to receive feedback on what they came up with. That's the real place to have your say. Have actual questions... take the initative to actually look the program up on the city website. So concerned about your tax dollars then do the bloody research...

That's great that my suggestions are not in isolation. The problem is not really with getting ideas.
The problem is getting a community leader to actually make this stuff happen. Mayor Dan is still in the honeymoon and sounds real gung ho. Let's direct that enthusiasm into action. The city planners have done little else but plan, now act. we do not need any more new planning committees, we need action committees to gather the existing plans, ideas and other ethereal concepts into concrete, attainable and affordable action.

Prove that especially at the municipal level, our politicians can do more than just incessantly spew verbal diarrhea pandering to the money bags all the while not really adding value or being productive. Leave a legacy of improvement that recognizes your tenor as a community leader positively without having to spell out you name on a plaque. It is the soft legacy items that will provide this, like a good homeless strategy or a framework for citizens to affect the development of the city.
Enabling developers to exploit our city and do as they please then take their profits away does not endear you to the community.

I think most politicians actually start in this way but get bogged down in politics.

Good luck Dan and council. Don't forget why you wanted to be a community leader, that you wanted to contribute to the community.

"gus... your questions were well answered had you bothered to attend one of the many public information sessions held by the city where any member of the public was welcome to participate in workshops to offer input into the design and development of downtown"

I am assuming you mean teh "smart growth" stuff. I attended each one so far and will be there for the 4 day charette session strating May 12th. I gather you were there too laketrout.

There was very little new for me there. They are all very basic planning principles. The sessions, btw, are not provided by the city, they are provided by the province with the city saying okay, go ahead.

Most of those individuals are no more than consultants who really know very little about this city or what this city needs. Roof gardens are not going to solve this city's downtown problem. Neither does allowing rainwater to filter through to the ground instead of dumping it into the rivers.

We'll see once they put pen to paper and provide some palns a few weeks or months after the Charrette is over. Then comes the key thing, will the city do anything about it.

Based on the past 25 years, they won't.

Fix the roads

Apart from some divergence in details, it looks like all above posters are really on the same page.

Here's my two-bits:

The studies are all there.
The vision statements are all there.
The objectives are all there.
The ideas to implement are all there.
The passion of our citizens are all there.

BUT NOTHING HAS HAPPENED

Why?

-No political will. But hopefully now with new Council and Mayor.
-Gave in to the burbs and big boxes on the outer edges (now an outdated premise anywhere else). PS the Casino is just another big box.
-No planning being done by our overpaid and underexperienced planners at City Hall.
Plus, no one seems to have any conviction about anything
-No guidance from previous Senior City Administration. (no clue what to do so do nothing - that is a sign of incompetence). Again, hopefully the new City Manager sees the light. Other senior management still questionable.

WHERE ARE WE NOW?

-Smart Growth - OK but still templated ie Squamish eg which is a very different set of conditions. Once completed, fold it into the ACTION plan.
-Strong desire of Citizens of PG (esp taxpayers)to DO SOMETHING/ANYTHING tangible NOW.
-Funding opportunities from Province/Feds
-A Task Force that seems to be starting "from the beginning" again.
-City of PG largest landowner downtown but has not leveraged any property as yet for development.
-With the economic and building slowdown, now is the time to plan and package and implement projects, planning staff have a lot of time on their hands,give them deadlines and consequences if not met. They should work as Professionals, not as 9 to 5ers. They should get out on the downtown streets during the days, evenings, weekends and really SEE the place. They should be "Planners", not paper pushing bureaucrats.

The Task Force should forget about stating the obvious (first meeting). It has already been done by many people numerous times over many years. The statements BTW are always the SAME. Just review all past studies and collate into one as starting point. A lot of time and money already spend with nothing in return.

Get an Action Plan in place now and give it milestones, deliverables and appoint staff and administration to ensure it is done. If not met, fire them. Have something tangible to show by 2010. Have entire plan implemented by our 100th Anniversay and leverage additional funds for this milestone. (2015)

Stop the PROCESS and take ACTION now.
Maybe by 2015 we will look like a real place that is inviting, attractive, econimically dynamic and one that people want to live, work, shop and recreate in.

IT is possible, maybe we just need some kickstarting. That takes leadership and decisive action.

Just some thoughts.