I agree with Colin Kinsley that there should be housing in the downtown core. The debate then forms in which type of housing?
Many city centres are surrounded by large, gracious homes that act as decor for their downtown image. Nice homes make it a pleasure to walk the streets and browse.
I'd love to see certain businesses removed from downtown and replaced with unique and characteristic homes.
Many of the buildings downtown have personality, but instead of being revitalized and restored, they're home to grungy pub or pawn shop. Afternoon drunks etc., tend to steer me away from, what could be, a beautiful downtown area.

Nobody is going to move into a crime riddled area that is always going to be in the fall out zone of a couple of pulp mills effluent.

What a waste of our tax dollars. Initiative PG is useless and provides no value to the city IMO.

Chad said it all!!!! The downtown area is doomed, and another $90,000.00 went Offet's way and can account for a total waste of our tax dollars, again!!! When is this Mayor and Council going to get the message???? We need an election-and it cannot come soon enough!!!! Problem is, we don't attract capable people to run for public office.
I do believe it is time Kinsley stopped his ridiculing and deriding Scott. I, personally think it is disgusting. What is it??? A power trip??? Does not place this Mayor in a favorable light-now does it??? Chill out Colin.

What should be downtown is not the problem. Most people agree with much ot that.

The question is how do your get it down there.

And yes, the air quality is a problem, but it is a "problem" in many downtowns not due to pulp mills but due to traffic generated pollutants. That does not mean we should not do something to improve it. But let us make sure we don not replace one for another.

It is a natural geographic "toilet" bowl so it will be very difficult to eradicate the pollution hot spot of the City.

Another 90k for initiatives P.G. for yet another study on downtown,....AMAZING.Here's a thought,why not take the old P.G. city works yard on the other side of queensway and find an investor to build a private hockey rink(yes private not public money)give him or her the tax subsidies and hell we could also give them a liquor licence,have them build a 3000 seat rink so the Spruce Kings could be their new tennant.The owner could then rent the ice to the rec hockey league as well as the figure skaters and in the summer he could run a real hockey school out of the building.Then if we really had our stuff together we could buy up all those IMO run down warehouses in the area and put in a RV park.In the summer the owner of the rink could host old timer tournaments so all these retired guys could drag their RV's to P.G. camp for the week and play some hockey and golf and drink a few cold ones and wow,they could even walk 2 blocks into the downtown and spend some dough,the casino could provide a shuttle between downtown and the casino(casino's money not the taxpayers)
Next we could take the old liquor store that we bought recently and put up a performing arts center for Judy Russell and her bunch and also the Theatre North West crowd.This then would create a reason to actually go downtown and if done right we could then start to see some affordable condo's getting built(kind of like the condo's at the corner of 6th and Vancouver) in the downtown core.This type of development would then create positive synergies for all of downtown which would then lead to small businesses coming back to the downtown core.
Now there you go,the downtown according to "the rock" and it didn't even cost a dime.Not to worry we will glady give Gerry Offet another 90k for yet another glossy binder full of gobbly gook IMO of course
ROCK keapin it real 24/7

By golly, Rock, congrats on some good ideas, but the location is questionable!!! Isn;t that a possible flood area??Hard to build an arena on stilts, and access to it during high water?????Also, those R V's do not have flotation equipment built on, and I don't think any investor wants to "get their feet wet" with that plan. Otherwise it is brilliant, and I would rather see an industrious thinker get that 90 grand instead of Offet. I do not know just where we dredged him up from, but his winning ways work for this city's taxpayers money to keep flowing his way!!!! I do believe he sold us down the river with his brainstorming that produced the "white elephant" on 1st Ave. and then "spins" us with the malarky as to the visitor count. He should be the joke of the year, but nope, the admiration for him at city hall makes him the recipient of another 90 g's for yet another non productive study.
Keep thinkin' Rock!!! You are on the right track_just wrong area.
Housing downtown??? Not in my lifetime!!! It's been a nightmare for years, and Offet is not going to turn it into a dream. I'd be willing to bet on that!!!

Flood....c'mon bud,I'm born and raised in P.G. and I can think of only once when I was a little guy that the island cash flooded.As for your question as to what pile we found Offet under,I believe they got tired of him out in Winnipeg and he managed to find his way to P.G. I will warn you now though.....be prepared to be honoring Offet for P.G. citizen of the year(sometime in the future),we have an awful habit of making these guys out to be something special.
ROCK keapin it real 24/7