Madeline Baker, Times Chronicle
Five years after it was first proposed, a project intended to provide better access to the foreshore on the south end of Gyro Beach has hit yet another snag due to budget needs and questions about its projected usage.
The original request to council for a new access point to Gyro Beach was made in 2018, at which time town council agreed to fund a set of stairs and the project was launched. Flooding immediately delayed work before it could even begin, and once the high-water event and its related logistical difficulties had passed, a long wait for BC Water Act approval further stalled any work on the project until early 2021.
During that wait, the town adopted a new design that changed out stairs for a fully accessible ramp and connecting pathway, only to discover once they had the necessary provincial approvals that their $47,000 budget was now too low to meet even the lowest proposal bid for the adapted design.
When confronted with the request for an additional $41,500 to begin the long-delayed project at the February 28 council meeting, Councillor Jim King voiced his opinion that finally getting the project underway was worth the cost and moved to approve the new budget.
Councillor Johnny Cheong was unsure if the town’s need matched the project’s ultimate cost, however, especially because the change from stairs to a ramp was made when a single wheelchair-bound resident requested something more accessible.
“Do we have any data on how much [the ramp] would be used, period?” he asked. “Do we know if there is a demand outside of that request, or are we just adding accessibility points all over the town because one person asked for it?”
Mayor Sue McKortoff agreed with King that increasing accessibility to the beach and throughout Osoyoos in general is an important initiative, but she argued that the ramp and pathway design should first be presented to the town’s Accessibility and Age Friendly Committee as was recommended in the report from Operational Services.
Director of Community Services Gerald Davis is also a member of the committee and provided some important context: “We didn’t receive [the ramp request] through the committee. A resident came in that had an issue, but we don’t know how high of a priority it is for that committee or for the population in general,” he explained. “This was budgeted outside of the committee.”
Davis also pointed out that mobi mats, which allow wheelchair users to access the water safely, have been installed at Gyro and Cottonwood beaches at a cost of $15,000 each, while somewhere between 15 and 20 items from an accessibility audit performed in 2013 have yet to be addressed.
Given that the committee’s mandate is to identify and prioritize the areas of town that are most in need of improvement and thereby make sure that earmarked funds are spent wisely, Davis said that they should be the ones to determine whether or not the ramp project was a high funding priority.
Ultimately, council struck down King’s motion and, in a 3-2 vote, chose to defer to the Accessibility and Age Friendly Committee rather than rush the construction of a project that had been approved outside of their knowledge.
