Lyonel Doherty, Times Chronicle

The Town of Oliver has put the brakes on the Station Street plaza project.

On Feb. 13 council reviewed the tendering process and realized the project was over the Town’s budget of $1 million. 

Consultant Steve Underwood said they could work with the design team to reduce the scope of the project to bring the cost down and re-tender it. He expressed his confidence in finding some savings but admitted that would not get it down to $1 million. 

The plaza, adjacent to the Coast Hotel, would act as a community gathering place where events and activities could be held to revitalize the downtown core. 

But Coun. Dave Mattes said it was time to “walk away” from the project. He said the project started with $600,000 funding from the federal government with a $200,000 commitment from the Town. He noted that commitment jumped to $400,000, but in reality after you take in the full cost of it now, the Town is looking at nearly $900,000.

Mattes said he was previously assured by council that just because the town received the grant money doesn’t mean it has to do the project. He recommended taking another look at the overall plan for Station Street, stressing they can’t afford to give up all other projects in town to spend a million dollars on a plaza.

“I think it’s time we said maybe we made a mistake by only asking for 600,000 in the first place, but it’s time to walk away, it’s time to take our lumps and say we made a mistake. Prices have gone through the roof, we will revisit this another day.”

Mattes said if they continue with the project, they will end up cutting and cutting “until what we have left for $1.5 million is a shadow of what we wanted in the first place, and every taxpayer is going to say,  ‘you spent 1.5 million . . .  what is wrong with you’”

Councillor Aimee Grice agreed they should revisit the plan because she wholeheartedly believes they need to do something down there.

“That’s our revitalization plan and I don’t think that has changed. We were never unanimous in the project to begin with. If we have until the end of year to use the grant I’m certainly in favour of continuing the discussion and how to best utilize those grant dollars.” 

Mayor Martin Johansen agreed with Mattes.

“I’m off the bandwagon on this one, it’s just too expensive, even the extra 400,0000 – that is a lot of money for the town of Oliver and we’ve got a lot of needs that we need to take care of.”

The mayor said there are other projects to consider in that area, such as the wine concept study and town lot development. 

Councillor Terry Schafer said tax dollars are hard to come by especially after the last two years of tax increases. He reminded council that the Town still has to pay off the Gallagher Lake siphon repair debt. “We can’t burden our taxpayers to that degree.”

Fellow Coun. Petra Veintimilla said she is still on the revitalization bandwagon for Station Street, but agreed that $900,000 is “a bit much.” 

Council approved a motion to reject all tenders and regroup to continue Station Street discussions.