By Madeline Baker
The Town of Oliver received $175,000 earmarked for recreational upgrades and projects from the Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen (RDOS) at their Oct. 19 meeting, courtesy of three infusions from provincial and regional reserve funds.
From the RDOS’s $45 million portion of the provincial government’s $1 billion Growing Communities Fund, which has been evenly divided among the district’s electoral areas into $500,000 portions, Oliver will receive $100,000 to build a new basketball court.
Additionally, the RDOS will provide $25,000 from the Electoral Area C Community Works Reserve to cover the fees associated with the subdivision of land for the basketball court, for which the Town will sell the land to RDOS for $1.
RDOS member and Oliver mayor Martin Johansen expressed his thanks to Electoral Area C Director Rick Knodel for backing the project, saying that “this kind of investment in Area C and in Oliver is much appreciated and is going to benefit a lot of youth in the community, so thank you very much.”
An additional $50,000 from the Community Works Reserve was also allocated to Oliver’s planned upgrade of the public washrooms at Lion’s Park, which are structurally sound and functional but do not meet current accessibility standards and can only be used for two to three seasons of the year.
According to the project plan, the Town plans to use these funds to “retrofit the existing washroom building to be operational year-round, expand the footprint of the building to increase space and improve functionality, and construct a new family washroom and two shower rooms,” all of which will be designed with accessibility as a priority.
The Town of Oliver has already dedicated just over $200,000 to the project from its own Growing Communities fund, which the RDOS funds will complement in order to streamline the project’s completion.
