By Sebastian Kanally, Times Chronicle

Failing to escape from the deadlock, Oliver Town Council has now directed staff to cancel the contract with the excavating company for the works on Station St. for the much anticipated Plaza Project. 

Council will be revisiting the issue at an upcoming workshop where they will be revisiting the whole plan to discuss ideas on the buildout of the area. Council indicated that all previous plans for the area will be present in the discussion.  

The topic was discussed at the April 11 special meeting of the Town Council and again at the April 24 Committee of the Whole.  

Randy Houle, Director of Development Services has also been instructed to go back to the federal government and ask whether they can extend the March 31, 2024 deadline to use the money received for the project. 

Councilor Petra Veintimilla said she was disappointed that the project has not gone ahead as originally planned, but based on where council is at the moment “it is what it is” and hopefully next year they can have more direction. 

The plan is to revisit the renderings of the town’s Master Plan for the area and try to make some sort of progress on figuring out how to go ahead with the project.

“I get the feeling they are pretty open and don’t want the money back based on the conversations that I have had,” Houle said about the government.  

Mayor Johansen said he is not in favour of building on the Station Street location, but similar to Councilor Veintimilla he is not in favour of moving it somewhere else just for the sake of building it. 

Following this, at their Committee of the Whole Meeting, the topic was discussed further and Council moved that staff apply for the $15,000 matching funds grant with ETSI (Economic Trust of the Southern Interior) to update and revisit the Station Street Concept Plan.

Houle summarized the situation that, “council is not really on the same page as to what the build out of the area should look like.” They have determined that they will be revisiting the whole station street plan, to look at updating the plan for the area. 

Since the federal grant was awarded to the town for the outdoor plaza, but because of the skyrocketing prices caused by inflation it has not gone forward. The report notes that “as the area is beginning to develop, a review of the 2020 concept plan is required to ensure that all stakeholders are on the same page moving forward.”