During an Town-sponsored open house at the Oliver Community Centre on June 29, 11-year-old-Justin Vala took a look at the ideas being considered for an update to the Official Community Plan. Vala said he likes using the skate park and pool in Oliver, and doesn’t have anything to criticize the Town for. (Dan Walton photo)
As a way to share important information and get a better sense of the community’s desires, the Town of Oliver invited the citizens of Oliver to an open house last week at the Oliver Community Centre.
The grab bag of issues included the FireSmart Program, the update to the Official Community Plan, the Fairview Road project, the Main Street lot that was recently acquired by the town and the indigenous garden at Gala Park.
After extreme wildfires exhausted a significant amount of nature’s fuel last summer in the South Okanagan, fire chief Dan Skaros doesn’t expect a similar disaster to strike in the near future.
“They say 10 years before the pine needles and everything will build up again to that bad of a level,” he said.
Nevertheless, homeowners should remain just as vigilant.
“Manage your own property so that if a fire does come up to your property, you’re prepared for it,” he said. “Clean out the brush from around the property, make sure your trees are spaced well so you won’t have something jump from a tree to a building and keep the grass cut and green so that it can serve as a little buffer between your house and a fire.”
Although it’s important to keep vegetation green and healthy, Skaros said large levels of precipitation can deceive the public’s perception of safety, explaining that rain will make grass grow taller and it doesn’t take long for the wind to dehydrate the plant into something combustible.
“When you’re pitching a tent, you usually rake a spot for a fire pit – and that’s basically the same idea at home, just keep everything clean and away from anything that can ignite.”
On the local streets, Darren Bjornson, deputy director of operations, explained why the town’s focus is on Fairview Road, which is currently being upgraded.
“This road is one of the busiest roads in Oliver,” he said, adding that a failed referendum in 2011 prevented the upgrade from spanning up to Spartan Street and including a roundabout.
Fairview Road also has drainage and sidewalk issues, where inconsistent spacing has caused safety issues and underground water lines need to be rearranged.
“The grading of the road has never been right. In the winter it was so bad that snow plows couldn’t clear the road,” he said.
Bjornson said the crew will be able to keep one lane of traffic for most of the project, and alleyways can serve as alternative routes. Signage is in place to remind the public that businesses are open and that the job has become easier since summer break began for the students, as their foot traffic was making the job a little difficult.
“No matter when we have to repair a road, it’s never a good time for somebody,” he said.
On the town’s newest asset, an empty lot on Main Street, chief financial officer David Svetlichny said the town is trying to get a better understanding of what the public wants to see.
“It’s a matter of trying to determine what we want to do with this property and how best to do it,” he said. “One of council’s mandates is economic development and revitalizing the downtown core. The hope is that repurposing this property could help to reinvigorate the downtown.”
Svetlichny said anybody with ideas who wasn’t able to attend the open house can share them during town budget meetings, which are open to the public, though there’s usually not much of an audience.
“Budget meetings are a great avenue the public can use to voice their opinions, not just for the lot on Main Street, but for anything,” he said. “We encourage you to come out.”
Mayor Ron Hovanes said the decision to purchase the lot was made by council early in 2016 and the sale was just completed within the past month.
“That property used to be a full department store that was very active until it burned down in the beginning of the 1970s, so we’ve been looking to do something about it for 40 years.”
The property was bought with funds from the Town’s Land Acquisition Account, and as a sign of encouragement, two other Main Street properties have been purchased since the start of 2016.
“The thought of council is, if the private sector isn’t willing to do something on Main Street, then maybe we should do something about it. Maybe we need to be entrepreneurs in the downtown core.”
Hovanes said the property lends itself well to underground parking, but the fate of the property is still up in the air.
If an underground parking lot was built, Hovanes said there could be ground floor businesses second storey apartments.
“Another thought was a municipal enclave,” he said. “We could have Town Hall finance everything under one floor, and possibly still have start units to rent out.”
He said the town removed some of the red tape that hindered investment in the downtown, such as 10 years worth of tax exemptions and lightened stipulations in regards to parking.
“Historic small towns start getting cavities in their downtown and strip malls that take away from the downtown,” he said. “But we’ve done our very best over the last number of years to set the table for investors to come to the community.
“Oliver is in a really good position where it is in the Okanagan. It’s one of the remaining downtown cores where we have a main street which is the highway going right through downtown, but you still have a historic downtown feel.”
At Gala Park, which was refurbished last year with indigenous plants, isn’t going over well with everybody in Oliver.
Hovanes understands why some complaints have been lodged, but he hopes to see the plan follow through.
“I don’t want people to have to get used to something that looks messy and a little ugly in a sense,” he said. “It’s a well thought-out and well planned park and given time to mature it will be a beautiful park. I would hate to pull the plug on it so early. I’d like to give it a year or two or more to see how it progresses.”
As for its practical application, the new Gala Park was designed to mitigate the erosion of nearby properties.
DAN WALTON
Oliver Chronicle
