Waterside Centre future to be decided today
Posted Feb 1, 2011 05:23:54 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The future of a stalled development project downtown could be decided at today’s regional council meeting.
Construction on the Waterside Centre on Lower Water Street has been halted while councillors waited for a study on an encroachment the developer wanted to keep for the building’s exclusive use.
The study is now complete and a staff report will be delivered to council today recommending the encroachment, which is essentially a large trench and pipe that will bring salt water from the ocean to centre, should be given the green light.
Councilor Dawn Sloane tells News 95.7 the holdup was caused in part by the opinion that surrounding businesses should also have access to the encroachment – but the staff report recommends reserving it for the exclusive use of the Waterside Centre.
Sloane says she’s disappointed with the recommendation.
“I was hoping that we would be able to have this as a community trench but by the looks of this report that’s not the case,” she said. “I’m hoping that in the future we do start looking at this as community heating and cooling programs and community energy projects so that it’s more sustainable instead of having a plethora of pipes leading to the harbour’s edge to use the water.”
McCrae says he expected the recommendation to go his way all along but he’s not happy with the delay – though he admits his company made a “fundamental mistake” in starting work on the site before getting all the logistics sorted out.
Sloan says installing a new encroachment for a single building is a waste of time and energy.
“If we’re going to be ‘green’ quote unquote, then we should be doing things in tandem with each other instead of just doing one-offs,” she said. “It does cost more money to open new trenches.”
Councill will discuss the staff report today.
