BUSINESS
CUISINE
PLAYOFF RUN ends for West Kelowna Warriors but there were many positives to reflect back on over the 2012-13 season.
COLUMNIST Robert Smithson cites a current court case that may impact the issue of alcohol testing for employees in dangerous workplaces.
JUDE’S KITCHEN offers some ideas on how to use up last year’s frozen, dried, jammed or canned fruit before the fruit cycle begins again this year.
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83 serving our community 1930 to 2013
Retirement & Assisted Living Services
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Kelowna’s Best Value Call for Complimentary Lunch/Dinner www.fernbraemanor.unicarehomes.com
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295 Gerstmar Road | Kelowna 250.979.0600
TUESDAY April 9, 2013 The Central Okanagan’s Best-Read Newspaper www.kelownacapnews.com
▼ HIAWATHA SITE
Contentious development plan gains city’s approval Jennifer Smith STAFF REPORTER
A contentious development plan for Kelowna’s waterfront will proceed, though it displaces residents of the Hiawatha Mobile Home Park and has upset many in the Lower Mission. On Monday afternoon, Kelowna city council voted 6-3 in support of a plan from Edmonton-based Westcorp Properties Inc., which will see 900 new units built on an 18-acre parcel of land just south of Rotary Beach over the next 10 to 15 years. “Do I wish some of the negotiations had gone smoother? Yes I do. Do I think that’s enough to hold back this proposal? No I don’t,” said Coun. Luke Stack. His comments opened the discussion with a refrain similar to those who voted to overlook the turmoil the development has caused in order to pursue the hotel, public park space and rental housing the new development heralds. Westcorp wants to redevelop the parcel with 19 buildings, providing a mix of rental housing and ownership that would include townhouses and apartments, as well as an 11-storey boutique hotel. The plan calls for an eight-storey apartment building, “stacked” townhouses and 50,000 square feet of commercial space. The developer has offered four options for residents in the mobile home
park to transition out of the affordable waterfront homes they thought they would spend their retirement enjoying. Westcorp will either relocate a residents’ mobile home; purchase the home and pay to demolish it; offer the mobile homeowner a five per cent discount on a new home in the development or offer a rental housing unit in the development at a rate consistent with their current housing costs, with Seniors’ Outreach helping facilitate the process. As one homeowner told councillors at the public hearing, however, none of the options come close to the assessed value of the residents’ mobile homes as they were valued prior to Westcorp purchasing the park in 2008. And the developers’ dealings didn’t sit well with some on council either. City councillors Gail Given, Robert Hobson and Mohini Singh proved the dissenting voices, saying they could not support the scheme because the build-out is a step beyond what the city’s planning documents set out and relations with the neighbourhood are so sour. “I cannot, within myself, support this project the way it is,” said Singh. “I would like this developer to please go back and come to a viable settlement with the 18 or 19 (mobile home-owners) who are left.” Westcorp did relocate 80 per cent of
CHEF AT WORK…
Sarah Ramey, in-house chef at Lakehouse Home Store, put on a cooking demonstration as part of Small Shop Saturday in Kelowna’s downtown core. For more photos see A6. WADE PATERSON/ CAPITAL NEWS
See Development A4
Trial for bar flush stabbing incident underway in Kelowna CONTRIBUTOR
A bystander to an argument at a perogy stand during bar flush two years ago was stabbed in the abdomen as he stepped into the ensuing brawl, the court heard as the aggravat-
r Credit ‘Direct eCnagot ev aurus Truck-o-vsed’ appro
ed assault trial against the alleged stabber got underway Monday. However, the defence is seeking to cast doubt that Chaouki Monssef, 38, is the man responsible for the stabbing that hospitalized Dylan Hatten for several days and left
him with a scar after 70 staples were used to close the wound. It was in the early morning hours of April 15, 2011, that Hatten, then 19, parked outside Cheetah’s to pick up some friends, he testified. He was the designated driver and said he hadn’t drank al-
cohol that night, although on cross examination said he may have drank at home earlier in the evening and taken Percocet. After friend Joshua Woodward got in his vehicle, Hatten decided he wanted perogies and got in line at a food cart parked outside the night spot.
There, Hatten testified, two men began to argue with a woman he knows, calling her a “bitch.” The argument spilled into a nearby alley, where a fight broke out and others joined the melee. “It looked like it was get-
ting rough,” said Hatten, who decided to go over “and make sure everything was good.” At the time of that decision, Hatten spotted Woodward, now involved in the fight, “run” a man’s “face into the wall.” See Trial A4
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