Home opener Nanaimo Pirates baseball team
wins and loses in first games of the season at Serauxmen Stadium. PAGE 26
TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2015
www.nanaimobulletin.com
VOL. 26, NO. 99
Developers withdraw request for parkland I HILTON HOTEL backers no longer need to lease Georgia Park. BY TAMARA CUNNINGHAM THE NEWS BULLETIN
CHRIS BUSH/THE NEWS BULLETIN
Promenade performance
Willie Thrasher starts a morning busking session at Georgia Park on Nanaimo’s waterfront Monday. The developers behind a scheduled hotel project that would have incorporated the park no longer want to lease the land – see related story, right.
Second senior manager resigns from Lantzville BY TAMARA CUNNINGHAM THE NEWS BULLETIN
A second senior manager has resigned from the District of Lantzville. Lantzville’s director of finance Jedha Holmes handed in her resignation last Monday after more than six years with the district. She is the second senior manager to quit in less than a month, following chief administrative officer Twyla Graff. The decision also comes at a time when councillors are hiring consultants to help establish a code of conduct and investigate a memo writ-
ten by five senior managers about concerns of decorum and tone at council meetings. Holmes is set to leave May 15, and while no councillors could tell the News Bulletin why she quit, they shared their reactions and opinions on the resignation and next steps. Coun. Graham Savage said when two senior management positions resign out of a team of five, “it’s got to be seen as pretty serious,” and added that the district has to get into the mode of hiring. Coun. Rod Negrave called the resignation unfortunate but not unexpected with the staff memo laying things out
very well. He hopes there won’t be any more resignations and said there needs to be a better way for council to relate to senior staff. “We have policies in place now and standards of conduct. If people choose not to follow them and there’s no way to enforce them, it’s difficult to see how doing anything else is going to help until people make that fundamental decision to change. “Maybe a facilitator will help,” said Negrave, about council’s recent decision to hire consultants. “We have to give it a good try at this point.” See ‘TURNOVER’ /4
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Hilton hotel developers no longer need to lease Nanaimo green space. Insight Holdings Ltd. has tweaked its plans for the use of Georgia Park in its waterfront hotel project and no longer requires a 60-year lease with the city. Last year, the company was looking to take up 28 per cent of Georgia Park for a loading dock, restaurant patio and grand staircase. The changes then were valued at $1.5 million and would have added to $1.2 million in improvements already promised for other areas of waterfront parkland. As part of the agreement, the amenities would have remained open to the public and the city was prepared to make the developers responsible for maintenance and rent. Now an alternative is being proposed after ‘considerable opposition’ to the leasing of parkland, a city report shows. The pitch is to see politicians withdraw approval-in-principle for a lease agreement and expand a statutory right of way to cover improvements instead. The move would see the same amount of money invested into park amenities like a staircase and public plaza, but it would be part of a public thoroughfare through the
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hotel from Front Street and would remain city property. A loading dock and restaurant patio is no longer slated for Georgia Park and developers would be responsible for maintaining any improvements it creates. The lack of a lease also means there won’t be a referendum. The pitch went to council for debate Monday night. According to Dale Lindsay, the city’s director of community development, under the proposal developers won’t end up with exclusive rights to use the park for non-park uses but will benefit from certainty. “They’ve revised their project and they know they can do it on their property now,” he said. “The applicants were hearing some of the concerns in the community that were being raised about the concept of leasing park space for uses that were ancillary to the hotel and as a result they took a step back and revised their project to eliminate the need for those lease areas.” The multimillion-dollar Hilton hotel is planned to rise 35 storeys from the Nanaimo waterfront, with 303 rooms, a health club and bar/café, two restaurants and eight retail units. A city report says it’s anticipated a development permit will come from the hotel in the coming months and a building permit will be submitted by this fall. Construction is scheduled to start in early 2016. Insight Holdings said the company did not have a comment at this time. news@nanaimobulletin.com
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