Prince George city council will be discussing the future of the downtown civic core at its Monday night meeting.
The City Civic Core District Plan project is on the council agenda to showcase what was heard during public consultation and to decide next steps.
The area of the Civic Core District is limited to the municipally owned and operated properties in the City Hall area, including Kopar Memorial Arena, the Conference and Civic Centre, Canfor Leisure Pool, Prince George Public Library (Bob Harkins branch), Two Rivers Art Gallery and the Civic Plaza.
Community engagement launched in August and ran through September, which included community round table sessions, pop-up events at markets and an online community survey.
The city received more than 1,000 survey responses, which have now been summarized along with the feedback from the in-person sessions.
The top three big infrastructure items/civic facilities that respondents indicated they want included in the area are:
- Shops and cafes with housing (51.84%)
- Performing arts centre (43.41%)
- Ice Arena (29.46%)
There were also a number of short-term, temporary, low-cost uses suggested to improve the area in the interim such as benches, public art, bike racks, free wi-fi, indoor recreation and more.
Council may decide Monday to seek consultant services to prepare conceptual site designs for the area, including replacement of aging infrastructure.
Or they may focus on specific areas only, or the third recommendation is to defer the project altogether.
Planning and development director Deanna Wasnik said the feedback and ideas around the Civic Core District Plan is an important next step in shaping how the facilities downtown are enhanced.
“We heard a lot of feedback, with positive ideas and passionate responses. We also absolutely hear that people, while excited, are also concerned around the cost of new civic facilities and what this means for their tax dollars, and we are certainly going into this being mindful of that,” she said.
“This is why this will be a long-term plan done in phases.”
