Prince George City Council has approved a capital plan that calls for over $30 million worth of work during the 2020 budget discussions Monday (Jan. 6) night.
The capital plan amounts to $30,385,885 for 2020, which provides for the purchase, construction, rehabilitation and upgrade of capital assets.
Capital assets include land and improvements, buildings, vehicles, machinery and equipment and infrastructure. The city utilizes debt, development cost charges (DCCs), grants, third party contributions, and reserves to fund its capital program. Wherever possible the city applies for federal and provincial grants.
The 2020-2024 Capital Plan includes all requests for capital work for the five-year period; however, not all projects have been funded. But unfunded projects have been listed so that council and the community are able to get a full picture of project requests.
Some of the funded items on the 2020-2024 capital plan include a new train shelter for the Little Prince, new flooring at the Prince George Civic Centre, regulation beach volleyball courts at Carrie Jane Gray Park, and a new building addition at the city’s 18th Ave. Yard.
The addition to the city’s 18th avenue yard administration building would cost $1,900,000 and replace a number of stand-alone trailers in various locations throughout the property. These trailers were originally set up as temporary structures and are now at their end of life.
Late additions to the plan included a few watercraft rescue vessels and wildland rescue utility vehicles.
This included two Fire Service Rescue watercraft for water rescue, including a related trailer, safety accessories, and attachments to allow use with existing equipment totaling $35,000.
A Fire Service Wildland Rescue Utility Vehicle was also added including related fire skid, trailer, and accessories, to assist with rescue as well as help crews access and bring water to forested natural areas quickly in the event of a wildfire amounting to $65,000,000.
One of the items on the plan that caused a fair bit of discussion was the replacement of the existing Little Prince train shelter in Lheidli T’enneh Memorial Park for $547,000,000.
It’s currently housed in a 40-year-old kwanzaa hut with drainage and safety issues.
Coun. Kyle Sampson questioned the scope of the project and expressed concern over the amount of money allocated.
“I struggle with this item and would like to get more context from staff,” said Coun. Kyle Sampson.
Adam Holmes, director of engineering explained that the proposed plan for the shelter is to build more a structure that would be more representative of the museum and also store historic fire department artifacts.
“The other issue is that with the kwanzaa, but there’s some drainage issues there so part of the cost would be raising up the tracks,” said Holmes. “It also is a little larger than the current kwanzaa because it’s not a great space to work in.”
Sampson recommended staff come back with more information on all aspects of the project including the train’s ownership by the City of Prince George, cost-sharing of the development and also what it looks like to house the fire department artifacts within the facility.
“This seems like an elegant solution taking this fund that’s being proposed here, dealing with the drainage issues and dealing with the issues of safety and suitability for maintaining our train,” said Coun. Garth Frizzell.
“At a later date, if we want to talk about whether we want the city to maintain the train, I think that is a discussion to be had. I support keeping this on the books at it is and not risk losing another season without having a safe place to do the maintenance work on the train."
City Manager Kathleen Soltis said staff would be happy to prepare the information Sampson requested, but it would take a significant amount of time.
She also noted that the project is also dependent on external funding grant funding which the Exploration Place is seeking.
“Basically for this year, this item is subject to receiving external funding we are not going to proceed without it. In the meantime, we can come back to council with that information, how we see it progressing and what the unknowns are,” explained Soltis.
“Part of the safety net that we have is the external funding if it doesn’t come through then the project is on hold,” said Mayor Lyn Hall.
Sampson said if the project cannot move forward without the council’s further approval then he’s comfortable with it staying on the capital plan because council has the opportunity to discuss it at a later date with more information.
“It’s great for our community,” said Coun. Frank Everitt.
“A lot of people use it and it’s an opportunity for us to do something that has been pushed back for a number of years when we decided that we weren’t going to go for it but if we can get the grant money that would help us go along ways.”
The 2020-2024 Capital Plan was then approved unanimously. You can review the 2020-2024 capital plan in its entirety online.
