Revelstoke City Council’s Jan. 27 meeting was a full agenda, with many larger business items to deal with. Here’s a briefing on a few.
Mayor McKee to meet with provincial ministers on highway issues
Revelstoke mayor Mark McKee confirmed a meeting with provincial ministers has been organized to discuss improvements to the Trans-Canada Highway, particularly during difficult weather.
On February 17 he will meet with the Minister of Transportation, Todd Stone, Minister of Energy and Mines, Bill Bennett, and B.C.’s Attorney General, Suzanne Anton.
It follows community concern (see resident calls for action) after number of serious incidents and fatalities on the highway over the New Year break.
“It’s to talk about this community [and] Golden’s ideas on how we can reduce the amount of highway closures, how to reduce the amount of [closure] time and hopefully make travelling on the Trans-Canada Highway a bit safer,” Mayor McKee said.
Oscar Street affordable housing project tweaked
Meanwhile, city council approved an amendment to the Oscar Street affordable housing project.
During a presentation to council, Social Development Coordinator Jill Zacharias described the strain building on Revelstoke’s current housing situation.
“It’s critical to the social sustainability of our community,” she said.
“This winter we were very close to experiencing a rental housing crisis.”
Mayor McKee said there had been a couple changes to the Revelstoke Community Housing Society’s original design that has set the project back.
“We’re going through the development amendment [approval] process and then we’re going after an approved building permit,” he said.
“Once that happens it allows us to go back to the marketplace for a tender and also to go to BC Housing and get our final approval.”
Changes to the design include the addition of two extra units – expanding it from 12 to 14 – and placing the parking spaces behind the buildings.
Rocky Mountaineer tourist train meeting sought
Councillors also voted unanimously to go ahead with seeking a meeting with the Rocky Mountaineer tourist train operators to explore developing a stop in Revelstoke in an effort to boost the city’s tourism.
Council to form community high-tech task force
Council also green-lighted an initiative to create a high-tech task force that will focus on a number of tech-related issues include Internet speed, attracting high-tech businesses and a possible tech park.
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