Riverside Park parkade is dead
After a year of planning, debate and a successful counter-petition, the proposed Lorne Street parkade is dead and there will not be referendum on the matter.
City council voted unanimously today (Oct. 18) to rescind the borrowing bylaw to build the controversial parkade.
At the same time, council voted to form a task force to explore other parkade options in the downtown, but left the terms of reference up to the next council after this fall's civic election.
Friends of Riverside Park, the group that led the petition as part of the alternative-approval process, managed to get 9,417 valid signatures during a five-week campaign.
The amount was nearly 3,000 signatures more than the 6,533 needed for a successful petition.
Bob Gamble, with Friends of Riverside Park, said he was pleased by the petition results and council's decision to form a task force.
However, he said his group will only be satisfied if there is no consideration for putting a parkade in the park in the task force's terms of reference.
"Anywhere but the park at this point," Gamble said.
The results of the petition were made public at Tuesday's council meeting.
In the end, the city received 10,267 signatures from the Friends of Riverside Park , with another 1,341 petitions handed into city hall.
More than 2,068 signatures were deemed invalid.
The city spent $280,000 in the last year studying and preparing for the project.
The original parkade plan included doubling parking-meters rates downtown to 50 cents per half-hour, with revenue going to pay down the $8-million parkade loan.
That plan is also being shelved.
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