Banks Crescent Boondoggle

[southy]

The problem with developers who are determined to sink their hooks in, like Westcorp, they simply don't go away.They make a new proposal, more "watered down" from the greedy grasping first one. They "gift" the community with some ingratiating thing, like Westcorp's wharf here in Kelowna. They never just "go away" with a parting shot. They regenerate like starfish

Kinda like most mayors and council. Every city in this valley needs a major mind shift when it comes to electing civic officials. Look at what has or hasn't happened in Vernon, Kelowna and Penticton. Though our first thought is to blame the developer - perhaps we should look closer at how that developer got to where they are and it's spelled Mayor and Council along with their friends on staff.

[Queen K]

I hope Summerland's Mayor and Council never change in spirit.

And Twobits, I don't give a damn where the development was proposed for, when everyone is saying it's was too big and then someone else chimes in to say it was morphing into more, more and more, added townhouses all of a sudden? I question if Lark was going to do something and say, "oopps too late."

So did everyone else.

[fluffy]

It may well have flown in a location closer to the downtown core, but there is and always has been a considerable number of Summerland’s electorate who resist change in any form, a lock-the-gates attitude towards growth.

[Queen K]

I don't see anything wrong that that either.

[JagXKR]

I don't see anything wrong that that either.

Change is natural and inevitable. Resistance is futile. Stagnation promotes disease.

I have more

[Queen K]

You will be assimulated.

However, let's hope for small towns everywhere, which wish to retain that look and feel, Summerland has appropiate tazers.

[RandyDandy]

In Summerland residential growth is a lost leader. Many businesses use this technique to get people into the store in hopes they'll buy something else that hasn't been discounted. Until city hall figures out how to formulate cost and development charges that have some basis in reality, growth will continue to raise taxes for all who already live here. Subsidizing growth in this manner is like having an overdraft account at the bank but only ever paying the interest, nothing on the Capitol. At some point......

[fluffy]

It does have the effect of turning the place into a bedroom community though, and younger families may well elect to live closer to their work. This more often than not means Kelowna these days, as the same forces are at work in Penticton.

[Anonymous123]

People moan and complain that there are to many empty storefronts in Summerland. Denying extra people including working people won't get those stores filled.

[southy]

People moan and complain that there are to many empty storefronts in Summerland. Denying extra people including working people won't get those stores filled.

Which begs the question, what is really going on in Summerland. It reminds me of watching Groundhog Day .. same thing day after day after day after day.

[pentona]

Which begs the questions, what is really going on in Summerland. It reminds me of watching Groundhog Day .. same thing day after day after day after day.

I don't really know much about the Banks Crescent proposal but it did surprise me that they want to increase the Senior population there. With no hospital and E.R. there anymore I would not live there if I were 65+; thats for certain. Too far from Penticton and Kelowna hospitals.

It was a real shame when the Government closed or turned that hospital into a Seniors care home for the most part. Even Princeton and Oliver have hospitals with E.R.'s.

[Queen K]

People moan and complain that there are to many empty storefronts in Summerland. Denying extra people including working people won't get those stores filled.

There are empty storefront for a myriad of reasons, having nothing to do with not having a larger senior population.

And seniors tend to downsize in the communities they leave, and come with less stuff and needing even less stuff. And even seniors have discovered on-line shopping.

Empty store fronts? On-line shopping, too high of lease rate plus triple net, and a lack of demand for goods.

[southy]

Disagree Queen K .. This isn't the thread to get into empty storefronts in Summerland. Just wanted to say be careful how you pigeon hole the senior demographic. And please ... Don't start with the bs about seniors and online shopping. The problem in Summerland is bigger, much bigger. But it seems no one wants to talk about what that problem might be. Go figure.

[seewood]

Summerland has limited land zoned for commercial and residential. The core and surrounding areas has plenty of ALR land though. Summerland, like Penticton has and is currently morphing into a seniors retirement area. I have seen it the past 15 years. Nothing wrong with that as I have just started CPP. The store fronts in Summerland that offer coffee and baking are doing well I believe. A seniors project like what the Lark group was wanting would fit very well at the old RCMP location although scaled down. Flat, infrastructure at the road and the electric scooter lot can zoot about town without climbing a battery sucking hill.
Summerland's cost of doing business like Penticton's, is going to be borne by more and more of the residential component as there seems to be a lack of effort in developing more industrial zones to help pay the taxes. Penticton is buggered though because of two lakes a res and a mountain...
I still believe Lark wanted the site as they bought it for a song while it was zoned ag ( I heard it was ALR and not ALR ? )or whatever it was and the application to change the zoning to institution was a sticking point.
I know in Penticton, the OCP is not worth the paper it is written on. The developers just file their applications and look at the OCP as a little nuisance that will go away with a hearing or two.

[twobits]

[

You have been to Summerland haven't you? What she described is exactly what went down. And it's not the first time.

Fluff? Are you frikken serious with this query? I have invested in Summerland. Have you....and I mean owning lands yourself as an investment?. What went down was not a preservation of small town feel, it was out and out nimbyism.
It is pure hogwash to say one wants to preserve the "small town" feel in defiance of this project and then say "we would be happy if it were built somewhere else in Summerland".
As if the "somewhere else" wouldn't bring out a bunch more Summerland nimby's to oppose that location as well.
Also why I sold all of my investments in Summerland about five years ago when the writing on the wall wasn't just obvious, it slapped me upside the head.
Summerland is unique fer sure. Unique that few have any energy to fight either the brainless council's of the mandate or the neighbours that will create a new council at the next election so we can all wash, rinse, and repeat just like the instructions on a bottle of shampoo. Summerland has become a joke and is destined to be nothing more than a suburb with little commercial enterprise beyond broke boutique stores, an overpriced grocery store, seven eleven's, one pub, and kids bussed to school in Penticton.
And then the nimbies will want gov't funds to "revitalize" and restore the "small town". What the nimby's will have missed is the slow and painful erosion of their community for buildings that brought no jobs, infrastructure for the entire community, or increased tax revenues every yr....yr after yr in perpetuity.
Blocking Lark on this otherwise useless piece of land has set Summerland back at least a decade in terms of investment.