Municipal officials this week issued a press release stating right off the top, “An unprecedented number of major capital projects are nearing completion in Whistler.”
Perhaps within that sentence lies at least part of an explanation for the fact that in the scramble to get everything ready for the Olympics, the close proximity of an operating asphalt plant next to a soon-to-be new neighbourhood didn’t make it to the top of the municipal “to do” list until now.
Council’s decision on Tuesday (Nov. 24) to seek to move the plant by June 2010 — before those in the process of purchasing homes in the Cheakamus Crossing neighbourhood actually move in — at least shows that lawmakers, caught in the middle of a sticky situation, are anxious to make up for lost time and do what is obviously the only reasonable course of action under the circumstances. But it doesn’t completely resolve the matter — the operator, after all, still has the legal right to make asphalt there, grandfathered zoning or no — and if we were among those who have put down deposits on homes there, we would only take the next step down that road with at least a hint of trepidation.
Unquestionably, the past six-plus years have been a busy time for municipal officials, especially on the capital projects front. That period has seen them build a $37.9 million wastewater treatment plant upgrade, decommission a landfill, build a debris barrier to contain slippage from what’s known as the Fitzsimmons Slump, build a Celebration (Medals?) Plaza, pave the Day Skier parking lots and upgrade Whistler’s water system. And that’s just the big stuff. What’s more, under the auspices of the municipally controlled company Whistler 2020 Development Corp., municipal officials have built a state-of-the-art, super-energy-efficient neighbourhood to house athletes during the Games and permanent residents afterward, at a cost of something like $161 million — and they had to hand the whole thing over to Games organizers by last month.
To recoup that investment, though, municipal officials need to sell the homes — most of them to people who are permanent residents whose names have been on the Whistler Housing Authority waitlist for varying lengths of time. If, for any reason, large numbers of people were to back out, taxpayers would be on the hook for considerably more than the $2 million estimated cost of moving the plant.
While council’s decision to seek to move the plant by next June 2010 seems like an end date, the timing of the actual move is still very much an open question — subject to negotiations with the operator. Mayor Ken Melamed, who voted against Councillor Ted Milner’s resolution seeking to move the plant by that date, raised an important caveat when he stated his concern over municipal officials perhaps not being able to deliver on what they have promised. Clearly, municipal officials have an obligation to do right not only by hopeful future residents, but by the plant’s operator. Any possible end date is still subject to negotiation — as is the important question of where such a future plant should go.
The answers to those questions still don’t address the question of how and why this issue wasn’t resolved long ago, as it certainly should have been. Perhaps those who attend today’s (Nov. 25) open house on the topic will find out more — but perhaps not.
