At last week’s city council meeting, councillors voted to update a zoning bylaw rezoning 338 Ninth St. from Single-Dwelling Residential to Low-Density Residential.
Council also discussed a letter from housing minister Ravi Kahlon to Mayor Leonard Krog, declining a meeting to discuss provincial funding for daytime drop-in spaces.
Last December, Kahlon told The Discourse that if the city could identify sites for a permanent purpose-built facility for a day time drop-in, he’d be open to that possibility.
“We’ve had a good working relationship with the mayor and council,” Kahlon told The Discourse at the time. “We haven’t always agreed, but we agree that we need to get people indoors and get some support and if they have sites — let’s have that conversation.”
Coun. Hilary Eastmure said the intent of Krog’s April 14 letter requesting a meeting was to take the minister up on that invitation.
“We're obviously here and ready and willing to talk and to bring the resources to the table that we can as a municipality,” she said. “But we really need legitimate, meaningful partnership and action from the province on this, and that was what we were asking for with this letter.”
Coun. Erin Hemmens called Kahlon’s response “incredibly frustrating.”
“It's verging on comical when we hear through the media that the minister is interested in potentially meeting with us,” she said, “[but] we reach out to the minister's office and the minister says, ‘Thanks, but no thanks.’”
In his response, Kahlon said he recognizes “the hard work and value of The Hub” in Nanaimo, and highlighted the province’s partnership with the city to build temporary housing for unhoused residents through its HEART and HEARTH program.
The next regular council meeting is on Monday, July 7 in the Vancouver Island Conference Centre’s Shaw Auditorium at 7 p.m. The agenda for that meeting has not yet been released — but one potential item could be a report on a proposed city ban on selling invasive plants in Nanaimo, which was discussed at this week’s governance and priorities committee meeting.
In other city news, an Alternative Approval Process is underway. It’s seeking residents’ permission to remove a park dedication from a portion of Elaine Hamilton Park, to provide an access road to future housing in the Sandstone development.
Residents can learn more about the proposal on the city website, and have until Monday, July 21 to submit a completed form if opposed to it. People who are in favour of the proposal do not have to do anything.
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