Sechelt council supported a number of priorities for next year’s capital budget during their Sept. 17 committee of the whole meeting, including a plan to spend about $1.4 million on a new tourist information centre near Chapman Creek.
In total 27 new projects were pitched for the coming year estimated to cost more than $6.4 million, money that would need to be found.
Besides the tourist information centre, other projects proposed by staff included $300,000 to start phase one of the Ebbtide park plan, which is meant to complement the new sewage treatment plant, $107,000 for a new asphalt recycling machine for the District and about $1.6 million for a new public works building.
The proposed expenditure that raised concern at the council table, however, was the idea to spend about $1.4 million on a new tourist information centre aimed at grabbing tourists before they get to Sechelt.
The new tourist information centre would sit on the undeveloped property owned by the District on the high side of the highway beside Chapman Creek.
The proposed centre would call for local business people to set up shop inside, helping to alleviate some of the cost in the long run, according to Coun. Chris Moore, who said that it would eventually “fund itself.”
The tourist information centre plans call for several parking spaces for recreational vehicles, washrooms, a gallery, coffee shop and an outdoor amphitheatre for the community to use.
When asked whose idea the new tourist information centre was, Mayor John Henderson said the report came from staff and that while council supported the priorities identified in principle, council was “nowhere close to making a decision” on whether to incorporate the ideas into the next budget.
“At this point it’s a creative process to help us see if we can come up with potentially even better ideas,” Henderson said.
Chief of innovation and growth Ron Buchhorn said “the norm” in other communities in B.C. is to have a “beautiful tourist information centre to welcome people to your community,” and that the current centre is in the middle of town and often missed by tourists.
“I assumed that when I was called the chief of innovation of growth I was supposed to be innovative and creative and come up with ideas. Council will decide whether we support them or not,” Buchhorn said, noting he wants to have the budget approved by December “so we can get on with execution in the way that we did last year.”
