Townsite Neighbourhood Review

First Beach park

First beach is a well used, beautiful, sandy public space and should be preserved as such! Designation as a city park and landscaping around the parking lot/treatment plant to give it a less industrial feel would add huge value here.

Make a winery and distillery out of old golf course.

Has fertile land, shame to make it a cement lot(housing)

Relocate the museum to one of the old surplus Catalyst buildings

I know from a few years back that the museum had, I believe, secured funding to build a new and bigger building. The building was to be shared by other organizations, and I believe was to house a city art gallery to show case our amazing first nation and local artists. The probably location was to be, I think, the lot across from the existing museum at Willingdon beach. This was a possible location for the library quite a few years ago and there was a lot of opposition to using the location. Given our Townsite heritage district we should, IMO, be locating future infrastructure like museums, actually in the Townsite .. to draw more tourists and locals alike back into the area. One of the Catalyst buildings closest to the WWTP and second/first beach would be ideal for the museum given the history and architecture of the building. Being already on the waterfront and having fantastic views of the Hulks it would be a tremendous use for the building and a great first example of the city working with Catalyst to take ownership of old surplus buildings and then applying for funding to retrofit and upgrade these buildings. With the new trails and walkways that will be built on the now city owned land, this would be a perfect use and first large project for the city. There is an unused large tarmac parking lot right next to the building that could be used for parking.

Coastal by nature.

Please leave our historic townsite “coastal by nature”. Look at how the community already likes to use these spaces. Protect and preserve the old golf course by making it a park. Leave the businesses to the areas of townsite that already have existing built structures that are growing and doing well. Make it all more walkable so you can have an enjoyable walk from the beach to the market or the brewery. I believe its important to err on the side of not completely modernizing such a historic area. The charm of the townsite is special and the views and the natural elements add to that feeling. I truly hope we don’t lose that and reduce the neighbourhood to a bunch of weird, old, homes in the middle of town.

Throw your plans in the garbage unless you’ve worked it out with Tla’amin