Despite public outcry, council has reiterated its support of the KristallTurm rope course setting up in the Squamish Adventure Centre parking lot this summer.
Council passed a motion at its meeting Tuesday night in support of district staff continuing to negotiate a lease agreement with the Squamish company.
At its meeting in December, council originally directed staff to negotiate terms of the lease agreement and requested staff gather feedback from the public about the proposal.
Council received around 150 pieces of correspondence prior to the deadline last week, most from rock climbers opposed to the aerial rope course being placed on the parking lot adjacent to the popular Smoke Bluffs Park, a favourite climbing area.
About 77 per cent of the feedback did not support the rope course at that location, according to Neil Plumb, the district’s real estate manager.
Comments in opposition continued to come in after the deadline and right up to the start of the meeting, Plumb said.
About six members of the climbing community were on hand at the meeting Tuesday night.
The primary issue many have with the location is the parking spots the attraction will displace.
“What we see in the future in the corridor is there’s going to be a huge parking issue,” said Chris Small of the Squamish Climber’s Access Society. “We already have huge problems with parking.”
Phase one of the rope course – the only phase that would be guaranteed in a completed lease agreement – would consume about 30 parking stalls of the 196 possible on the gravel lot across from the Adventure Centre, Plumb said.
The attraction would accommodate 40 participants on it at a time.
Peter Winter, a climber and Squamish resident, objected to the project because he doesn’t see the proposal as a good fit with the Squamish brand.
“The Adventure Centre and the neighbouring Smoke Bluffs Park make a great duo in showing off ‘The Outdoor Recreation Capital of Canada.’ It shouldn’t be marred with amusement park attractions,” Winter said.
Coun. Susan Chappele, herself a climber, has passionately opposed making the parking lot home to the attraction since it was first proposed, for a myriad of reasons. “We invite tourism through our natural setting, through our active and beautiful surroundings. We have a coffee shop, a building where people can gather… this is a community gathering area,” Chapelle told The Chief. Chapelle also said the parking lot is already busy.
“Many citizens value the active transportation network provided by being able to park and ride, and take the Squamish Commuter to Vancouver in the morning. Since 40 per cent of our population commutes to work, it seems reasonable to have a lot for them to park in,” she said.
Mario Gomes, the local developer behind the KristallTurm project, pointed out that his company originally responded to a request for proposal from the District of Squamish for the district-owned land.
“It is a fine line of suddenly becoming a bit of the villain – we saw the ad,” he said, in reference to some of the more aggressively negative commentary in the correspondence opposing the rope course. “We decided to answer because we do think it is a family attraction that people would love.”
Mayor Patricia Heintzman noted that the open process for the disposition of land was new to the district and not required.
“Usually dispositions of land, legally under the Community Charter, can all be done in camera, it is basically a negotiation. Council about a year ago changed it up so we could bring in public input into the process,” she said.
Though council supported the proposal despite the feedback received from the public, the feedback was very useful and pointed out things that council needs to address, she said.
To that end, Heintzman requested that the highly anticipated Smoke Bluffs parking lot expansion be put on the agenda for consideration in the 2017 budget workshop scheduled for next week. If the expansion were to go ahead this year, it would mean 50 more parking spots for the Smoke Bluffs, Heintzman said.
Coun. Jason Blackman-Wulff noted the KristallTurm structure is not permanent, so if not successful could be replaced with something else at some point.
When it became clear the rest of council was going to vote in support of continuing with the rope course lease, Chapelle was flummoxed.
“It shocks me,” she said, adding more people had engaged with council on this issue than on almost anything else, including the Woodfibre LNG proposal.
“I do find it upsetting when we ask for public engagement, we ask for the public to voice their opinion on things and they do and we ignore it.”
Details of the negotiated lease will come back to a future council for approval, district staff said.
