The City of Prince George will start the process to remove the encampment in Millennium Park.
At last night’s (Monday) meeting, Prince George City Council approved a recommendation to initiate the planning and action process to remove the encampment, as well as amendments to the Parks and Open Spaces bylaw that would only allow overnight sheltering at the Lower Patricia Encampment.
“If anybody has driven by there, it’s absolutely destroyed,” said Councillor Brian Skakun.
“The building across the street, the back of it’s torched, that area, I think if there’s a ground zero, that’s it. I think we have to start somewhere.”
Councillor Trudy Klassen had some concerns about dismantling the encampment at this point.
“I hesitate because Lower Patricia, there’s so little services there, I think we’re jumping the gun a bit on this,” Klassen said.
“I could support it later once we have better facilities available, or once the province finally steps up. I can’t support it today.”
Mayor Simon Yu said he shared Klassen’s concerns, but said the time has come to start the planning process.
“Of course I would like to see everything ready and a place for everybody to go,” he said.
“I trust the staff, we have looked at all the other options, looked at other communities and how they do it, and I have confidence the planning, the process, will have a good result.”
Yu added if council needs to call an emergency meeting to pivot the process, they will.
“This is important, we’ve got to get this one right,” he said.
Additionally, council also voted on a few other measures surrounding the Lower Patricia Encampment.
The first of those were to use road work machinery to clear a safe and passable roadway through the Lower Patricia Boulevard road allowance to allow emergency vehicles to pass through, and afterwards to maintain the roadway.
Both of those passed unanimously.
Other items discussed at last night’s meeting included finalization of this year’s tax rates bylaws, and a proposed seniors housing development on Ospika Boulevard.
The development was originally planned as a student housing development, before requesting the switch to seniors housing.
The request was denied by council.