On Thursday approximately 200 people packed Vanway elementary's gymnasium to have their say on a proposed amendment to the Official Community Plan.
The event wasn't a spontaneous outburst of public interest in the city's long-term planning vision - an important subject which received lackluster feedback from the public when it was up for review in 2011. The 242-page document contains everything nobody wanted to know about city planning, but were uninterested to ask.
No, Haldi Road is back.
If you missed the first round, here's what you need to know:
On Dec. 12, 2011 city council rezoned 5877 Leslie Rd. from rural residential to a special therapeutic community zoning to facilitate the development of a 30-bed women's addiction treatment centre at the former Haldi Road elementary school.
The proposed Northern Supportive Recovery Centre for Women faced serious opposition from many neighbours, who formed a grassroots organization to campaign against the centre.
Concerns included traffic, noise, loss of property value, water use in the well-dependent area and the possibility the centre would attract criminal elements.
There was also more than a little knee-jerk NIMBYism.
"It's a bunch of garbage," Leslie Road resident Irene Shelke told the Citizen in September, 2011. "We don't want dope addicts."
"I don't want all that garbage in my neighbourhood," another Leslie Road resident, who would not identify herself, told the Citizen in 2011. "I have no use for prostitutes. I have no use for alcoholics. I have no use for drug addicts. I won't even talk to them."
To be fair, the centre proponents are far from blameless in the dispute. The proponents did nothing to consult residents or win them over before - or immediately after - buying the facility, setting the stage for local opposition.
The defensive, confrontational approach used by centre proponents in dealing with neighbourhood opposition exacerbated, rather than calmed, resident concerns.
So, six days after city council's ruling, Leslie Road resident Janice Sevin - backed by other Haldi Road area residents - launched a judicial review of city council's decision.
In his August 2012 ruling on the case, Supreme Court Justice John Truscott said the city's rezoning bylaw was inconsistent with the city's Official Community Plan and therefore contrary to the Local Government Act.
Like Rocky Balboa and Apollo Creed at the end of Rocky, both sides were bloody and spent after 15 rounds in the ring. But the status quo was upheld - no belt for Rocky and no addiction treatment centre for Haldi Road.
Which brings us to Haldi Road II.
Proponents of the Northern Supportive Recovery Centre for Women have called for an amendment to the Official Community Plan which would allow the former Haldi Road school to be rezoning in a manner similar to the city's Dec. 12, 2011 decision.
Basically the exact same plan is back with no significant changes or attempt to get neighbours onboard.
Like Creed, the Northern Supportive Recovery Centre for Women has come looking for a rematch and Haldi Road residents are ready for a fight.
In an ideal world the Northern Supportive Recovery Centre for Women would be built - in another neighbourhood where it would be welcomed and supported, rather than Haldi Road.
But since the proponents are unwilling or unable to consider a different location, Prince George is in for a grudge match with city council, and possibly the courts, cast as referees.
No matter who wins this rematch the losers are the women who needed accessible addiction treatment options in the North, but didn't get it because of this pointless political and legal wrangling.
-- Associate news editor Arthur Williams
