City staff will study whether to make the Community Foundation Park an actual park.
During Monday night's meeting, the Prince George Community Foundation asked city council to dedicate the green space beside the Four Seasons Pool that bears its name as a park to to lease it to the organization for 99 years.
Celebrating its 20th anniversary, the Community Foundation is looking for ways to leave a tangible mark on the city, outside of the granting opportunities it provides every year, said president Ray Noonan. To date, the Community Foundation has put nearly $1 million back into the community.
"And that's one of the areas where the Prince George Community Foundation park comes into play," Noonan said. "It's a tangible asset that has the Prince George Community Foundation's name on it."
Prince George Community Foundation Park began life in 1967 as Centennial Park, marking Canada's 100th anniversary celebrations.
It was renamed in 1999, but the foundation has no legal ties to it. In fact, as Noonan discovered in conversations with city staff, it's not actually a park.
"It's actually zoned C1 commercial and it's simply a green space that is part of the property that the Four Seasons Pool is located on," he said.
When the park was renamed at the end of the millennium, there were plans drawn up for the area that never saw the light of day, said Noonan, adding he has an understanding from Community Policing that the space has also become a regular location for drug trafficking.
"There was art space designed, there was public space, there were a lot of things designed that never came to fruition. And now that we've turned 20 we want to circle back to something that could have been much bigger and better," he said.
The foundation was approached by the Nechako Rotary Club about erecting a statue of Rick Hansen next to the existing Terry Fox monument in the park, but the group wants to have some assurance from the city before they invest any cash.
"So in terms of us giving back to the community - doing some fundraising, partnering with other local service groups to really invest in the area - before we can make that vision come forward we need support from city and city council to have that area potentially rezoned and licenced to the Prince George Community Foundation either as a land use licence or a 99-year lease agreement or something to that effect," Noonan said.
While they support the organization's goals, there are potential issues that need to be looked at, said council members.
Coun. Brian Skakun said it's important to know the value of the land before it's potentially signed away for the next century given there are still things up in the air such as the replacement of Firehall No. 1 and the ultimate fate of the Four Seasons Pool.
"For us to give away or dedicate a chunk of valuable property like that it does have some consequences for us in the long run," he said.
Coun. Susan Scott, a former Community Foundation director, agreed.
"I think that the location of this is what is confusing to me and I'm troubled by the notion, as has been indicated, that we might tie ourselves up in terms of things that we need to be doing pretty soon in our life and certainly within the 99 years."
