Once again, Barrie city council will be told Wednesday to leave the south shore as is.
While there will be no multi-use sports field there, and plans are being laid for a passive park east of General John Hayter Southshore Centre, they include a minimum of two acres of grass-cut area, to allow for overflow parking for historical events that will occur on the property, such as Kempenfest, along with having accessible walkways through the naturalized area.
Council will be told Wednesday that two acres for parking is too much.
Arnie Ivsins of the Southshore Nature Park task force will tell council in a deputation that just more than half an acre, an 11-metre cut from Lakeshore Drive, which exists now, should suffice.
He said the task force prefers “that this area be kept natural and not mowed other than for pedestrian traffic … (but) in a show of good faith would agree to some mowing for overflow parking, but not to the extent of the amendment of a minimum two acres.
“We would ask that the maximum mowing cut stay at the current mowed area of 11 m. or .610 of an acre for parking and pedestrian traffic,” said Ivsins, noting a two-acre cut would go well into the existing meadow.
Council’s motion comes from a recommendation in The Southshore, Barrie Sports and a Revitalized Downtown, released Aug. 14 and authored by Marshall Green, a retired lawyer with a specialty in municipal law and land use planning.
Green recommended ‘that the city develop the current wooded area and meadow on the south shore as a passive park that protects existing wildlife and with trail systems that are accessible; that the park also include an educational component; that citizens groups and service clubs in the city be engaged with the city’s parks department to develop the park; and that the lands ultimately designed for this part of the park be zoned environmental protection (EP).’
The passive park motion is part of a larger series of actions being considered for final approval Wednesday.
Randy Taylor will also make a deputation, as will Brian Miller of the Friends of Allandale Station Park and Dorothy McKeown of Nature Barrie, formerly the Brereton Field Naturalists Club.
This motion includes plans for a new multi-use sports field at the old Barrie Central Collegiate site, the former Fisher auditorium property on Dunlop Street West instead of land close to Lakeshore Drive, on a portion of Allandale Station Park, which attracted such heated opposition.
City staff would hire a consultant to look at this plan, at an estimated cost of $250,000, to ensure the field meets the minimum size requirements to accommodate a sports field of this nature and minimize impacts to the surrounding area and report back to councillors.
Funding would be 30 per cent from development charges, 20 per cent from the tax capital reserve and the other half from the cash-in-lieu of parkland reserve.
A new performing arts centre (PAC) is proposed at the Sea Cadets site, once the young sailors relocate.
Hariri Pontarini Architects would be retained to complete a schematic design for a new PAC at the current Sea Cadets site, at an estimated $200,000 cost, to be funded from the theatre reserve.
Its design would be for an approximately 45,000 square foot facility that includes both 600-seat and 250-seat performance spaces. The maximum total would be $65 million in hard and soft construction costs for the building itself, including fit-out of all seating and audio, visual components.
City staff would also determine the feasibility of using the current Sea Cadets site, near the Spirit Catcher on Lakeshore Drive, and any required surrounding city lands for a new PAC, with the cost of such investigations to a maximum of $375,000 and to be funded from the city’s theatre reserve.
A full-time capital project manager would be hired by the city to co-ordinate the site investigations and schematic design work, and the position would be funded from the PAC redevelopment capital project theatre reserve.
Also, the Sea Cadets parade ground would be removed as one of the uses for the proposed multi-use sports field and staff would provide a concept plan, including costs for locating a drill square, with a hard surface, to the west of Southshore Centre as an extension to the parking lot, and again report back to councillors.
