The City of Fernie has kiboshed preliminary designs for a 49-space car-park on the north end of the Annex Dike.
Following robust community feedback, designs for discretionary improvements to go alongside a dike enhancement project have been changed to remove a car-park that would have soaked up parking that will be lost to changes made to the dike.
“What we know is we’re pulling that design as it sits,” said the city’s Chief Administrative Officer (CAO), Michael Boronowski.
“It’s a discretionary piece that no-one is supportive of, so it’s an easy decision to make.”
Boronowski explained that parking would need to be considered in that area, but removing the forest was against the city’s own priorities.
“Addressing parking at the north end of this Annex Park project is important because raising the dike to protect the community means the parking along the dike side of 12th Ave is going to be impacted,” he said.
“We’re going to lose on-street parking as we raise and expand that dike … so we have to figure out something else, or we’ll have parking spilling out into the Annex neighbourhood.”
The proposed car-park was part of enhancements deemed not critical (or discretionary) to the Annex Dike Improvements Project, which is intended to raise and strengthen the Annex Dike which protects the 2,000-plus Fernie residents that reside within the Annex neighbourhood.
While the non-critical improvements (such as ‘wellness stations’, landscaping and other amenities) are yet to go through a public consultation, Annex residents were ahead of any formal consultation, organising to form robust opposition to the car-park given it would have been on land that is currently forested.
Annex resident Jesse Bell was part of the community push-back on the preliminary design, and had began circulating a petition in opposition to the car-park, telling The Free Press that there were many alternatives to paving paradise for a parking lot.
“I don’t think a parking lot in a residential area where a forest is right now aligns with the principles of why we live here,” said Bell, who said there were better parking alternatives that wouldn’t involve removing so many trees.
Bell said that environmentally, cutting down a forested area - even one as small as the one that would be affected - wasn’t defensible.
“That’s part of the issue, in that we continually have excuses for taking down more forest.
“People don’t live here to have parking lots. They live here to have mountains and see bears in the neighbourhood.”
Speaking of bears, Bell said that for such a small lot, it appeared to be well-used by the valley’s non-human residents.
“In that forest there’s huge evidence of bear activity. There’s scat everywhere, people have seen moose in there, its a wetland and marsh zone (and) its heavily dense so it protects wildlife from human activity, which is a huge issue in Fernie.
“If the city really actually wanted to have an active role in preventing (human-wildlife conflict), cutting down another portion of forest isn’t that active role.”
With over 300 signatures on her petition at time of writing, Bell said she wanted to have a delegation before the city council in the next few weeks.
“The ultimate goal would be to make it a permanent green space, and have it left alone.”
Currently, the Annex Dike Improvement Project is at the 90 percent design stage, meaning it has many aspects that remain open (and will be open) to public input before works proceed.
According to CAO Boronowski, any discretionary additions ancillary to the dike project will be considered by the project team and an advisory task-force made up of stakeholders (who will consider community input), and will be brought forward to the council to consider in the future.
For a project timeline, Boronowski said community consultation will be ongoing over coming months, with the city planning to have final designs early in 2022 for a 2022 build.
READ MORE: Fernie welcomes newest youth councillor