05-29-2022, 09:44 AM
(05-29-2022, 09:13 AM)cherrypark Wrote:(05-29-2022, 01:54 AM)danbrotherston Wrote: They cannot allow that land to be occupied because of the contamination. It is dangerous to human health. They could decontaminate it, but it would be a significant investment.
Fully realizing that is a hot potato bill that the company owning it is certainly hoping someone else will pick up, but with a lack of parkland downtown, it would be nice to somehow see a settlement that gets it remediated to a quality it can return to being used.
While I agree that the site should be remediated, and I agree we should invest in more parks, I would argue there are plenty of sites which could be made into parks which wouldn't require multi-10-million investment in soil remediation.
Frankly, despite all the bleating of folks (including those on council) about there not being enough park space downtown, I see no proposals to turn any of the significant areas of public space we have into more parks. This is in stark contrast to the CoW which has created two new park spaces in the downtown area.
Again, actions speak louder than words, creating park space downtown isn't a priority.
Now that being said, there has been investment in revitalizing and improving some downtown parks or greens, and that is good (it's clear to me they are underused) but if there really wasn't enough space, then you'd see investment in creating more.