By Greg Higgins

More downtown revitalization and pay parking lot proposed by city for 2018

Dec 7, 2017 | 3:45 PM

According to North Battleford administration, the next phase of downtown revitalization on 101st St. from 12th Ave. to the Library will be much smoother next year and will have less impact on the business community.

At last night’s budget meeting, Jennifer Niesink director of planning and development, announced the city’s intentions to continue the Downtown Revitalization Master Plan next summer.

While construction this year was met with some mixed reactions from residents, particularly the business community, city manager Jim Puffalt said there isn’t much the city can do differently this year, but the hardest part is over.

“Those types of projects take time,” Puffalt said. “We consulted with them [business owners], we tried to get them access as much as possible, but in the end you’ve got to get the work done. The beauty of this side is there are fewer lines.”

Puffalt said the reason this summer’s project took so long was because the city had to get into each individual building and change the services. He added with fewer lines to change, construction should go quicker depending on the weather.

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Puffalt said there are also less businesses north of 12th Ave. to be affected and there is more parking to make for easier access for the ones that will be.

Another project proposed next year is the development of a paved pay parking lot at King Street Station, which is the lot on the south east corner of 100 St. and 11th Ave. According to Niesink, it will be a pay parking lot during the day and will be monitored by the Community Safety Officers (CSO). The lot will be free parking on evenings and weekends. The rest of downtown will remain free parking, for up to two hour periods.

The change will require an upgrade to CSO equipment as the current “chalking of tires” method is considered too inefficient. The upgrades would be to the plate readers on CSO vehicles so the software would be able to track how long vehicles have been in a spot for and would automatically send infractions to the court to issue tickets.

According to city administration, the changes would apply to parking infractions throughout the entire city.

greg.higgins@jpbg.ca

On Twitter @realgreghiggins