This article was originally published in Best of the City 2017, a special publication presented by the Nanaimo News Bulletin. For the e-edition, click here.
People could have more of an experience and a way to interact with the Nanaimo harbour, with the expansion of the waterfront walkway, according to Tourism Nanaimo’s Karen Bannister.
“One of the things that people appreciate and love about our city is that we have this beautiful harbour and that the waterfront walkway is a really accessible way to enjoy what the waterfront has to offer,” said Bannister, consumer marketing specialist for Tourism Nanaimo. “Expanding it will only make that opportunity even greater.”
The City of Nanaimo and its consultant Urban Systems are at the drawing board this year, looking at just what it will take to expand Nanaimo’s waterfront walkway, also named the No. 1 place to people watch in the News Bulletins’ Best of the City Survey.
The dream is for a seamless 13-kilometre connector so people can travel from Departure Bay to the Nanaimo River estuary – but building it is almost the easy part, says city real estate manager Bill Corsan, who considers the challenges facing the waterfront like a thesis.
Land is divided between jurisdictions of the Nanaimo Port Authority, city and province, there ares regulatory approvals, land ownership issues and anything built will require Snuneymuxw to provide their blessing, he said.
There are also private lands on which the city would like to locate the trail and it would need to come to an agreement with those owners, and to the south, it’s looking at following the Island Corridor Foundation on its lands and needs the organization’s approval.
“That’s maybe why our department is looking after it,” he said. “There’s a lot of real estate and kind of permitting issues that need to be dealt with as opposed to just building something.”
The city reached out to the public about the waterfront walkway last month about amenities and what sections of the walkway people want to see done first. A survey, with more than 1,900 respondents, named Departure Bay beach to the ferry terminal as a section to work on first. There’s also interest in benches, washrooms, viewing areas and artwork, results show.
Corsan said it’s important to ask people at the beginning what they’d like built first in a perfect world.
In September, the city can come back with information on the costs and challenges that need to be addressed for the different sections.
“I guess that’s a discussion for council and the community is … we’ll have a better idea of costing, the challenges and the design so that if you get blocked on one section maybe you move and advance on another section,” he said. “It’s kind of the idea of having the plan is that you know how the 13-kilometre corridor is going to look, you know the costings for all the various sections and then really it’s how you want to implement it.”
Corsan calls the plan a fundamental first step.
“Until now, it’s unclear as to where we should be starting, right?” he asked. “When you are building a plan like this, with this much community feedback, we really do have a plan that kind of reflects people’s priorities, the community’s priorities and it’s going to be tempered with some reality in terms of the challenges and the costs.”
Bannister said the popularity of the seawall in Vancouver is a wonderful example of how much potential there is to create a recreational opportunity and a way for people the enjoy the fact that Nanaimo is an oceanfront city.
“We find that many visitors enjoy exploring the walkway today and that interest will only increase when there is more to see and do,” she wrote in an e-mail.
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