Manoeuvring through Dwight Hall became difficult because of the turnout at the City of Powell River’s new library location open house meeting.
Doors opened at 6 pm on Monday, June 9, and in the first half hour, more than 100 people came through the doors, many of them milling around for a considerable time. There were about 30 panels for them to read, featuring artist renderings, plus information on the Powell River Recreation Complex and Willingdon South prospective library locations.
In addition to the displays, and the opportunity to speak with city elected officials, city staff members, plus a representative of the architectural firm, participants had the opportunity to fill in a questionnaire. It asked whether the participant lived inside or outside the city limits and whether they preferred the Willingdon or complex location.
The rest of the letter-sized questionnaire form left extensive room for comments.
Geoff Allan, facilitator at the open house, said his function after the meeting is to take all of the comments and write a report analyzing the input that will be presented to city council.
“You sort of have to look at where the opinion is going, you pull out the salient points and you look for the common elements across all of the comments,” Allan said.
He was pleased with the early turnout at the meeting.
“We’re only half an hour in and the hall is full,” he said. “We’re pretty excited about that. The more comments we get, the stronger the voice is going to be. You begin to look at what percentage of people are saying what. It gives a ranking of what people are concerned about.”
Allan said he believes the architect tried to present the two site options as similarly as he could. When people are making comparisons, it is “apples and apples.
“You are going to be able to function in either of these libraries the same way,” he said. “It takes the functionality out of the equation and it becomes one of location.”
Brian Wakelin, Miller Hull Partnership, LLP principal architect for the project, agreed, saying both proposals are as similar as possible.
“It is important for people to be able to judge the where,” he said. Both proposals are for modern, contemporary libraries.
Wakelin added that technology has changed libraries, which are gaining greater function as community gathering places.
“It’s much more than a book collection,” he said.
Charlie Kregel, Powell River Public Library chief librarian, said he was pleased with the turnout at the open house and is interested in the results.
On the library website there is extensive information available by clicking on the new library text just below the Welcome headline at the top of the homepage. Results of the open house will be presented to council at the Thursday, June 19, committee of the whole meeting.
