A motion to poll Powell River residents about city-owned land was defeated by city council.
At the May 22 city council meeting, mayor Ron Woznow introduced a resolution that stated: whereas the city owns 160 properties that do not generate any income, but require maintenance, therefore, be it resolved that at the 2026 municipal election, the following question be included on the election ballot: Do you support the utilization of some of the city’s 160 properties to generate revenue and reduce maintenance costs?
Woznow said he has had an opportunity since he was elected to talk with about 40 mayors across the province, all of whom are in awe of the fact that Powell River has city-owned properties that have not been utilized.
“What I’m looking for is an opportunity for the new council that will be elected to have a good understanding of what the people of Powell River would like done,” said Woznow.
Councillor Trina Isakson said she appreciates that the motion was to put some of the city-owned properties to use and doing that by establishing the role of the public through something like a referendum.
“The issue, though, is not the will of the public, or even the will of this council,” said Isakson. “From discussions I’ve heard around this table, there is a lot of will to use city-owned properties for the benefit of the public. The issue currently is having staff to do the heavy lifting of actually moving things forward. Having a referendum doesn’t address that issue. We would still be dealing with a lag even if there was a sense that the public was supportive.”
Isakson said she did not support the motion.
“The will is already there, we just haven’t found a way yet because of staffing capacity,” said Isakson.
Councillor George Doubt said he doesn’t believe the motion is necessary or that selling city-owned land is a good idea. He said a positive response from the 2026 ballot would not force the city to do anything and it wouldn’t make a final decision on what properties to sell or lease and what to use them for.
“We are wealthy in terms of vacant land, but that gives us an opportunity to make decisions on what that land is used for,” said Doubt. “We can lease the land. If we sell the land, we no longer have control. We can’t force someone to develop it, or they may decide to hold onto that land and sell it at a profit and not do any development.
“There’s a lot of things we can do with land and I would like to see us putting some of it into a land bank for affordable housing, where we can create a housing authority to actually build affordable housing.”
Councillor Cindy Elliott said the motion provides no details about which properties would be up for what activities.
“We on council are in favour of using our properties and have been studying many of them for particular uses,” said Elliott. “An answer of yes to this question wouldn’t put us further ahead in utilizing any of the properties because we would still have to go through the statutory process required for each property.”
She said the question doesn’t give specific feedback on a particular piece of land.
“The answer is we’re no further ahead at the end of this question,” said Elliott. “Even if we get a yes, we are still no further ahead in moving any of the properties forward.”
Councillor Jim Palm said the city is land rich and a dollar short.
“We are not talking about selling every piece of land that we have,” said Palm. “We are talking about leasing or expressions of interest. This is a simple question to give the incoming council a little bit of direction that the population supports the concept of looking at our multitude of properties to help us out financially.”
Palm said his phone has been ringing because the tax notices have arrived. He said his small property is going up $1,000 in taxes and others are, too.
When the vote was called, Woznow and Palm voted in favour, and the rest of council voted against the motion, so it was defeated.
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