The City of Windsor is pumping the brakes on the “world marketplace street canopy” project in Wyandotte Town Centre.
The business improvement association had been working on the project for a number of years, and had support of its members. The design called for banner canopy cover three blocks within the business improvement area from Glengarry to Aylmer, Langlois to Pierre and Moy to Gladstone.
“We were looking at Spring-Summer to get the banners up and to maybe have some festivals and really start with our world marketplace idea,” said Wyandotte Town Centre BIA chair Tamara Kowolska.
Coun. Rino Bortolin was asking council to confirm a $1 million placeholder for the project, which was included in the 2017 enhanced capital budget. The Wyandotte Town Centre BIA was prepared to contribute an additional $400,000.
“They’re ready, they have a cheque in hand, they’re eager,” said Bortolin.
But council balked at that proposal Monday night, citing concerns over the street canopy design, right of way infringements and the potential that costs could run out of hand.
“It’s incumbent upon us that that $1 million is being well spent, and that it’s cohesive,” said ward 5 coun. Jo-Anne Gignac. “We should pause. Pause to allow the BIA to maybe consider this in the content of wrapping this into districting.”
The motion was defeated by a 7-4 vote, with councillors Bortolin, Kusmierczyk, Marra and Holt voting in favour of releasing the funds.
Instead, Coun. Bortolin proposed an alternate motion that will have the project looked at through a “districting lens” along with other city districts outlined by Mayor Drew Dilkens, including the Walkerville Distillery District, Asian Town, Ford City, Sandwich Towne, Riverside and the downtown core.
“There's going to be a lot of disappointed owners at the AGM in a few weeks," Bortolin said after the meeting. “It is disappointing, but hopefully we can work with admin to push something forward, one way or another, for that district.”
Mayor Dilkens says the second motion which council unanimously passed will still provide the same level of funding and keep it high in the queue, but will have more city involvement as part of the overall districting discussion.
“It's valid for council to take a pause before they spend a million dollars on something that they're not entirely comfortable with,” Dilkens said. “We're going to do something great there. It's just a matter of getting to that point and deciding exactly what we're going to do."
The mayor hinted at creating a Middle Eastern village, noting “the bones are there” for that type of project. He also suggested the canopy idea isn’t necessarily getting thrown out.
Members of the Wyandotte Town Centre BIA were on hand for the council debate and want to confer with the membership about council’s decision.
“We do have a number of different self-identified cultures that co-exist quite peacefully in that neighbourhood,” Kowalska said. “We wanted to emphasize that in our world marketplace theme.”
“Our BIA membership and the individual members are very resilient, and I think I can speak for them when I say their enthusiasm for and their dedication to neighbourhood revitalization does not depend on decisions made by city council,” said Kowalska.
