Centennial park transfer goes forward after second vote

KELOWNA – It took a couple tries, but members of the Rutland Park Society have voted in favour of transferring ownership of Centennial Park to the City of Kelowna.

71 per cent of those in attendance at Centennial Hall Monday night voted in favour of selling the five acre park to the city for $1 with a legal promise that it would remain a park. The city will also pay $800,000 to the society to extend Shepherd Road to Rutland Road.

The $800,000 from the city will go towards refurbishing the 47-year-old Centennial Hall and land development manager Graham Hood says the city will also include roughly $400,000 for park improvements in the 2015 budget.

Unlike the first vote in August, which required 75 per cent of members to vote against the sale, the second vote required only 50 per cent. Opponents to the sale worried the park, which was bought by the newly founded Rutland Park Society in 1939, would lose its community focus and threaten the farmers market.

Hood says that won’t happen.

“Once the park gets into city control it will be further prioritized for future improvements,” he says. “Those improvements will bring it up to an even higher standard but it will stay a park.”

To contact the reporter for this story, email Adam Proskiw at aproskiw@infotelnews.ca or call 250-718-0428. To contact the editor, email mjones@infotelnews.ca or call 250-718-2724.