Ship Point, the lower Wharf Street parking lot and the Belleville Terminal site are the three pillars of an improved Inner Harbour.
That’s the conclusion in a staff report to Victoria councillors about a project to study revitalization for the harbour and its environs. The report says that each of the three key areas has “strategic significance” and the potential to enhance tourism, transportation, downtown vitality and economic progress.
They could also make more of a contribution to the city’s “distinctive image and identity,” the report said.
The project, with an estimated budget of $100,000, will be aimed at identifying how renewal should take place around the Inner Harbour. Strong community interest in the harbour means that broad-based public input is needed from the likes of landowners, businesspeople, First Nations and individual citizens, the report said.
Among the project’s objectives are maintaining a working harbour, improving public spaces and completing David Foster Way along the waterfront. The project would also encompass the Inner Harbour district of downtown, bound by Quebec, Superior, Blanshard, Humboldt and Wharf streets.
Victoria Mayor Dean Fortin said consultation will start soon, with the city intent on finding opportunities for the harbour that generate wide support. Behind it all is the larger outlook for the harbour put forward in the city’s Official Community Plan and downtown plan, he said.
“It sort of sets that vision that everyone agrees on: home for the provincial government, home for our cultural and community amenities, a working harbour, public-realm access to the water.”
The city realizes that funding might not be available right away, “but we recognize if we have clear community consensus around these sites, that that is attractive to senior levels of government,” Fortin said. “This is a way that we can advance opportunities when funding might come about.”
He said there are plans to hold a series of public sessions over the next three months.
“The goal is to define the vision for the future,” Fortin said. “It’s about getting to shovel-ready projects.”
