The City of Prince Rupert has singled out potential sites for a construction workers’ camp and storage/material handling area.
With major industrial projects being proposed in and near Prince Rupert, the city is pitching adjustments be made to its Official Community Plan in order to temporarily zone two pieces of city-owned property under the industrial land use designation.
“This is a zone to facilitate activities within our zoning bylaw that will take place for a finite period of time,” Robert Long, Prince Rupert city manager, said during the Nov. 3 council meeting.
If it goes through, the city could lease the sites to interested developers wanting to create a camp for its workers and a lay down, storage/material handling area to accommodate their project.
Two pieces of land have been pinpointed as having the potential for the plans.
The first is a smaller lot on Wantage Road, previously occupied by a mobile home park, that would be suitable for a lay down, storage and material-handling area.
The second, larger lot is part of the former city dump, which has the capacity to house a workers’ camp. There’s contaminated soil present in this area, that the leasee would have to remediate as part of the site’s development. This would be beneficial to the city, making an unusable piece of land available for future use.
Long said opening up the parcels of land shows the community is able to welcome project workers, some who may want to stay.
“We hope that by getting them into our community in camps that they will see the attractiveness of our community and want to live here permanently. We think the closer we can get them to some of our assets, our recreation facilities, our golf course, the better it would be,” he said.
“We’ve talked a lot about the need to plan and try to take advantage of the potential developments in our area, and I think this is an example of exactly that,” Coun. Anna Ashley said.
The city will host a public hearing on the rezoning of the lands at the beginning of the Nov. 24 council meeting, starting at 7 p.m. in City Hall’s council chambers.
Later that meeting council will decide whether or not to move forward with the plans.