A series of significant provincial grants to the District of Houston this year amounting to $2 million will help improve recreational amenities and chart a way toward new ways to generate economic activity.
The largest of the grants at $1 million is meant for the District’s comprehensive plan to redevelop and improve facilities at Bymac Park.
As of late last year, the project had a forecast cost of $1.827 million to be financed by the $1 million from the provincial jobs, economic development and innovation ministry, $62,172 from a grant already received from the Northern Development Initiative Trust, $507,828 from the District’s own cultural and recreational reserve account and $257,659 from the District’s accumulated surplus.
Money from the sale of merchantable wood from the area logged in the Buck Flats area to create a firebreak has helped build up the cultural and recreational reserve account.
And an earlier $100,000 sum from the province was used to prepare a feasibility study outlining what could be done to vastly improve services at the park.
Based on the study by consultants Urban Systems, a revitalized Bymac Park could have:
- improved signage
- interpretative signs or a kiosk
- better parking with a circulation pattern better to accommodate RVs and vehicles pulling boat trailers.
- 13 rustic campsites
- 12 partially serviced RV campsites containing water and power but now sewer
- a shower and washroom building
- a day use area with small rustic playground
- walkways and pedestrian paths
- wildlife proof waste bins
- minor landscaping.
The camping area now contains nine unserviced sites.
Another grant, this time for $500,000 from the provincial program aimed at improving non-motorized transportation, will help pay for the approximate $1.516 million estimated cost of constructing a much better Jamie Baxter Park multi-use pathway to connect residential areas with the downtown core.
The remaining $1.017 million comes from the District’s accumulated surplus.
The trail improvement is part of a longer-range plan to completely rehabilitate Jamie Baxter Park and had been included as a 2024 project within the District’s first draft of a five-year financial plan being considered by council.
But it was provisionally taken off the capital project list as a project for this year last month after not hearing if the application for the provincial grant was successful.
District officials at the time believed that even if the grant had been received earlier, a contractor could not be be found in time for construction this year.
But with the grant now in hand, planning will take place this year with construction to follow in 2025.
A third significant provincial grant, also of $500,000, is to hire a consulting firm to come up with a workable plan leading toward increasing the ways people can earn a living in the area.
It has taken on significance now that Canfor has shelved, at least for now, its plan to build a new sawmill in Houston.
The idea is to come up with a five-year plan to market the community to investors as a viable location based on research and analysis of opportunities and options.
A key part will be looking at the land use potential for large as well as small businesses and enterprises.
Other grants received so far this year include:
— $20,000 from Canfor to fix up the Northwood Park picnic site
— $186,181 from the Union of B.C. Municipalities to further the District’s plans and work to deal with wildfire potential.
— $50,000 from the Northern Development Initiative Trust for an economic and community development official.
— $27,268.76 from the Union of B.C. Municipalities to update protective clothing and equipment used by members of the Houston Volunteer Fire Department
— $164,180 from the provincial housing ministry for a strategy aimed at encouraging the construction of housing in the community
— $40,000 from the province for Indigenous participation as the District updates emergency preparedness and response program
— $30,865.83 from the Union of B.C. Municipalities to provide equipment and supplies for an emergency operations centre if and when required.
