The following are from Town of Gibsons' Nov. 19 committee of the whole.
Despite a planned summer reopening, Pebbles Beach will remain closed into next year.
The beach access staircase construction and bank stabilization is “substantially complete” with some handrail and erosion control measures to be installed. Final landscaping was deferred due to worries fresh topsoil would erode in heavy rains. Staff anticipate they will need more money to finish landscaping, something that’s to be factored into 2025 budgeting.
This summer, the project’s budget ballooned from $173,000 to $337,000 after the project’s scope unexpectedly expanded with the discovery that “subsurface conditions were softer than anticipated."
Officially, the beach access has been closed since February 2020.
The slope landscaping plan redesign will be done early next year, but landscaping itself is contingent on budget, and could happen in spring or fall.
"The park will be closed to the public during this period," states the Gibsons website.
White Tower Park
White Tower Park stormwater pond construction was substantially finished earlier this year, with $390,000 remaining in the budget of just $2.05 million, funded from development cost charges, gas tax funds and grants. (That included a $430,000 contingency from the Growing Communities Fund.) So, staff are looking to do some trail improvements, adding picnic tables and benches, and more trees, to a tune of about $50,000, with the remaining money rolled back into budget 2025.
Mayor Silas White said he’s heard some comments from the community asking about changing the park’s name. “It is honouring that history –– that was a short period of history, though –– that the medieval society used that piece of land,” said White. “Maybe the community still wants to do [that], but there have been a couple suggestions of changing it.”
(According to the Gibsons website, “White Tower got its name from the Society of Creative Anachronism who used this area years ago for their medieval gatherings and games.”)
Naming places is at council’s discretion, said town chief administrative officer Emanuel Machado, as the town’s naming bylaw primarily deals with streets.
Machado suggested they could put out a call for name suggestions, “because it is very special and it's more defined now, and we expect the use to substantially increase in the space when it is all completed."
“We've had this public discussion on it now, so maybe we'll get a little more public feedback, one way or the other, which should be helpful to hear from the community on this,” said White.
