The steep hillside with the beautiful view of Lake Windermere and the Rockies, adjacent to the Castlerock subdivision in southern Invermere, is destined to become a park.

“After 14 years of working on this project – we’re finally there to submit an application to the province,” reported district chief administrative officer Chris Prosser to council Oct. 11.

After a brief ‘go-around’ council unanimously agreed to a district application for the “nominal rent tenure for park purposes” on the “remaining” portions of District Lot 4616.

“It has been a long time,” remarked Coun. Ray Brydon, pointing out that Lot 4616 “is the only large parcel of land in the district that is Crown land.”

Coun. Al Miller said he sees the property “as a good park now. It will make a good park in the future.”

And Mayor Gerry Taft , who has represented the district in discussions on the property since the inception of the issue, provided an overview on discussions over the past few years.

“It was very, very close to the property being sold to private interests” but the district, under then Mayor Mark Shmigelsky, “slowed or closed” that process, and then entered into a land use discussion with the Ktunaxa Nation Council and Shuswap Indian Band.

“That proved to be a very interesting process where both First Nations expressed economic interests in the land” and the district wanted to preserve it for park land, Taft told council.

However, while those discussions continued, the economic slowdown hit, Taft said, noting that it impacted values on the land.

He also pointed out that while the surging economy made it impossible for the district to convince the provincial government to gift the land for a park back a few years, the current flagging economy “has now allowed us to turn it into a park.”

The district must now await the response to its application to the provincial government for ‘nominal rent tenure for park purposes’ for Lot 4616.

The bulk of the scenic property (which is just below the above scene where a full moon rises above the Purcells on a cold January morning)  is along the Purcell bench over-looking Lake Windermere at the south end of the town (along Westside Road). However, a small portion is located on the lake-side of the road.

The property also remains of  high archaeological importance to the First Nations of the region, Taft said, noting that there are three sites on the property, as yet disclosed to the public, that contain scientific interest.

Ian Cobb/e-KNOW

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