Tara Kearsey
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Oct 06/00) - Yellowknifers had an opportunity to view the latest draft of the Waterfront Management Plan this week.

The city's planning and lands division unveiled three documents Tuesday which will be presented to council for review after the municipal election.

The plan includes a summary of public input collected during forums earlier this year, background information on sites identified for development and an implementation strategy and budget estimates.

Although it has not yet been finalized, the plan outlines a five-year development scheme. prioritizing projects and estimating costs.

The city predicts the developments envisioned in the plan would would cost approximately $170,000 over five years, however, the costs of some projects have not yet been identified.

Areas cited for waterfront development include Negus Point, Tin Can Hill, the Woodyard, School Draw Avenue, Old Town, Jolliffe Island, N'dilo, Back Bay, Franklin Avenue, Niven Lake, Giant Mine, and the Yellowknife River.

Brian Weir said he went to view the latest draft of the Waterfront Plan out of curiosity.

"Nothing was any different than discussed in any of the town meetings," said Weir, who plans on moving to the Okanagan Valley sometime in the next few weeks.

Nancy Magrum said from what she saw of the plan on Tuesday, "it looks like it's scaled down quite a bit.

"I guess that's because there's not a lot of access to the waterfront in a lot of places, so that's actually disappointing because it looks like it's using a lot of the existing road system."

"This waterfront study has been talked about over the last 15 years so the question is, are we ever going to see anything happen ... I would like to see something happen," said Magrum, who first came to Yellowknife 25 years ago.

However, she added the plans are more concrete than they have been in the past.

"Hopefully it will go ahead. We'll just have to wait and see."