Guy Quenneville
Northern News Services
Wednesday, April 25, 2007

YELLOWKNIFE - Every time architect Wayne Guy exits his office on MacDonald Drive, it's a reminder of what he sees as a wasted opportunity.

Guy's studio is directly across the street from the former site of a Department of Fisheries and Oceans storage garage that burned down two years ago.

Construction has begun on a new storage garage now that the city has granted the DFO a building permit.

The news of the garage greatly disappoints Guy, who has been fighting to make the site a public extension of the waterfront since the first DFO garage went up in flames.

"I'm opposed to it for the reason that it's the last bit of public access to waterfront," said Guy. "If you look at the waterfronts of most major centres - whether it's Montreal or Halifax - they've reverted the old industrial spaces to more sort of park-oriented, public-intensive spaces to heighten and increase the amenities of the municipality. We're going in the opposite direction."

Guy's principal complaint about the site is that it is underused.

Ron Allen, former area director of the Western Arctic for DFO, said that the site is well-chosen and is much-needed. The site will continue to store snowmobiles, boating equipment and supplies, but it is also used as a base for the Coast Guard - and with good reason, according to Allen.

"After our fire and into the following open water season, there was an aircraft that had a bit of crash in front of the dock," he said. "It was a fairly timely response there because that's where we're located and that's where we launched from.

"We've been there for well over 30 years. In terms of location, it's where we should be, which is why we picked that place 30 years ago."

Allen said steps have been taken by DFO to make sure the site is not susceptible to the kind of fire that engulfed it two years ago.

"We looked at our heat source for the building, in the light of the fire, and we made some changes," Allen said.

"The old one was propane heated. We had the Public Works folks make sure that everything was going to be up to spec on our new site and try to take any new precautions we could think of to make sure we didn't have that kind of risk, or potential for risk, anymore."

After the original garage was destroyed by the fire, Guy and a group of like-minded Yellowknifers held talks with federal officials on the possibility of turning the site into a public space. Efforts to involve city council in the process failed and ultimately weakened the movement, said Guy.

Councillor David McCann sat on council at the time.

"The council was not swayed," said McCann. "I do know that Mr. Guy is one of the people that lives very closely to the site. I think there was some concern that it may be seen as being a little bit of an improvement for the area at public expense."

McCann himself would love to see more public space in the city.

"Obviously, who wouldn't want a park? I mean, I would love to have a park right beside my place," said McCann. "But, typically as an administration, we're struggling with trying to balance our needs and our wants with the resources that we have."