2024 (Aug) – Community learns of District’s plans to sell Mount Newton Road municipal property

To promote its plan of building a new municipal complex on secretly expropriate Hovey Road property, the District sponsored 3 public viewing events. At each viewing there was significant public opposition to the plan. Concerns included costs, road safety, traffic congestion and emergency vehicle proximity to the highly utilized Centennial Park play fields and a children’s daycare next door.

Shocking many who attended the presentations however, was the announcement that, in conjunction with plans to construct a new municipal complex on Hovey Road, the property at the site of the present municipal hall on Mount Newton Road would be sold to developers.

As one person who attended the first of the presentations commented, ‘It defies all logic that an easily resolved asbestos mitigation and seismic upgrade issue has turned into a secret expropriation that has cost millions of dollars and the potential sale of a District cornerstone property.” At each of the presentations, it was significant that the majority of councilors decided not to attend to face questions of many unhappy Central Saanich residents.