Coun. Erwin Wiens says hee wants to make sure Willowbank’s sale of the former Laura Secord school does not jeopardize the property, which he calls “the heart of Queenston.”

“My concern is that they are going to sell that to a developer and it’s going to be houses,” Wiens said during a committee of the whole meeting on Monday, Feb. 7.

“Once it’s sold we know what’s going to happen. I can predict five years down the road or seven years or whatever, we know what is going to happen.”

Wiens said the original sale of the school was facilitated by the town to the Willowbank School of Restoration Arts to preserve the historic building.

“We should have a conversation with Willowbank to see if we can get that property back or something about the future before it gets sold,” he said.

“They’re the school of preservation and they gotta preserve. I’m hoping they’re going to be amicable to working with us.”

Wiens said the sooner the town gets involved in the sale the better.

“We’re going to be in a lengthy process if we don’t step in now,” he said.

“It’s an incredible piece of property that’s so important.”

Lord Mayor Betty Disero said she had spoken officials from the school and with director of operations Sheldon Randall about the property.

“I’m not sure if we can afford that but I think the negotiation or discussion with them will be the next best thing,” Disero said.

Dock area master plan

Council has chosen to defer an update to the dock area master plan and spend the extra money on getting work done in the area.

“I think we’re getting masterplanned to death,” Lord Mayor Betty Disero said.

She said the original dock area master plan was finished in 2015 and that spending money to update it now when there was actual work to be done in the area seemed unnecessary.

“The limited money that we have left we should be putting into doing some of that drainage work and completing at least some of the ideas within the old master plan,” she said.

Treasurer Kyle Freeborn said there has been roughly $20,000 earmarked to update the master plan.

“I just think we need to put the shovel in the ground and stop the updating,” Disero said.

The transfer of funds is focused around getting drainage work completed in the area.

Chief administrator Marnie Cluckie said the town is already pursuing grants for the drainage work and will be able to replenish the coffers if the grants come through.

“Certainly, between (the new funds) and what we have in the project budget already, we can complete that work,” Cluckie said.

A $75,000 dock area feasibility study is nearing completion and Randall said a report will be ready soon.

“The feasibility study was to deal with the potential of ongoing high water and flooding in the dock area,” Randall said.

Parliament Oak discussion

Town staff are working on a “charrette” between the town and Parliament Oak property developer Liberty Sites (3) Ltd.

A charrette is a meeting between stakeholders in a project to map out solutions and deal with issues.

Acting community services and development supervisor Rick Wilson said the meeting is still a ways from taking place.

“There are a number of issues that need to be sorted out before we can try and schedule some sort of charrette,” Wilson said.

He noted no terms had been agreed upon for what the discussions would cover and said much more work needed to be done to figure out how to bring public input into the equation and ensure that something meaningful comes out of the meeting.

“There’s a lot of correspondence that we’ve received thus far. In trying to distill that down to what elements a design charrette can assist with I believe is sort of a joint venture with the heritage committee and the urban design committee.”