At the regular council meeting on June 13, 2022, Kimberley Council released information from an in camera session regarding the operation of Cominco Gardens.
The gardens were the last remaining large asset of the Kimberley Community Development Society (KCDS) which wound down last year. Operation of the gardens was moved under the auspices of the city’s department of Parks and Facilities.
An RFP was put out, and Council announced that a one year contract for landscape maintenance was awarded to Kimberley Bobcats and Snow Removal, for the amount of $39,250. Council also authorized the expenditure of just under $35,000 for replacement or repair of infrastructure, painting and building improvements, tree removal etc. by Kimberley Bobcats and Snow Removal.
Asked after the meeting about Cominco Gardens, Mayor Don McCormick said the gardens would be operated with a combination of the contractor and a city horticulturalist/arborist this year.
“We’re going to manage our way through this year and come up with a long term plan,” he said.
The focus would be, he said, on how to make the planted area of the gardens better and to utilize the balance of the property.
“The planted area is what people are most invested in, but there is quite a lot of land up there,” he said.
One thing he assures Kimberley residents is that the Gardens are not going to be sold.
“There are no plans at all to sell Cominco Gardens,” McCormick said. “We hope through the course of this year to get a strategy or plan in place to maximize the benefit of the gardens.”
As for the unplanted Garden’s land, McCormick said there was potential there to perhaps allow the Pines and/or Garden View Village to encroach to provide more seniors’ housing, which is desperately needed.
“Both those facilities are operating a full capacity and have waiting lists,” he said. “They could be expanded with some of the land, not the planted area.”