ImagineKelowna website creates false image of future downtown

They say that marketing is more about the packaging than it is about the product, and that is certainly the case with marketing expert Tony Payton’s glitzy ImagineKelowna website which is designed to promote the proposed downtown Comprehensive Development Zone. And as with many marketing efforts, this one also is somewhat misleading as to what you will actually get once you open the box.

 

Billing the CD Zone as “the changing face of downtown Kelowna ,” this website attempts to give the impression that the plan will make the downtown a more youthful place with countless images of young adults and children on its home page. But will this project actually deliver on that promise? Not likely.

 

As only about five percent of its units will be designated as affordable housing and the remainder likely to be luxury condos, who will actually be living there? Well, it certainly won’t be the average working family as they won’t be able to afford the hefty price tag of these units. And there may be very few families with children there at all, as how many people would want to raise their children in a highrise? I wouldn’t.

 

No, these units will likely be occupied by childless professionals, empty nesters, retirees, and seasonal residents. So where will all the young people and children come from? They won’t. They are just part of the glossy image that Peyton is trying to create of the CD Zone, but they will be mostly absent from the reality of it.

 

A similar thing happened to Portland, Oregon in its attempts at revitalization by building lots of highrises there, which have earned Portland the dubious distinction of being a “childless city”. In a 2005 article in the New York Times, Timothy Egan described how dense vertical housing and fashionable shops were driving young families out of the downtown by making it too expensive for young families to live there. A similar thing also happened in San Francisco.

 

Does Kelowna have the sense to avoid making the same mistake that these two cities made in their revitalization efforts? Perhaps. But only if we come to grips with the real facts instead of being deceived by the image-making marketers.

A further response to Duane Tresnich

I would like to thank the Daily Courier for giving me this opportunity to respond to a letter written by Duane Tresnich and published therein on June 24th where he accuses Citizens for a Livable Downtown of “passing on wrong and false information” and of “misrepresenting the facts” in its petition drive to get a referendum on the downtown Comprehensive Development Zone.

 

In his letter Tresnich accuses a community nurse, who was collecting signatures and who has since identified herself as Maggie Getz, and our group of wrongdoing in regards to several matters in particular of “using one sheet to gather signatures so the person signing would not know exactly what they were signing” and of conducting a petition “for two different causes.” First, let me say that Mrs. Getz is an honourable woman and one of the finest people I know and that she has a different account of events.  Specifically, in regards to Tresnich’s accusation that people were signing a petition for something other than what they were being told, let me point out that the petition clearly states at the top of every page and fully visible to all that “the undersigned petition Kelowna City Council to consult the electors of Kelowna through a public referendum on whether or not to enact the proposed Comprehensive Development Zone in the downtown.” This is exactly what people are told the purpose of the petition is prior to being asked for their signature. But then, how would Tresnich know as he never bothered to read the petition himself? For Tresnich to accuse our group of misrepresenting the purpose of the petition without ever having read it goes beyond the bounds of ethical behaviour.

 

It is obvious that Tresnich is engaging in a smear campaign and attempting to discredit our group and, in particular, myself by inferring in another part of his letter that I am a liar. It saddens me to think that Tresnich’s enthusiasm for promoting the downtown Comprehensive Development Zone has caused him to abandon decency and to stoop to telling falsehoods. I hope that from hereon in he and his Move Kelowna Forward group will concentrate on promoting their cause in a positive way and end the gutter politics that they have been engaging in.

 

Note: In an indirect but clear reference to Tresnich’s letter, Daily Courier Managing Editor Tom Wilson’s editorial in The Okanagan, Saturday, June 28 (“Legal minefield of words”) states:

 

“The letters to the editor page is probably the most dangerous part of the newspaper. … We try to allow letter writers to say what they want in their own words — and most letter writers are capable of governing themselves accordingly — but some people go over the top.  Not to be confused with free expression, defamation gets unnecessarily personal. It goes too far in an attempt to discredit someone’s opinion or actions.”

Response to the letter by Duane Tresnich

Duane Tresnich

I would like to thank the Capital News for publishing my letter responding to Brian Dycke in its Sunday, June 22, 2008 edition and placing it after a letter written by Duane Treshnich. By placing my letter where it did, the Capital News gave me an opportunity to respond to both letters especially where I say “it behooves me to point out how individuals like Dycke are so weak in their logic and their knowledge of the facts that they have to resort to extreme exaggeration and telling outright falsehoods to bolster their otherwise shabby arguments,” as that statement applies to Tresnich as well. I will not dwell on Tresnich as this insignificant character is not worth the time or the amount of cyberspace that I could devote to him except to say the following. I appreciate that there are people on both sides of this argument who are passionate about their cause. However, I do not appreciate when their passion causes them to stray from promoting their cause in a positive way but rather turns into defamation. Treshnich has chosen to take the low road as his favoured approach having repeatedly tried to impugne my character. Fortunately, in our society, there are legal remedies for defamation which I will be exploring.