Wheatley residents forging path to recovery, despite uncertainty

WHEATLEY – Though big questions are still to be answered, a group of dedicated citizens is working to map the future for revitalizing this lakeside community downtown after an August 2021 gas blast.

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Demolition is to begin next week on nine downtown buildings, but questions remain about how redevelopment can proceed in the blast zone.

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Two buildings were destroyed and several others are damaged in the blast, linked to highly toxic hydrogen sulphide gas seeing up through the ground, on Aug. 26, 2021.

“We have no playbook that we’re going from, none that we could find anywhere, for how we are doing this,” said Harold Gabert, chair of the Wheatley Task Force, during a community consultation Saturday to discuss revitalization plans.

Those involved are “feeling it out and doing the best we can to forge a path to bring the recovery back in,” he said.

Unanswered questions about how to proceed on the site of blast-damaged properties is a big challenge, Gabert said.

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“We’re almost three years past explosion and we still don’t have certainty to what the current state of that is,” he said. “Until we have that certainty, it’s difficult to plan around that, whether are not we can rebuild or if that’s going to have to remain as green space.”

Provincially funded economic developer Kyra Knapp has been hired on a two-year contract to work with that task force on a Wheatley revitalization plan.

After the buildings are demolished, some “exploratory work” will take place on the site over the next few months, she said. “Based on what we find it will help determine what our next steps are.”

Gabert said he’s challenged the group not to let the uncertainty hold them up.

The goal is to continue planning for the future knowing they are will need contingencies based on the potential outcome of the property site investigations.

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The community consultations are meant to set the foundation for development moving forward, Knapp said.

“It was really important to me that all of these conservations. . . all the redevelopment is community-initiated, community-led, based on: ‘What does Wheatley see as their path to revitalization?’ ” she said.

Robust consultations are starting so she knows “what are the values, what are the needs that are going to help propel us forward,” Knapp said.

A consistent message from residents is there is no desire to move the downtown, but rather preserve what is there, Gabert said. And residents want to retain a vibrant downtown with central services available and as a community gathering place.

There is also a desire to improve the downtown area with better accessibility to businesses and public areas to draw people in and make the community an attractive place to live and to do business, Gabert said.

The initiative is also about bringing areas around the downtown into the picture, Knapp said. “We’re really looking at how do we tie everything together as an ecosystem? How do we look at the community as a whole?

There are spaces identified as “adjacent” to downtown being proposed, Gabert said. And there’s a property on Talbot Road West being looked at for a possible development.

He also believes there are development opportunities for infill development in some parts of the core.

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