St. John's council rejects land proposals for southwest depot, fire station to service Galway

The City of St. John's has rejected a staff recommendation for a proposal to buy land toservice theGalway development and other areas in the southwest region of the city.

In January, council issued a request for proposals (RFPs) for land for a new fire hall and depot.

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However, Mayor Dennis O'Keefe says the city rejected all five proposals including one recommended by city staff and will instead continue to figure out what exactly will be needed in the area.

O'Keefe saysthe recommended proposal was from DewCor, owned and operated by Danny Williams, who is also developing the Galway and Glencrest areas.

According to O'Keefe, there are some outstanding questions about exactly what the city is looking for in the parcel of land.

"We had some issues we had to deal with when it came to the location, response times of the fire department, the location of the fire department, the whole concept of snow storage, how much acreage we needed for snow storage," he said.

"So there are a whole lot of things that we felt we needed to further explore and the best way to do that was to simply reject the recommendation of staff and continue on with our research and see where we'll go over the next few years."

So there are a whole lot of things that we felt we needed to further explore and the best way to do that was to simply reject the recommendation of staff and continue on with our research and see where we'll go over the next few years.- St. John's Mayor Dennis O'Keefe

O'Keefe saysdetails of the fivebids could not be disclosed because they are part of the privileged negotiation process.

But in December, O'Keefe said the city was looking at purchasing 20 acresor eight hectares of land from the developer.

At the time,two-acre parcels of land in the Glencrest area of Galwaywereon sale for almost $1 million.

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"We do know that we need a depot in the west end, we do know that we are going to need a fire station, we do know that we're going to need some snow storage facilities," said O'Keefe.

"The whole idea was the get more information and however long that takes, it takes, but again what we do in the final analysis we want to make sure that we're getting the best bang for our buck."

The land for a depot and fire hall must meet a number of requirements the landmust be serviced, be close to a highway and allow quick access for emergency vehicles, for example.