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Construction delayed on Lantzville mountain bike park

Skills park had been scheduled to be completed last year
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Lantzville District Hall shown above. (NEWS BULLETIN/FILE)

Construction still hasn’t begun on a mountain bike skills park that should have been opened last year in Lantzville.

During a parks and recreation commission meeting on Thursday , Frank Limshue, the District of Lantzville community planner, said construction on the mountain bike park in Rotary Park has been pushed back another month.

“We’re now looking at October,” Limshue said.

Lantzville councillors had approved construction of a 2,000-square-metre mountain bike park in June 2016 for a cost of $32,000. The bike park, once completed, will feature a bike circuit designed for all ages, a pump track, log rails and jump lines.

Hoots Inc., a North Vancouver-based company specializing in the construction of mountain bike parks, was hired by the district to design and build the park.

At the time, councillors believed the park would be completed by the fall of that year, but Hoots has delayed construction.

“We’ve been talking about this since last year. It’s very frustrating,” said Coun. Dot Neary.

She said Hoots has told the district the building conditions have either been too dry or to wet to build the park whenever they’re planned to come over and begin construction.

“When they’ve said they’re coming here, the conditions haven’t been ideal,” she said. “So they’ve gone somewhere else and then when window of opportunity for us opens up they’re not available to come over here.

Lantzville is at the mercy of Hoots, according to Neary, who said the district can’t just find another company to build the park.

“Unfortunately the contract is quite clear. We can’t just pay for the design and get somebody else to do it because of the intellectual property,” she said. “So there are legal barriers to it.”

Neary said she also thinks Hoots’ other projects have been taking precedence over Lantzville, adding that they have contracts all over Canada are very busy.

“I don’t think they’re unwilling to do it,” she said. “We’re not really high on the priority list for them and scheduling is difficult because we’re on the Island.”

Phone calls to Hoots Inc., were not returned to the News Bulletin.

nicholas.pescod@nanaimobulletin.com