A Kamloops City Councillor says the city will need to find out if there’s an appetite in the community for a new Performing Arts Centre after a failed referendum in 2015.

Dieter Dudy says the city will have to potentially borrow up to $45 million for the project, but he says it will not have an impact on taxes this time around.

“As opposed to the last time where we were looking at an increase of $39 per year on taxes, that wouldn’t be applicable today,” he said. “Simply because of the fact that there is retiring debt coming from the TCC being paid off. So in effect what you are doing is just trading debt for debt.”

Dudy says council will also take a closer look at the numbers for this PAC, if the public is in favour of the project.

“Once we know for a fact that they are going to be willing to have us borrow up to $45 million, then we can sit down and talk about the design,” he added. “So if 70 parking stalls is not going to cut it, which you know, many people don’t believe it would, then we have to take a look at and say ‘what are we going to do?'”

Speaking on the NL Morning News, Dudy says the project feels different this time around.

“There were a number of factors that came into play [four years ago]. I don’t believe that the stakeholders were as involved as they could have been. Sticker shock was there,” Dudy added.

“It just wasn’t sold very well. I think that we are taking the time to make sure it’s being done properly now. I also believe that people in general are beginning to recognize that there is a very definite need for this in the community.”

And for the need to fundraise between $22 million and $37 million, Dudy believes there are a number of people who have indicated they’d be willing to contribute financially.

Now according to Dieter Dudy, the earliest we could see a referendum on the new Performing Arts Centre would be March.

“November 5th, what we’ve asked staff to do is come back with sort of a plan as to whether or not we go to a reverse petition or whether we go to referendum, see which would make most sense. If we go to referendum, we have to give 120 days of notice,” he noted. “We wouldn’t be looking at actually going to the polls till sometime in March.”

If council were to go with the reverse petition, they would have to let people know of their intentions through advertisements. Residents would be able to petition against the city, which requires 10 per cent of taxpayers to say no. If that doesn’t happen, the project will be automatically approved.

“Reverse petition can happen almost immediately, whereby you would be looking to 10 per cent of the taxpayers to effectively voice their disapproval of the project,” said Dudy. “But I think it would make more sense to go to the whole community on a referendum.”

Dudy says council could make a decision on how they will proceed at that November 5 meeting.