Prince George Bylaw services says the new Safe Streets Bylaw will help address some of the increasing amounts of complaints being made about the behavior of some residents downtown.
After months of deliberation, the bylaw that prohibits soliciting and loitering downtown was passed on Monday.
Since then, many community members and organizations, including Carrier Sekani Family Services, have spoken out about Council’s decision.
Charlotte Peters, Manager of Bylaw Services for the City of PG says this bylaw will help set a behavior standard for Prince George residents.
“We wanted to get the Safe Streets bylaw in place so we could almost set a bar as to what the expectation of behavior is around all of Prince George, not just downtown. So we wanted to lay out a few things that are often complained about and now they’re going to be seen as unacceptable,” she explained.
Peters adds that while this isn’t necessarily a complete fix to the increasing amounts of nuisance behaviour being reported downtown, the main goal of the bylaw is to educate residents on what is appropriate and acceptable in the downtown area.
“Already we’ve already moved people around downtown when they’ve been lying on the sidewalk and we’ll continue to do that but we just have a few more things now that we’ll be dealing with,” she stated.
Recently the City filed an application in the BC Supreme Court seeking an order for the safe and orderly transition of the occupants at the encampments on George Street and Lower Patricia Boulevard (also known as Moccasin Flats).
Peters says the injunction and the bylaw are completely separate processes, but the injunction will be more beneficial to those living near Moccasin Flats that have been reporting increasing amounts of criminal activity since the encampment was established.
“These are two completely separate processes,” she explained, “the Safe Streets Bylaw applies to the entire City of Prince George, it’s not directed to just specifically downtown or just specifically a marginalized population, it’s for everyone.”
Meanwhile, the court injunction is just a way for the city to remove the encampments off city property.
Peters says Bylaw services are working very closely with BC Housing and the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing so the city can provide those living in either of the homeless encampments downtown a safer place to live.
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