You could say the arts community is anything but impatient.
For years, local artists have been waiting for the city to lend a helping hand to build a new art gallery somewhere in the municipality.
It appears the wait to find out if that help is on its way will stretch into 2017.
The Burnaby Arts Council has been waiting since February on a report from the city in response to its request for a feasibility and desirability study for a new gallery.
City officials have given no specific timeline when the report would be complete but confirmed it would not be in the next three months.
In that case, it could be almost a year or more before the arts council gets a reply from the city.
Dave Handelman, a member of the arts council, said it seems like a long time to get a response to the request. After the effort made by the arts council, he’d like to see the issue move along.
He said there is still a lot of interest in the community in the idea of an art gallery, adding the arts council has taken the appropriate steps by reaching out to city council.
“A study that’s approved but never takes place is not a study,” Handelman told the NOW.
In February, the group made a formal pitch to city council but received a lukewarm response.
Instead of getting full support, the artists got a recommendation that staff look at some of the issues brought up by the arts council and report on whether the city should embark on a full study.
Coun. Nick Volkow, who chairs the parks, recreation and cultural commission, said he didn’t want to make excuses for staff but suggested the planning department is tied up dealing with the issues of housing in the city.
“I haven’t been pushing the issue, legitimately there are other items in the planning department that are taking greater precedence,” he said.
While Volkow said he didn’t want to speak on behalf of council, when asked if he supported the idea of a new art gallery, he noted the growth of the city and the amenities available in the community.
“Somewhere in there an art gallery would fit in,” he said.
While the issue of a new gallery has been around for decades, it was reignited by the arts council in the fall of 2015.
A public forum in early November drew a full house.
The arts council has made a number of arguments for a new art gallery, among them the fact that the current gallery, located in Ceperley House at Deer Lake, is too small to hold the city’s vast art collection of more than 5,000 pieces.
