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Residents concerned about Union Street development
By JOSIE LIVINGSTONE
For The Daily Gleaner
Published Saturday June 23rd, 2007
Appeared on page A8

Some northside residents are worried a plan to develop Union Street will lead to more traffic on the busy thoroughfare.

The Union Street secondary plan steering committee unveiled the plan in a public meeting at the Ducks Unlimited Canada building.

More than 40 residents attended the session, where maps of the plan were handed out.

At the back of the map was a space for comments, which they could forward to the city's development services department.

The map shows a suggestion of six transition areas covering the areas from the Westmorland Street Bridge to the Nashwaak River.

* Transition area 1 is bordered by St. Mary's Street, Union Street up to Crerar Court. It is currently a commercial area. The proposal is to make it a mixed development area to include a residential component.

* Transition area 2 covers Gibson Street. It is currently designated as a commercial area. The proposal is to reduce its commercial component, with the upper portion of Gibson Street changed to a residential designation.

* Transition area 3 is the area fronting all residential areas on Station Road. It is currently classified as low density area with single detached lots. The proposal is to designate it as a mixed residential development with apartments, low density single detached dwellings and townhouses.

* Transition area 4 is bordered by Union Street, Cliffe Street, Devonshire Drive and St. Mary's Street. It is currently a mixed-use and commercial area. The plan is to incorporate an additional residential component.

* Transition area 5 covers York Arena Street. It is currently a designated park and the proposal is to make it into a residential area.

* Transition area 6 is the area adjacent to Carleton Park and the former Craig's Electric building site. It is currently an open space and the proposal is to designate it as a park.

Jennifer Voss, city planner, said the plan is an update of the existing secondary plan, which was crafted in 1994.

"We hope to improve the aesthetics of the area by incorporating some landscape provisions into the plan, and change some of the land uses, maybe scaling back some of the commercial destinations to reflect more residential community, and to put the policies in place that will guide appropriate future development in the area," she said.

Some residents who attended the meeting said they were worried about the heavy traffic that could result from the changes while others liked the plan.

"I think that maybe this is the first step in a good start," said Lynn Coy, a Byng Street resident.

Union Street resident Bill Depow said he hopes the changes make a difference.

"Right at this time, it's very conceptual, and it's just the start of coming to preparing a final plan and they've been delayed tremendously here in getting this underway," he said.

"And I hope that the plan is going to be something that is going to improve the Union Street area and the Devon area."

Darlene Tompkins of Union Street said traffic is her biggest concern.

"Residential people are going to be moving off Union Street and what's going to happen to Union Street?" she said.

"We just don't want it to turn into what happened to Main Street."

St. Mary's Street resident Kevin Corbett said he's looking forward to seeing what happens.

"To people who don't have the choice to say what they want, at least somebody is making some suggestions to what could be," he said.

"With that I feel quite happy. There are certainly things I never thought of, I can't wait to see what comes out in the next round."

Union Street resident Sam Aird agreed.

"It's been good to see the plans. Some of it look good. The questions stemmed because I think the traffic is very high on Union Street, and there's a lot of development or possibly residential development happening. And I think the traffic needs to be addressed first," he said.

Alex Forbes, assistant director of the city's development services department, said the city will host three more public meetings on the plan with the next one in the fall.

He said the committee might be able to submit the plan to city council for review by December 2007.

"We'll continue to refine the plan until we think the majority of the people are in support of the plan," said Forbes.

"We're listening to them tonight and hopefully with some of those concerns that they have, we can come up with some solutions."