[Moncton] Downtown Developments

[MonctonRad]

from News 91.9

Complex for single, young mothers to be built in Moncton
News Staff Dec 17, 2013 07:53:01 AM

MONCTON, NB–It was a win for the YWCA last night at Moncton City Council.

After much debate, and just one nay vote from Councillor Daniel Bourgeois, the city has agreed to sell a piece of land, so the organization can build a complex that will house young mothers and young mothers to be.

The piece of land is located behind NBCC on Mountain Road, in the area of Fraser Avenue, Coventry Crescent and Bancroft Streets.

Associate Director for the YWCA Beth Lyons says we can’t ignore this, and we need these services.

“We want them in a community and any community we go to is not going to be thrilled with it, but at a certain point, we suck it up. We need to provide these services, we need to be accountable to our current residents and we work the best we can with the community to make it beautiful, to make it work with them. We want this community because it is going to be absolutely inspiring to those women.”

The YWCA is buying the land from the city for one dollar and they plan to build a 27 unit apartment complex for single, young women with children to improve their lives and will include daycare and adult learning programs.

Personal note - Not really downtown I know, but since for the purposes of this forum we consider everything inside Wheeler Blvd to be downtown, this is where this post goes…….

This generated a lot of discussion at council last night. The main objections centred around the fact that this land had been designated as parkland way back in the 1950's and some local residents were upset over it's loss (although I do think there were overtones of NIMBYism here). In any event, there will be a buffer of trees around this property and not all of the former parkland is being rezoned. I think this is a worthwhile project, and the location next to NBCC and not far from Plaza Blvd and Trinity Drive makes sense…….