Councillor questions hotel parking
Published on April 12, 2011
Nigel Armstrong
Nice hotel, but where are the guests going to park and where are the residents going to live, asks Charlottetown Coun. Edward Rice.
He took on two big developments with some colourful language Monday during and after the April monthly council meeting.
Rice was the lone vote against a request for an outdoor patio at the Homburg Hotel now under construction on Grafton Street. There was no debate as the motion passed.
After the meeting, Rice was in full sail. Where will the guests park, he wondered.
Where will the buses go that spent last year idling at a bus stop across the street beside the Confederation Centre?
"It's pretty hard to sit outside and have a beer and have a diesel bus burning fuel right beside you," said Rice. "It's not very enticing.
"I wasn't voting for anything else on the Homburg site as far as a summer cafe in that area until we get a solution for the whole block. We see the building going up. We see now they want a cafe, so obviously they are getting close to opening. I'm just concerned about the plain, ordinary thing. Where are the cars going to park?"
Rice also wonders where residents are going to live in light of more expansion to the Inns of Great George. City council also passed a request to convert a single-family dwelling into a duplex on Sydney Street.
"This is an expansion of the hotel, it's not a standard duplex," Rice said in the council meeting. "We may live to rue the day when we allowed it for this and not allow it for someone else.
"We are slowly seeing the east end of Charlottetown devolving into a(gigantic) hotel operation that is creeping like the claws of an octopus going up the street. It's all over the place. I commend the work that is done, they turned out beautiful buildings but we are either going to be residential or we are not going to be residential."
He said many times that he does not object to the work the Murphy group has done in the Great George Inns concept, but commercial or institutional development in residential areas has to stop somewhere, he said.
"My concern is, is there going to be anything left of ward one from a residential point of view?" said Rice.
"People want neighbours and tourists don't count. Your kids can't go out and play with a suitcase. The residential component has to be honoured, respected and recognized and if not, tell them and say 'no, we are going to keep on progressing and allowing development', which is perfectly alright, but let me know."
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