Woodstock Developments and News

[Djeffery]

Originally Posted by Djeffery

Groundbreaking for the new elementary school in north Woodstock. I have a co-worker who lives in this neighbourhood and their kids get buses to Tavistock, over 20km away. Sad note for the kids will be fewer snow days when buses get cancelled lol.

https://www.heartfm.ca/news/local-news/ground-breaks-for-new-woodstock-school/

Not wasting any time with this project, as a good piece of the foundation is already in.

[jammer139]

Woodstock and Norwich Township talk boundary changes.

https://lfpress.com/news/local-news/sout...wants-more-land-nearby-town-pushing-back

[jammer139]

Progress made in negotiations on Woodstock and Norwich Township land deal.

https://lfpress.com/news/local-news/loca...bour-but-not-nearly-as-much-as-it-wanted

[Djeffery]

Looks like work has stopped on the VW dealership at Dundas and County Rd 4. Haven't seen any progress here for several weeks.

[jammer139]

Looks like Woodstock council approves zoning for a 8s residential building on empty lot.

https://lfpress.com/news/local-news/woodstock-council-backs-downtown-lot-renewal

[Djeffery]

Originally Posted by Djeffery

Looks like work has stopped on the VW dealership at Dundas and County Rd 4. Haven't seen any progress here for several weeks.

And just like that, they are back working. Must have seen my post lol.

[Djeffery]

Attended a public open house last night about the upcoming major rebuild of Devonshire Ave. It will be a several year process as they go in phases from Vansittart Ave (highway 59) and move east. The first phase next year will first see 59 rebuilt south of the Thames bridge that is currently being refurbished, with a new right turn lane onto Devonshire added on the NB side and a longer left turn lane on the SB side and new sidewalks. Once that part is done in early spring, Devonshire will close to just east of Wellington. All new sewers and gas lines being run, and the road will have a lane in each direction with a dedicated centre turning lane, as well as bike lanes on both sides and new sidewalks. That is planned to take until the end of the year.

2026 will see Wellington to Huron done, and the following years will see phases that move to just east of Lansdowne. The county staff on site didn't know exactly where the project would end as that is a few years down the road or how many years this will ultimately take, as that's up to county council to decide. Given the distances in these first 2 phases, I would guess at 5 years to Lansdowne, assuming it goes that far. Devonshire east of Springbank looks in great condition to me, already has bike lanes, a continuous centre turning lane and sidewalks and the area is much newer than the areas mentioned above so maybe the sewers are fine in that stretch. Probably would still take 4 years to get to Springbank though.

[Djeffery]

Updated application from Farhi for the Lakeview development I posted about in the first post. Down to 254 from 270 units and the 2 apartments are still 7s each but down to 80 units each from 98, and both oriented in line with highway 59 rather than an L at the corner. Also re-oriented the 48 stacked townhomes into facing the street rather than some being interior of the property and added 2 more sets of units at the southeast corner of the property fronting on to Lakeview, which will not please the locals. The 26 semis on the outer side of the new street appear to be unchanged.

[Djeffery]

Progress on the new northend school, less than 6 months since groundbreaking.

[jammer139]

Woodstock surveys residents on possible $100M recreation centre.

https://lfpress.com/news/local-news/woodstock-surveys-residents-on-possible-100m-recreation-centre

[Djeffery]

I'll have to dig into that a little more to see where. I can't think of anywhere along Springbank that has enough open space for this. If they are taking the civic centre arena out of service, they should build there, as they have a ton of land with a raceway that doesn't get used anymore right beside it. And a casino adjacent for the hockey parents to kill time between games lol.

[Djeffery]

The walls are now going up on the new Denny's adjacent to the still under construction TownePlace Suites on Dundas east. Strangely, the hotel doesn't seem to have any work going on, and you can see in all the windows that the rooms are still just steel framing, no drywall.

Construction also slowly proceeding on the VW dealership.

In the nearby industrial park, a few more buildings are either nearing completion or well underway on Woodall Ave. A large building (a couple hundred thousand sq ft) that was completed about a year ago now has a leased sign on it while another across the road has most the steel framing up. No idea on who is going in these yet.

On the infrastructure front, the highway 59 bridge leading out of the north side of town is still one lane as the rehabilitation proceeds. The bridge deck was poured a few weeks ago, and they just poured the sidewalk and railing base this past week, so hopefully it won't be too much longer. This is now into month 11 of the 10 month project, and as I live right nearby, I am anxious to see this finished. However, the Devonshire Ave rehab also starts shortly into the new year and the first phase will mean highway 59 will be closed from the bridge to just south of Devonshire for a couple months as the intersection is rebuilt. After that is done, they will close Devonshire to just east of Wellington for the rest of the year as new sewers and a slight widening take place.

[jammer139]

Woodstock politicians ok more industrial expansion on the east side.

https://lfpress.com/news/local-news/loca...dustrial-expansion-plan-long-time-coming

[CanadianTalk]

This proposed development was unanimously rejected by Woodstock City Council because it was "'too dense" (their words)

https://lfpress.com/news/local-news/prop...oodstock-city-council-too-dense?tbref=hp

Originally Posted by Djeffery

Updated application from Farhi for the Lakeview development I posted about in the first post. Down to 254 from 270 units and the 2 apartments are still 7s each but down to 80 units each from 98, and both oriented in line with highway 59 rather than an L at the corner. Also re-oriented the 48 stacked townhomes into facing the street rather than some being interior of the property and added 2 more sets of units at the southeast corner of the property fronting on to Lakeview, which will not please the locals. The 26 semis on the outer side of the new street appear to be unchanged.

[jammer139]

LFP additional article on the NIMBY attitude on the proposal.

https://lfpress.com/news/local-news/nimb...s-rejection-of-258-home-proposal-builder

[Djeffery]

Denny's on Dundas east is all framed up after being on hold for a while. The rooms in the adjacent hotel appear to be all drywalled now.

Construction on the Thames River bridge on highway 59 is way behind schedule. 13 months closed now, after originally scheduled as a 10 month project. The county posted in early January that it would be done by the end of February, due to weather delays. They just posted again this week that it will be late April, due to weather delays and that some of the work is temperature dependent, which makes one wonder why they expected to do this temperature dependent work through January and February lol. The road will only be open for a short time as the work on upgrading Devonshire Ave will also begin this spring, and this work will start in the intersection just south of this bridge. The current detour will be brought back for the couple months this new work will take place.

[ohhimark]

Originally Posted by jammer139

LFP additional article on the NIMBY attitude on the proposal.

https://lfpress.com/news/local-news/nimb...s-rejection-of-258-home-proposal-builder

Wow. Were any of the houses nearby even there 20 years ago? They want to preserve trees on someone else's property, but didn't keep any when their own subdivision was built. Two 5 story buildings across the street behind Tim's, wonder if those were opposed?

[Djeffery]

Originally Posted by ohhimark

Wow. Were any of the houses nearby even there 20 years ago? They want to preserve trees on someone else's property, but didn't keep any when their own subdivision was built. Two 5 story buildings across the street behind Tim's, wonder if those were opposed?

Strangely, I haven't seen any advertisements for neighbhourhood meetings about this since the one last year when I pointed out to the people in attendance to look up from their phones as they walked back to their cars and notice those buildings right across the road. I guess they decided not to include any of us from the west side of 59 in their future opposition anymore lol. I also pointed out exactly what you said, that I remember when I used to go driving down county road 17 and it was fields and farmhouses before their nice houses were all built. I wonder what their reaction would be if someone bought the property immediately north of them and started to use the airport runway that is still there again lol. I'm not sure how much opposition there would have been to that building behind Timmy's as there really weren't a lot of houses around it yet (nor was there the Timmy's plaza for people to use that traffic as an excuse). Fairway Rd had some houses on it, as did Garden Court, but Downing Cr wasn't even started yet when the building went in, and that would have been the street to complain if they were built in opposite order.

[ohhimark]

Originally Posted by Djeffery

Strangely, I haven't seen any advertisements for neighbhourhood meetings about this since the one last year when I pointed out to the people in attendance to look up from their phones as they walked back to their cars and notice those buildings right across the road. I guess they decided not to include any of us from the west side of 59 in their future opposition anymore lol. I also pointed out exactly what you said, that I remember when I used to go driving down county road 17 and it was fields and farmhouses before their nice houses were all built. I wonder what their reaction would be if someone bought the property immediately north of them and started to use the airport runway that is still there again lol. I'm not sure how much opposition there would have been to that building behind Timmy's as there really weren't a lot of houses around it yet (nor was there the Timmy's plaza for people to use that traffic as an excuse). Fairway Rd had some houses on it, as did Garden Court, but Downing Cr wasn't even started yet when the building went in, and that would have been the street to complain if they were built in opposite order.

It's just ridiculous. They'd complain if there were active farms around them, too smelly, I'm sure they'd love an active runway! Timmy's probably has more traffic than this development would.

[Djeffery]

Photo today of the Towneplace Suites and Denny's construction progress. You can still see as you drive by that the main floor is studded but no drywall. Upper floors appear drywalled but no idea how completed