Bayers Road project shot down at meeting
By AMY PUGSLEY FRASER City Hall Reporter
Thu. Apr 24 - 5:06 AM
The city should never have sold off nearly a hectare of park land on Bayers Road to a private developer, a heated public meeting heard Wednesday.
Now the area is facing the possibility of a new 16-storey development in the foreground of a city recreation centre and that prospect had about 65 residents up in arms last night.
During a three-hour meeting at St. Andrew’s Centre, about 16 people took turns shooting down the development.
The building, with underground parking and access to an existing cemetery on city property next door, would share the block with two small, single-family homes.
The transition just doesn’t work, said Jacqueline de Mestral, especially when the neighbourhood is mostly two-storey homes.
"We can’t do another Fenwick Tower," she said of the highrise on Fenwick Street in the city’s south end.
"Those pictures I saw tonight blew me away," agreed Dave MacDougall of Vaughn Avenue.
"My house, 200 metres from here, looks like a little ant and I don’t like it."
Architect Dan Goodspeed, who patiently answered many questions during the meeting, said the single tower had the smallest footprint and covered only 11 per cent of the available land. That left more land to create a new .2-hectare city park and a right-of-way to the cemetery which includes a memorial to victims of the Halifax Explosion.
The park, located on the north side of the tower, didn’t impress Peter Rogers of St. Andrew’s Avenue.
"It’s a useless bit of nothing space that we don’t really need," he said.
Doug Moss, the general manager of Page Realty Management, was the lone speaker who said he welcomed the new building.
His company has spent money redeveloping the former Village at Bayers Road mall and they’re pleased that more people could be moving into the area.
"We think this is a good development to have in our area, where people can live and work in close proximity."
The land has been empty for years, he said.
"I haven’t seen any improvement on it and I’ve been around here for 20-30 years myself."
A few years ago, the land was declared "surplus" by the city when the Italian Cultural Association offered it back to them.
The city’s constant lack of interest in the land over the years has been a "travesty," said John Graywitch of St. Andrew’s Avenue, whose suggestion of city neglect continued to permeate the meeting.
"We’re not a community of nomads," asserted 13-year Chisholm Avenue resident Laurel Miller. "And once again, our community has been sold down the river."
The community has tried to get ahead and the land would have helped them create positive distractions for their kids, she said.
"Our children are important to us and now the green spaces and the playgrounds have been taken away. This building will not bring any comfort to the area."
Several times during the meeting city planner Randa Wheaton threatened to shut things down early.
She attempted to quiet down the applause so many times that people started to heckle her and mutter under their breath in her direction.
On one occasion someone suggested, jokingly, that a police officer sitting in the back of the room could come up front to be more visible.
During her presentation, Ms. Wheaton explained that the development would require a plan amendment and changes to the land use bylaw to proceed.
Ultimately, the decision on the development lies with Peninsula Community Council and they have not made any decisions yet about forwarding it to the entire 23-member regional council.
Residents attending last night’s meeting don’t have to worry that their efforts last night were in vain. Three of the four regional councillors who sit on the community council attended last night and all of them spoke out during the meeting.
In addition to the building’s height, people also had concerns about traffic, wind and shadows.
Ms. Wheaton said a recently completed traffic study was done and showed that, given the area’s existing traffic, the development would not make an impact.
However, many speakers said the impact of the cars now — at 42,000 trips per day — was bad enough already.
Irene Boutilier said it took her 10 minutes to turn right out of the driveway last week during the afternoon commute. If the new development shared that driveway, as planned, things would only get worse.
"Coming out of this centre, you sit and you wait and you wait and you wait."
The city needs to examine traffic issues before it compounds the problem, agreed Leah Maloney of Vaughn Avenue.
Prev
Linear Mode
