Planned industrial area work roadblocked
Industrial Road business owners have rejected city-proposed road improvements, creating a stalemate.
Photo by Vince Fedoroff
ROAD WORK GIVEN RED LIGHT - Businesses along Industrial Road have voted against improvements to the road, at least for another year. A crew was out this morning measuring the intersection of Industrial and Quartz Roads for a future set of traffic lights, which the city plans to go ahead with.
Industrial Road business owners have rejected city-proposed road improvements, creating a stalemate.
City council identified a need to improve Industrial Road’s appearance and dilapidated state, then criticized business owners for delaying necessary upgrades for at least another year.
City council gave first reading to a local improvement bylaw Feb. 25 that required a majority vote from Industrial Road businesses to move forward.
The improvements would affect the area between Two Mile Hill Road and Quartz Road.
They would include road, curb and gutter reconstruction, improving drainage and street lighting, adding a sidewalk to the south side of Industrial, new traffic lights at Quartz
Road to replace the four-way stop signs, water and sewer upgrades and overall road widening.
Businesses in the vicinity would be responsible for sharing the costs of the road work through Local Improvement Charges.
Those costs would equate to approximately $608,980, shared by property owners, calculated on the basis of $849.14 cents per metre, with the remaining $1.19 million coming from the city’s bank account.
Property owners would have had the option of financing their share of the cost over 15 years through the standard financing provisions for local improvement charges.
“The city has subsequently received 10 votes against the bylaw,“ Clive Sparks said at Monday evening’s standing committee meeting.
There are 18 businesses affected by the road work that are permitted to vote on the issue.
Sparks advised council it must defeat the bylaw at second reading, because a majority of business owners had quashed it.
“According to the Municipal Act, when a majority of benefitting properties vote against a local improvement bylaw, the bylaw cannot proceed,“ said Sparks, reading from a prepared statement.
“The bylaw could be brought forward at a future date, but no sooner than the year following its defeat.“
The city’s operations committee recommended to council that regardless of the bylaw’s defeat, the city go ahead with plans to erect traffic lights at the intersection of Industrial and Quartz Roads.
The committee cited strong public support for the traffic lights, and that the $200,000 cost would be tied to the city-budgeted Industrial Road reconstruction.
“Installation of traffic signals would not be considered a Local Improvement Charge and therefore would have no financial impact on the property owners, therefore, the work that is funded from city reserves for the traffic signals will proceed,“ said Sparks.
The matter will be officially defeated at next Monday’s council meeting.
In the meantime, councillors wasted no time airing their displeasure.
“I’m very disappointed this is not being passed,“ said Coun. Dave Stockdale.
“It’s going to be a nightmare on that road.“
Stockdale asked Sparks to summarize the business owners’ reasons for refusing to help fund the road work.
Sparks replied that business proprietors didn’t want to shovel new sidewalks, were concerned about access to their business during construction, and worried about water drainage issues.
Sparks said one long-time business owner was put off that he had paid for similar roadwork and infrastructure upgrades out of his own pocket a long time ago, and is now being asked to pay for more of the same work.
“Cost was one of the major concerns,“ said Sparks.
“I am extremely disappointed,“ said Mayor Bev Buckway.
“People want to see this road fixed up.
“There’s only so much we can do now .... this one’s gone, I’m sorry,“ she said to residents.
Coun. Doug Graham said he doesn’t think the traffic lights are a pressing concern.
“I would like to know if the folks down there actually want traffic lights,“ he said. “It’s a pain for an hour in the morning, but the rest of the day it’s not. The truck drivers like it.“
Before the operations committee moved on to the next item on its agenda, Coun. Dave Austin chimed in with his two cents’ worth.
“Everybody I’ve talked to said to leave it alone, don’t fix it.“
Whitehorse resident
Apr 8, 2008 at 2:33 pm
So despite the fact that few people deem them necessary, and City Council is mixed on it, the City is going to spend $200,000 on lights that will be useful for 1 hour of the day.
Any other Whitehorse resident wish that $200,000 would be spent on their neglected neighbourhood roads instead?