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College Heights Residents Upset With Proposed New Neighbourhood

By 250 News

L&M Engineering hosts an information session in Gladstone gym

Approximately 150 residents living in College Heights gathered in the gym of the former Gladstone Elementary this evening for a public information session hosted by L&M Engineering on a proposed development plan for the Fraser River bench land areas.

The proposed "Fraser River Bench Lands Neighbourhood Plan" covers the 107-hectares of privately-owned land between the west bank of the Fraser River and Lower College Heights.  The development calls for a subdivision that could eventually be home to 2300 residents with 783 homes -- 37-hectares is set to remain parks, trails and greenspace.

L&M planner Heather Oland spent 20-minutes outlining the plan to concerned area residents, but told the crowd there would be no "traditional" question-and-answer session afterwards.  Instead, those gathered were directed to booths set up around the perimeter of the gym to ask their questions.
The format of the meeting did not sit well with John (pictured at left), who would not provide his last name.  "I feel this meeting is a bit of a sham, this is not public participation."

He called on L&M Engineering Principal Dave McWalter to come to the front of the gym and publicly answer questions, but Mr. McWalter remained at a back booth, fielding queries.

"I don't know what the next step is, I suspect we have to get in touch with our City Councillors and really examine this, is this what College Heights needs?  Do we need 2300 people? Do we need more traffic on Cowart Road?  Do we want our property values to go down?"  asked John.

Ralph Allen says he, too, has major concerns.  Allen says while he is not opposed to development and feels the city does have a need for more housing, he's opposed to this particular plan.  He says noise from the industrial site across the river will impact the neighbourhood and traffic is his other concern.  "Which a number of people here have talked about, is the problem with traffic down Cowart Road, which is not even vaguely designed for the amount of traffic it's getting now and they're proposing another 800 or more vehicles are going to merge onto Highway 16 at 8 o'clock in the morning?"
L&M was encouraging those in attendance to take time to fill out a survey on the proposed plan.  Heidi Sherman says she will "absolutely" be filling it out with her thoughts on the development.  She was not impressed with the format either,  "I understood that there would be speakers available to discuss problems and concerns and positive things -- I can't get to the speakers, I can't hear them, I'm 10-feet away at best.  By the time I muscle my way in to a speaker at one of these booths, my question's probably been asked three times, if not more. "

"So I don't find that an efficient format," says Sherman, "I haven't learned anything yet."

Bill Harrington has lived in College Heights for the past 32 years and says, while he realizes the land is owned privately, it has felt like it belongs to the community.  "It's just a beautiful place, I always see wildlife down there.  I've seen moose and deer and coyotes and bears, and it's just an incredible place to be able to have access to -- it's natural -- I question why they would want to allow building in that area."

In addition to losing the greenspace, Ken Child says he's concerned about the impact on air quality.  "In that bench area, we are going to have winter inversions, we're going to have industrial pollutants, we're going to have the particulate matter from woodburning stoves," says Child, "With that inversion, we're going to have much poorer air quality, which is a major health issue."

City Councillors Don Zurowski (to the left), Brian Skakun and Debora Munoz were on-hand for the presentation, and Councillor Sherry Sethen came in afterwards.  All were surrounded by residents.

"There are many concerns," says Zurowski, "I think in many cases, there's open minds, but it's a neighbourhood and people are very protective of their own backyards."

The draft plan is available on the City's website, surveys can also be obtained from the City and once the public input is compiled, L&M plans to work on its third draft of the Neighbourhood Plan and then go to City Council for approval.  
 
Zurowski says, "Basically, this project is about a neighbourhood plan considering what the land could be used for for a long time and incrementally applying for re-zoning, so again, this will come before Council in the regular process, to include a public hearing, so there will be lots of time for neighbourhood input."

Also in attendance were a couple of local real estate agents.  Aaron Switzer says he understands the why some of those in the neigbhourhood are angry and upset, but says, "I encourage the growth, we're not going to stop the growth in Prince George and we're on a good route now."  Switzer believes the strength in the local real estate market will be sustained, "Our industry has changed here dramatically, I believe that everything's going to keep going strong here for quite some time."



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