If all of the recommendations from the Binnie Traffic Impact Study are implemented, public support could wane for two seniors’ homes pitched for Sechelt, as well as a single-family development in the Clayton Family Lands area.
The three projects (Wesbrooke By the Sea, Rockwood Ocean Stories and Clayton Family Lands) were back to public hearing on Aug. 23 as a result of the Binnie study, which identified a number of needed street and intersection improvements to handle the increase in traffic expected from the three projects.
The seniors’ development Rockwood Ocean Stories is expected to add 180 vehicle trips a day during peak times to roads in the area, while the seniors’ development Wesbrooke by the Sea is estimated to bring 116 more vehicle trips during peak times.
The 30-unit Clayton Family Lands development would result in 32 more vehicles driving on roads in the area during peak times, the Binnie report estimates.
The road networks that need to be upgraded to handle that traffic, according to Binnie, are Cowrie Street, Derby Road, Barnacle Street, Pilot Way and Medusa Street, as well as the intersection at Trail Avenue and Highway 101 and Shorncliffe Avenue and the highway.
The report notes that Cowrie Street will be connected to Derby Road by the end of next year, and that as part of the Ocean Stories project, Pilot Way will be extended to connect to Medusa.
The connection of Cowrie and Derby is expected to result in more use of the roadway, according to Binnie, so the company suggested restricting the Barnacle Street access to the new connector road to right in, right out only.
“Traffic requiring access to Barnacle Street from Shorncliffe Avenue will be required to detour via Cowrie Street to Peregrine Crescent,” the Binnie report said.
The report recommends restricting trucks from the new Pilot Way extension to Medusa Street and also making the new extension large enough to provide two travel lanes with curb and gutter and sidewalks on both sides of the roadway.
In addition, the report recommends cycling lanes be painted on Cowrie Street west of Pilot Way, Pilot Way and Barnacle Street, which would require road widening.
Several speakers at the Aug. 23 public hearings expressed concerns with the road widening, saying it isn’t possible without encroaching on people’s properties in the area.
Dave Hawkins, who said he was representing a group of residents in Trail Bay Estates who wanted to comment on the traffic impact study, had several concerns.
“We found that a number of the recommendations made in the report were not acceptable, safe or feasible to us to implement,” Hawkins said.
He spoke to the recommendations to paint bike lanes in the area, widen the roads and install new sidewalks.
“This doesn’t recognize the fact that Cowrie Street and Barnacle Street in Trail Bay Estates have been built to local road and limited local road standards with rights of way appropriate to those sizes,” Hawkins said.
“Widening Cowrie would incur significant costs of recreating driveways, replacing landscaping, relocating power, street lighting and communication utilities.”
He said the authors of the Binnie report didn’t take into account the current state of the roads and their restrictions.
“Our concern there is if the construction of these properties results in these recommendations in the traffic study being implemented, we’re not in support of that development,” Hawkins said.
Janet McIntosh spoke on behalf of St. Hilda’s Anglican Church, saying the church also had some concerns about the traffic impact study recommendations.
She noted the pathway that runs between the church and Rockwood was identified in the study as District of Sechelt property, when in fact it is on church property, and said the church was concerned about the proposed widening of Pilot Way, Barnacle and Cowrie Street.
“It would affect St. Hilda’s directly, so we have a lot of strong concern about that for the same reason – that it would encroach on St. Hilda’s property. There are power poles that are on St. Hilda’s property, as well as existing curb and gutter too,” she said.
Others at the meeting shared similar concerns and added that the increase in traffic would make the area unsafe. Some said that if the recommendations had to be implemented as laid out in the report, they would have to withdraw their support for the related projects.
Sechelt Mayor Bruce Milne said that’s exactly why the new public hearings had to be held, “because traffic impact does make a big difference,” and the Binnie report was considered new information.
After the public hearings, Milne said he wasn’t surprised at the response and noted that council does have “some discretion, guided by our OCP and servicing bylaws” in what recommendations from the Binnie report are ultimately implemented.
Whatever roadwork has to be done to support the traffic generated by the new developments, the bill will be footed by developers, Milne said.
Feedback from the public hearings will be compiled and come to a future council meeting where councillors will weigh it, along with all of the other information gathered from prior public hearings, and decide whether or not to approve the projects in question.
Councillors will also decide which recommendations from the Binnie report to implement.
