Terry Pender, Record staff – Thu Apr 25 2013
KITCHENER — The city is making big changes to the proposed route for the southern half of the Strasburg Road extension.
City councillors will be asked to approve the new plan at a special meeting on May 22. It has the roadway swinging far to the west to avoid a heritage farm, woodlots, provincially-significant wetlands, the last cold water trout stream in the city and habitat for threatened species.
Alicia Pokluda, who lives on Rush Meadow Street, likes the new plan better than the old one.
“However, I am still not convinced we need a road there, and certainly not a four-lane road,” Pokluda said.
The latest plan avoids Monica’s Bed & Breakfast on Stauffer Drive, a 16-hectare (40-acre) heritage property owned by Monica Ruttkowski. The old plan had a four-lane road running through that land, just metres from a 140-year-old farmhouse.
Coun. Yvonne Fernandes, a longtime critic of the move to build a four-lane roadway through this rural area, also prefers the new plan.
“It avoids a lot of sensitive areas and especially the endangered species habitat,” Fernandes said.
But she, too, remains opposed to building any arterial road in that area.
“The cost of this road, this portion, is over $20 million,” Fernandes said.
Strasburg Road will be extended south from Rush Meadow Street to New Dundee Road to provide access to future subdivisions in the area known as Doon South Phase II.
Most, if not all of the construction costs for this new road will be covered by special fees developers pay when they build new houses — so-called development charges. Currently, the city’s 10-year spending plans call for raising $14.2 million in development charges for this work by the end of 2017. However, a major review of how those fees are collected will be done before then. The date for all major projects paid for with development charges after 2015 is not known for sure.
The road extension is divided into two sections — north and south. The latest plan for the southern half of the extension has just been made public.
“We are very impressed that the region, the Ministry of Natural Resources and city staff have seen the light,” Fernandes said.
Construction of the major, arterial roadway in southwest Kitchener is still several years away. It has been controversial from the beginning because it will be built in an area of rolling hills, woodlots and wetlands.
“The northern section continues to be a huge concern,” Fernandes said.
The plans for the northern section of the new roadway, which will wind south from where Strasburg Road currently ends, will be released at public meeting scheduled for May 15 at Brigadoon Public School, 415 Caryndale Dr., from 6:30-8:30 p.m.
“I think it is so wrong to take it through beautiful forests,” Pokluda said of the northern half of the extension. “It is a major, major, major concern.”
Fernandes sent a letter to Jim Bradley, Ontario’s environment minister, asking for a meeting to talk about environmental concerns for the northern half of the Strasburg Road extension.
Bradley denied the request, calling it a municipal matter.
“We are extremely upset with the fact that he saying it is a municipal issue when it is definitely more than a municipal issue.” Fernandes said.
The Strasburg Road extension has been on the books for years. Traffic engineers and planners say it is needed to avoid overloading Home Watson Boulevard, Fischer-Hallman Road and Huron Road during morning and afternoon rush hours after the new subdivisions are built in Doon South Phase II.
tpender@therecord.com
http://www.therecord.com/news/local/article/924879–city-alters-route-for-strasburg-road-extension