Past, future about to clash
New bridge ramp | First department store, old blacksmith shop could be torn down for roadway
By HEATHER MCLAUGHLIN
mclaughlin.heather@dailygleaner.com
Published Friday June 8th, 2007
Appeared on page A1
A battle royale could be looming as heritage groups and neighbourhood associations on the north side campaign to save two historic buildings.
City hall unveiled its traffic configuration to complement the construction of the missing northeast bridge ramp Thursday night.
But community groups have already called their own public information session June 12 at 7 p.m. at the Kinsmen Community Centre, 141 School St.
They are concerned council isn't listening to them about traffic and heritage issues.
The city is proposing to use St. Marys Street as the truck access to the bridge.
To do that, it has to expropriate and demolish the 1862-built McFarlane-Neill building at the corner of St. Marys and Union streets to install a turning lane.
The former blacksmith shop survived a number of fires and restorations. In 1882, it became a two-storey brick factory. During the Second World War, it produced shell casings for munitions. The building more recently housed Atlantic Rentals and it's currently owned by Brian MacLean of MacLean Sports Ltd. on Union Street.
MacLean said he was finally given official notice of the city's intent to expropriate his property in March after months of indecision.
"We've been telling them (the city) for 18 months to decide what you're going to do," MacLean said. "We bought the building to develop it."
Now, MacLean isn't even certain how much land the city will claim and what will be left over for his businesses.
"We're not driving the bus on this. It's the city," he said. "We had the ability to go and oppose the expropriation and we choose not to."
While MacLean has hired a lawyer, he said there are too few cases of people succeeding against the city when it wants your land. Instead, his legal counsel will try to wrangle a fair offer for his property, MacLean said.
"Something has to be done with it. It has to be fixed up or torn down," he said. "We didn't buy the building (three years ago) to tear it down. We would have had this block redeveloped by now."
The Fredericton North Heritage Association is concerned about a second building in the path of bridge-ramp construction. The CIBC bank building at the corner of Cliffe and Bowlen streets, now owned by the Masonic Lodge, was one the city's first major department stores.
"This is in an area of the city which has been identified as a study area for possible heritage preservation," said architect Ian Robertson, who is a member of the Fredericton North Heritage Association.
As far back as 2002, Robertson said, the St. Marys Neighbourhood Association urged the city to seek alternatives that would get truck traffic off Union and St. Marys streets.
Cliffe Street and Two Nations Crossing, which are designed to carry large traffic loads and could even be widened, should be designated truck routes, Robertson said.
"Business Fredericton North has requested that the logging truck traffic be removed from Main Street primarily because it's seen as a detriment to business, making it less attractive to shop on Main Street," he said.
"The city's suggested solution is to take the logging truck traffic up St. Marys Street as least as far as Maple Street," he said.
That makes little sense given the number of homes, driveways, intersecting streets -- Dedham, Jaffray and Highland Avenue converge onto St. Marys -- and the grade of the road, Robertson said.
Vanda Rideout, a Union Street resident and member of the South Devon Neighbourhood Association, said her group is also worried.
She said the municipality declined to consult and share its thinking with the neighbourhood until it had drafted a final plan.
"Consultation that should have been done ahead of time with individuals and groups has not taken place." Rideout said. "We're very concerned that there's a plan that's been put in place and we'll be presented with it as 'here, take it or leave it'."
"It makes far more sense to our organization to extend the Ring Road and use Cliffe Street as opposed to using St. Marys Street (for trucking)," Rideout said.
"The other issue many of our members have is maintaining the historical buildings we already have.''
George Wood, president of Fredericton North Heritage Association, said at best the city's truck route plan is a short-term solution.
"They seem to have abandoned the concept of a bypass continuing across Devon," Wood said.
"In older plans, we've seen that road (Two Nations Crossing at Cliffe Street) hooking onto Gilbert Street which runs into Gibson and Canada streets.
"That would move truck traffic away from Main and Union streets in Devon."
[Yeah, that makes sense - funnel trucks away from two buildings and have them go right through Marysville, a federally-designated heritage district]
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Road reconfiguration leaves residents divided
HEATHER MCLAUGHLIN
mclaughlin.heather@dailygleaner.com
Published Friday June 8th, 2007
Appeared on page A3
The City of Fredericton on Thursday night unveiled its road reconfigurations to accommodate the promised construction of the Westmorland Street Bridge ramp this year by the province.
At an open house at the Ducks Unlimited offices on Union Street, the city displayed maps and aerial photographs of the Union to Cliffe Street intersection changes.
Opinions are split on how the revamped roadway system will work.
St. Marys Neighbourhood Association chairman Wayne Gunter worries that the upgrades to the Union and St. Marys streets intersection will diminish efforts to rehabilitate and restore the area's residential quality and history.
At that corner, the city plans to expropriate and demolish the McFarlane-Neill building, a one-time brick factory some argue merits protection.
With the building demolished, trucks heading west along Union Street will be able to use a right-turn slip-off lane to get onto St. Marys Street and to access the Ring Road and Westmorland Street Bridge.
There will be a centre lane to direct through traffic to Main Street and a third lane that will allow traffic to turn toward Devonshire Drive along the St. John River or to access side streets such as Bowlen, Hayes and Balsa.
At Cliffe Street, the city will build a full intersection with traffic signals and turning lanes that will collect and disperse traffic coming off the new bridge ramp.
Gunter is loathe to encourage truck traffic on St. Marys Street.
"We're trying to return these residences away from the drugs and the prostitutes ... We're trying to upgrade this to a good residential area and people with higher incomes do not want to reside in high traffic areas," Gunter said.
"This deters us from moving ahead with new development and that's kind of a very big obstacle."
McKeen Street resident Tim Richardson supports the city's plan because it will quiet the area surrounding historic St. Marys Landing and its mid-19th century homes.
"Aspects of the plan work for me because it removes truck traffic from Union Street through what right now is our neighbourhood ... It means, in my view, a more cohesive neighbourhood," Richardson said.
Moving the trucks even a block further means the neighbourhood will be safer and quieter, he said.
Richardson questions why saving the McFarlane-Neill building has suddenly become an issue. Sacrificing a building with dubious historical value is worth it to improve community safety, he said.
Assistant engineering and public works director Bruce Baird said the city isn't altering the traditional use of St. Marys Street because it's always been a truck route.
The benefit with the city's plan is that it allows Union Street west of St. Marys and Main Street to become designated for local truck deliveries only, Baird said.
Ward 2 Coun. Bruce Grandy said Main Street residents wanted truck traffic reduced on their street because it poses a safety risk to the children at Nashwaaksis Memorial School and is a neighborhood nuisance.
"Trucks were going by, vibrating the windows. I was there when I was campaigning and these people had me in their houses. It just vibrated," Grandy said.
"It's our opinion as the city to have the transport trucks go up there (St. Marys Street) than having them travel the whole length of Main Street," Ward 3 Coun. Mike O'Brien said.
"We want transport trucks off Union, off of Canada Street, off of Gibson Street. The municipal plan identifies that, but that's a generation away."
Some residents said the city should convert Cliffe Street and Two Nations Crossing into truck routes, but city engineering and public works director Murray Jamer said the city gave a verbal pledge to St. Marys First Nation that the roadway cutting their reserve in half wouldn't be a truck route.
As for extending Cliffe Street to connect to Gilbert Street in Marysville, Jamer said it serves no purpose to take truck traffic out of one residentially-zoned area and shove it into another section of the city which has been designated for residential development.
Ultimately, the Ring Road truck bypass is the solution to get transports off Union and Main streets, he said.