November 14, 2023, at 12:00 PM

Original link

The meeting was called to order at 12:03 PM; it being noted that Councillor P. Van Meerbergen was in remote attendance.

1.   Disclosures of Pecuniary Interest

That it BE NOTED that no pecuniary interests were disclosed.

2.   Consent

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by H. McAlister

That Items 2.1 and 2.2 BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (4 to 0)

2.1   11th Report of the Environmental Stewardship and Action Community Advisory Committee

2023-11-01 ESACAC Report

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by H. McAlister

That the 11th Report of the Environmental Stewardship and Action Community Advisory Committee, from the meeting held on November 1, 2023, BE RECEIVED.

Motion Passed

2.2   Endorsement of Updated Operational Plans for the City of London Drinking Water System

2023-11-14 - Staff Report (2.3) - Endorsement of Updated Operational Plans for the City of London Drinking Water System

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by H. McAlister

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Environment and Infrastructure, the following actions be taken with respect to the staff report, dated November 14, 2023, related to the Endorsement of Updated Operational Plans for the City of London Drinking Water System:

a)    the above-noted staff report BE RECEIVED;

b)    the current Operational Plan for the City of London Drinking Water System BE ENDORSED by Council as per the requirements of O. Reg. 188/07; and,

c)    the current Operational Plan for the Elgin-Middlesex Pumping Station (London Portion) BE ENDORSED by Council as per the requirements of O. Reg. 188/07. (2023-E13)

Motion Passed

2.3   New Sidewalk Project List 2024

2023-11-14 - Staff Report (2.2) - New Sidewalk list 2024

Moved by S. Trosow

Seconded by P. Van Meerbergen

That the following actions be taken with respect to the staff report, dated November 14, 2023, related to the New Sidewalk Project List 2024:

a)    the above-noted staff report BE RECEIVED;

b)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to remove Sovereign Court from Appendix A of the above-noted staff report. (2023-T04)

Motion Passed (5 to 0)

3.   Scheduled Items

3.1   Northridge Neighbourhood Connectivity Plan

2023-11-14 - Staff Report (3.1) - RPT - Northridge NCP

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by P. Van Meerbergen

That the Northridge Neighbourhood Connectivity Plan, as appended to the staff report dated November 14, 2023, BE APPROVED to inform the annual Renew London Construction Program with the exception of the proposed Glengarry Avenue, Dalkeith Avenue, Algoma Avenue, Glengyle Crescent, Dunboyne Crescent, Maxwell Crescent and Tweed Crescent sidewalks;

it being pointed out that the following individuals made verbal presentations at the public participation meeting held in conjunction with this matter:

  •    B. Bontje;

  •    K. Leitch;

  •    G. Finlay;

  •    W. Takola;

  •    N. Nielsen;

  •    D. Berberich;

  •    P. De Sensi;

  •    M. McDonald;

  •    P. Harris;

  •    S. Burns;

  •    P. Sanford; and,

  •    B. Lazar;

it being noted that the attached presentation from J. Dann, Director, Construction and Infrastructure Services, with respect to this matter, was received. (2023-T04)

Motion Passed (3 to 2)

Additional Votes:

Moved by H. McAlister

Seconded by P. Cuddy

Motion to open the public participation meeting.

Motion Passed (4 to 0)

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by H. McAlister

Motion to close the public participation meeting.

Motion Passed (5 to 0)

3.2   Huron Heights Neighbourhood Connectivity Plan

2023-11-14 - Staff Report (3.2) - RPT - Huron Heights NCP

That the Huron Heights Neighbourhood Connectivity Plan, as appended to the staff report dated November 14, 2023, BE APPROVED to inform the annual Renew London Construction Program with the exception of the proposed Kaladar Drive, Cayuga Crescent, Mark Street and Michael Street sidewalks;

it being noted that no individuals spoke at the public participation meeting associated with this matter; and,

it being further noted that the attached presentation from J. Dann, Director, Construction and Infrastructure Services, with respect to this matter, was received. (2023-T04)

Motion Passed

Additional Votes:

Moved by H. McAlister

Seconded by P. Cuddy

Motion to open the public participation meeting.

Motion Passed (5 to 0)

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by H. McAlister

Motion to close the public participation meeting.

Motion Passed (5 to 0)

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by P. Van Meerbergen

Motion to amend the staff recommendation by adding the words “excluding the proposed Kaladar Drive, Cayuga Crescent, Mark Street and Michael Street sidewalks.”

Motion Passed (3 to 2)

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by C. Rahman

Motion to approve the motion as amended.

Motion Passed (3 to 2)

4.   Items for Direction

None.

5.   Deferred Matters/Additional Business

None.

6.   Adjournment

The meeting adjourned at 2:20 PM.

Full Transcript

Transcript provided by Lillian Skinner’s London Council Archive. Note: This is an automated speech-to-text transcript and may contain errors. Speaker names are not identified.

View full transcript (2 hours, 36 minutes)

Good afternoon, everyone. This is the 16th meeting of Civic Works Committee. For those that are joining us in the gallery, hello. We are, first I’ll start with the land acknowledgement.

The city of London is situated on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabe, Haudenosaunee, Lenapawik, and Adawandan peoples. We honor and respect the history, language, and culture of the diverse indigenous peoples who call this territory home. The city of London is currently home to many First Nations, Métis, and Inuit today. As representatives of the people of the city of London, we are grateful to have the opportunity to work and live in this territory.

Please check the city’s website for additional meeting details and any information. Meetings can also be viewed for those looking to view them, via live stream on YouTube and the city’s website. The city of London is committed to making every effort to provide alternate formats and communication supports for meetings upon request. To make a request specific to this meeting, please contact cwc@london.ca or 519-661-2489 extension 2425.

So joining us in council chambers today, we have committee members and we have no councilors online. Thank you to visiting Deputy Mayor Lewis as well for joining us and councilor Pribble. I will move to item number one, disclosures of pecuniary interest. Seeing none, we’ll move to item two for consent.

We have 2.1 and 2.2. I’ve been asked to pull 2.3. Is there any movers, seconder for 2.1 and 2.2? Okay, I’ve got councilor Cuddy and councilor McAllister.

We will look to open that in just a moment. Any questions or comments on items 2.1 or 2.2? This was our endorsement of updated operational plans for the city of London drinking water system and the 11th report of the environmental stewardship and action community advisory committee. Okay, seeing none, we’ll open that for voting.

Building the vote, the motion carries four to zero. Thank you. We’ll move on to item number 2.3, which is the new sidewalk project list for 2024. My understanding is there’s some interest from the committee to discuss this item.

Just looking to committee members first. If they have any comments, questions or concerns and then move on to visiting councilors. Mr. Cuddy.

Thank you, Chair. I want to take this opportunity to thank staff for the work you’ve done on this. You’ve listened to me and you’ve listened to my constituents who have spoken to me about this. And I can’t tell you for a first-term councilor how much that means to me.

And you know, I’m looking at you, Jenny, Phil. Thank you so much for the hard work you’ve put into this. And I know I haven’t been easy to work with on this. I haven’t, I have a constituency that is very set in their ways and what they want.

They have some beautiful properties. They want them, they’ve had them for years and they’re very settled in their way of life. And in Ward 3, it’s something that I want to, as I want to be their steward and to take good care of their property. So I do thank you for speaking, hearing me and for listening to me and for listening to my constituents.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you. On the item new sidewalk project list 2024, Councilor McAllister. Yeah, just procedurally, could we move this to items for direction and have our PPMs prior to any direction being given on that?

That’s a good thought. Let me just confirm one moment. Thank you. Okay, so since we pulled it anyways, you’re right, we can deal with it after the fact.

And so we’ll go on to our PPMs, which a lot of people are here for and then we’ll come back to that item. So we will move on to item number three, which is our scheduled items and specifically to item 3.1, which is items not to be heard before 1205, public participation meeting for Northridge neighborhood connectivity plan. So I know there’s a number of people in the gallery that are interested in speaking towards this plan. What I’m gonna suggest is if you’re interested in providing comments, what we’re going to do first is have a small presentation from our city staff, Ms.

Dan and her team to provide us a little bit of context as it relates to this item. And then from there, we will open the public participation meeting and hear from those that are in the gallery and online. And what I’ll do is I’ll move between the gallery, a speaker in the gallery and a speaker online until we exhaust that list, okay? So what I’ll do first, before we open the public participation meeting is go to Ms.

Dan and then we’ll look for a mover and seconder to do that. Go ahead. Thank you and through the chair. The city is committed to maintaining strong and healthy communities through safe and accessible infrastructure like sidewalks.

This is something that’s been emphasized through multiple council approved policies dating back to the early 2000s. A big one of those is the London Plan, which sets out a vision for the city over the next several decades. The London Plan Mobility Policy 349 requires that sidewalks be built on both sides of most streets at the time of reconstruction with very few exceptions. This policy aims to improve connectivity and accessibility in legacy neighborhoods that were built without sidewalks.

But what we’ve heard is that this blanket approach is not the right fit. Residents would like a more deliberate and strategic approach to adding sidewalks in established neighborhoods. We know that sidewalks are an issue that people feel strongly about and we hear from Londoners on both sides. Our neighborhood connectivity plan process aims to engage neighborhoods to find a tailored solution to each area’s needs.

Our new approach is designed to consider the whole community and recommend sidewalks where they will provide the greatest benefit without automatically assuming a sidewalk for every street. I wanna thank all the residents that participated in NCP engagement, whether online or in person, their insight into their community greatly informed the NCP recommendations that we’ve brought forward today for council consideration. The NCP process, that engagement process concludes with a public participation meeting to give council members an opportunity here directly from residents when considering the recommended plans. So the first of our two NCP PPMs for today is for the Northridge community.

Now Northridge was identified for 2023 NCP engagement to provide an opportunity for community-wide dialogue prior to our 2024 local road reconstruction program, which includes McTavish Crescent in this neighborhood. The neighborhood was constructed between 1960 and 1969. The area is home to more than 3,800 residents with most living in single-family homes and a couple small pockets of medium-density development. Northridge is served by two elementary schools and AB Lucas Secondary School is located in the West End of the community.

Northridge has lots of community amenities, including Stony Brook Park and Stony Book Recreation Fields, Northridge Cricket Grounds, the Northridge Community Pool, Kalele Meadows, Del Keith Park and North Fanshawe Optimist Little Leagues Park, plus there’s a commercial plaza near Glenora Drive and McLean Drive that includes a variety of local businesses. The red boundary in this map indicates the neighborhood connectivity plan review area and the orange lines indicate the locations of existing sidewalks. In keeping with subdivisions built in this area, era, you’ll notice far fewer sidewalks, more meandering streets with wide connector streets, lots of crescents and courts, and the only streets with sidewalks are those neighborhood connector streets and those streets that have already been reconstructed. Now, most of the Northridge area is not structured in a way that really supports creating a pedestrian grid.

And so the recommendations for this NCP focused on pedestrian destinations, desire lines and community feedback. The NCP recommendations also considered available neighborhood data, complete street guidelines, our anti-racism and anti-oppression equity tool and the climate emergency screening tool. Staff received input from residents supporting the addition of sidewalks in the community. However, the majority of feedback from residents was not supportive of new sidewalks.

Recognizing clear feedback to avoid impacts to trees, driveways and landscaping, the neighborhood connectivity plan recommends exemptions to mobility policy 349 for those shorter, low traffic crescents and courts that have no other connections to pedestrian points. In total, sidewalks are recommended for 11 streets in the Northridge area to be constructed at the time the road is due for construction. Alternatively, an exemption to mobility policy 349 is recommended for 24 streets. I’d like to provide a quick update on some of those NCP recommendations.

I in Northridge, there’s a number of crescents that have connections to park. Many residents enjoy visiting Dalkeith and Fanshawe Optimus Neighborhood Parks with some expressing concern over the lack of sidewalk connection to those park access points. The NCP recommends providing sidewalk connections along the shortest path from the neighborhood connector street up to those park entrances as a way of providing equitable access to pedestrians of all ages and abilities. These short connections will also improve safety during times when these crescents experience overflow parking from nearby schools and amenities.

Dalkeith Avenue and Algoma Avenue, these two streets provide an important connection for many residents looking to reach the school’s pool, Plaza and amenities near Glenora and McLean. Dalkeith Avenue was almost a kilometer in length and Algoma’s bends mixed with some on-street parking were flagged as concern for some pedestrians, particularly those with young families. Supporting pedestrian connections around the high school. The remaining four sidewalk recommendations are in the West End of the neighborhood to provide improved connectivity to support pedestrian activity around A.B.

Lucas Secondary School. A tenant in Barrymont Avenues both provide direct access to the high school and see a mix of foot, school bus, parent and student driver traffic. Lauderdale Avenue and North Vernon Avenue helped complete the pedestrian grid in the West End of Northridge for those people that are either walking to the high school or trying to reach the commercial area near Adelaide Street and Fanshawe. So in addition to sidewalks, the NCP suggests modern the need for pedestrian crossings at four locations where residents noted high pedestrian traffic and we’re also going to have our traffic engineering group continue to modern whether a new pedestrian signal is warranted at Glenora Drive and Fanshawe Park Road Drive.

So with that brief summary, I will turn the meeting back to the chair for public participation. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Stan.

With that, first I’d like to update committee members and let them know that Councilor Van Mirberg and is joining us online as well. So I would look for any technical questions at this time and then we’ll look to open the PPM. Councilor Trossa. Thank you very much and through the chair.

So should I assume as a technical question that in deciding which streets to exempt and which to include, you have followed policy 349. Ms. Stan? Through the chair, policy 349 would have every street when it’s reconstructed, install a new sidewalk on both sides with a few exceptions, very short courts and crescents.

What we’re looking to do with this NCP process is to meet our intent of improving connectivity without taking that blanket approach, finding the streets where a sidewalk can provide the greatest benefit for all ages and abilities, but noting that on some quieter crescents and streets, the impacts to trees, to landscaping, to driveways is going to be considerable and really not receiving a great amount of benefit in terms of the sidewalk. So it’s trying to find a balanced approach to these neighborhoods. Councilor? Thank you.

Yes, please. And the way I read item number 7 under 349 is it is a little open-ended and it does allow that type of consideration. But what I want to specifically turn to is the tree loss. My understanding is that that is one of the issues that’s being raised by opponents to these, although I did not see petitions in the added agenda.

And I just want to make sure that I’m following this, but I see that on page 23 of the report, it’s an example of curb-facing sidewalk installation. Could you explain again how utilizing a curb-facing sidewalk could mitigate tree loss? Oh, it also lost to part of the property that people have at their disposal. Ms.

Dan? Yes, through the chair. At the time that we come to reconstruct these roads, the intention is to follow up with the second stage of neighborhood engagement to talk through all of the design mitigations that we can use to reduce the impacts of adding a sidewalk. One of those is a curb-faced sidewalk design.

So that would be where you have the curb and then immediately behind the curb is the sidewalk without a strip of grass in between the curb and the sidewalk that you might see in other areas. There’s a number of ways that can benefit us. If we’re able to, if we have a wide asphalt surface, we can build slightly into the roadway, and that means we’re taking away less from the grass area. It can help us get a little further away from the critical root structure of trees to hopefully salvage as many trees from the neighborhood as possible.

There’s a number of ways we can try to look at those mitigations. Sometimes we’ll look to see if there’s room to be able to fit the sidewalk behind the trees and actually create a larger boulevard. But again, you have to look at every street on a case-by-case basis, but we weigh all the different options. We also engage to look at which side of the street is the best place to locate a sidewalk, but that comes at a second stage of engagement just shortly before we’re getting ready to start designing the reconstruction project.

Thank you, that’s very helpful. And my last question through the chair is, so if this committee passes the staff report and if council passes the staff report, that’s not really the end of the review and consultation because there would be a whole second phase dealing with these very specific design issues, is that right? Yes, through the chair, essentially what the NCP plan is doing is it’s recommending a blueprint for the future for where a sidewalk should go. So as we move through our local road reconstruction program or whether there’s an infrastructure renewal project that’s driven by underground needs, when we go to rebuild that street, we don’t have to have a discussion about whether there should or shouldn’t be a sidewalk.

We’ll go back to this plan. If it indicates that a sidewalk was recommended for a strategic connection, we’ll then re-engage with the residents of that particular street to figure out what the best fit design will be. Thank you. Councilor McAllister, you have questions of a technical nature, go ahead.

Thank you and through the chair. Probably gonna be repetitive with both of the things that are before us today. But I’m curious to know in terms of studies that have already been conducted, have we done any speed studies in the area? Are there any traffic calming measures?

I noticed in the report also talks about street lighting. I know, especially in some of the older neighborhoods, that can be an issue in terms of people feeling safer, greater visibility on our roads. And finally, just noting, there are three existing crosswalks, but I believe there are five proposed crosswalks. And in terms of any community feedback that was received in terms of getting those crosswalks installed, thank you.

Ms. Stan. Hi, yes, through the chair. While we are focusing definitely on providing recommendations for sidewalks, when we go out and talk to communities, we try to listen to all the feedback that we receive, as well, in terms of input to the NCP plans and our recommendations.

We look at the feedback from the community, of course, but we also look at available information on traffic counts, where we’ve seen requests for traffic calming through other programs, where we’ve seen requests for sidewalks to the new side of all of that information feeds into our recommendations. So we look at those aspects, in terms of the pedestrian crossing, some of these are locations where, through community feedback, we heard people would mark on the map. I see lots of people crossing here. In other cases, some of them are identified, because if we’re adding new sidewalks, we want to be able to create good connections between those areas where we’re sending people using sidewalks to promote activity and walking.

And when our team actually drove through each of these neighborhoods, we looked for spots where even just if it seemed to us, there was a logical spot to be able to consider in the future. And so we flagged those for our transportation to consider looking at and monitoring. Follow-up? Thank you, and through the chair.

So just to clarify, in terms of, is speeding identified as an issue in this neighborhood? Like how we conducted many studies? I just, I’m always curious in terms of Fanshawe Park Road where it’s north of here. Some neighborhoods experienced a lot of cut through traffic.

Was this an issue of those identified by the neighborhood? Mr. McCray. Thank you, yes, our phone lines are always open and traditionally, we receive profit, calming and speeding concerns across the city.

This neighborhood is no exception. And that is partially a function of some of the, the original built form design, neighborhood design characteristics that Ms. Dan was referring to with wider streets and that curvilinear design. But, and so over years, a number of these streets have been traffic-combed and aspects of that kind of design if we’ll inform future street reconstructions in conjunction with other recommendations coming out of the NCP process.

Thank you. I think I’ve exhausted my list of questions of the technical, oh, okay, Councilor Trossa. One follow-up coming from that last round. Looking at this map again to the chair, looking at this map again, I could see that this would be a real cut through opportunity for people coming down Fanshawe Park Road to be able to take Lynn Ora or McLean or, yeah, this really looks like cut through heaven for people who have figured that out.

My concern about traffic studies, and maybe you can clear this up, is that they would, they would, do they necessarily look the cut-through effect, which is people who are not part of the neighborhood and are coming from points outside of the red line. How do we account for cut-throughs when we look at these studies? Mr. McCray.

There’s a variety of studies that can be undertaken to address complaints and concerns. Certainly cut-through is considered. They can be somewhat sophisticated in trying to track origins and destinations, but at a basic level we do consider that concept with every traffic communication assessment that we do, but just by virtue of measuring volumes and comparing that to both the traffic volumes that we typically see on similar streets across the city and what sort of the design intent of the was for the neighborhood as well. Thank you, okay.

With that, we’ll look for a mover and seconder to open the public participation meeting for the Northridge Neighborhood Connectivity Plan. I’ve got Councillor McAllister and Councillor Cuddy, and we’ll open that in a moment. Councillor Troso and Councillor Van Merebergen. Councillor Van Merebergen.

Third call for Councillor Van Merebergen. Okay, I will mark him absent, and closing the vote, the motion carries four to zero. Thank you. So with the public participation meeting open, I’ll ask that anyone that’s looking to speak move towards a microphone.

There’s one set up on each side of the room, and then there’s also microphones up at the top. While you’re getting positioned, what I’ll do is I will go to one of our speakers online. I’ll first go to Bram Bonji. Bram, if you wanna turn on your microphone and your camera if you’d like to speak to us, you will have five minutes for your presentation, and if you have any questions, what I’ll do is I’ll compile all the questions and ask them all at the end.

You have five minutes, you may begin. Yeah, good afternoon, everybody. Thank you again to the committee for the opportunity to speak and for city staff for taking interest in our community and giving some attention to our neighborhood. A bit about myself, I personally am a neighborhood resident living on a crescent without sidewalks, and I’m a parent of two young children who walked school daily with a parent.

I have some concerns about general safety when walking, in particular, the need to keep kids by the side of the road when walking is a constant concern for us with cars, especially living on a widening crescent where we can’t always see oncoming traffic. I appreciate that some residents in our neighborhood have not had a problem with navigability, but some of us have, and there are times in the winter when we personally have found our street was impassable when we had small children, and the only option was to essentially walk on an icy road, baby wearing our kids, which was much more dangerous than by having a robe of traffic as well. We realized this is a temporary issue for us, but this could have been something that was very significant for a person with actual disability concerns. I also appreciate that there are lots of families having children walking to from school, and this continues to be an issue.

We also see the neighborhood with new families moving in around us all the time, so we see this as being something that’s very important, and I’m glad that the crosswalks was something that was raised by other counselors early in the meeting. We do have a concern also with street lighting that was touched on by one of the earlier counselors. We have on side crescents a lot of decorative lamp posts that don’t provide much street lighting. We also have where there are street lights.

They typically are post-style with the bulb directly above the pole. Often they’re blocked by foliage in the summer, so it’s very difficult to see anyone at night, and it’s quite necessary actually to have high vis clothing or lights on in order to feel safe walking on these roads without sidewalks. I do have a concern in general about making sure that the committee is considering, and I realize that the staff report is considered how these access barriers to accessibility may not be necessarily represented in the feedback that was received. I know there was an overwhelming sentiment of not wanting to have these driveways and trees and landscaping affected.

A lot of this feedback was occurring online. A lot of it was very argumentative, and it may have dissuaded some of the feedback from people who actually need accessibility from speaking up. And I really feel it’s important as an able-bodied member of the community to take the time to make this point on their behalf. I’ve noticed a theme of not wanting to change the status quo in some of the comments I’ve seen on online discussions.

I realized, and I think it is realized, this was an oversight in the original construction of the neighborhood. And I hope that this isn’t something that’s given too much weight in terms of a feature to be preserved. We realized the demographics are changing. There’s been references to car cut-throughs.

These were not things that were an issue in the 1960s when the neighborhood was constructed. I also want to touch on some concerns that I also saw online about sidewalk accessibility. It isn’t an sidewalk maintenance in winter. It’s not really an either or a situation.

I appreciate that sidewalks may be hazardous to walk on as well, but this is something that we can advocate for separately and individually. We don’t need to say that because sidewalks are potentially treacherous to walk on that we shouldn’t have sidewalks. I think we should look for proper snow clearing and accessibility for all forms that we have here. We’re all forms of walking access.

I understand there’s concern about placing sidewalks for both our trees may be or where residents might have put landscaping improvements on their front of their property. I really do see what staff is recommending in this report as being reasonable. It’s a reasonable compromise and especially with the locations being centered around the school and access areas such as parks. I think also to the point about it being reasonable and gradual because of the timelines involved and many of these are five to 10 years, if not more.

I think this is very gradual, reasonable and frankly minimal really in terms of what I would like to see in terms of improving accessibility around the neighborhood and I really hope that this can be endorsed and the program move forward. Okay, thank you very much, I’m all finished now. Thank you. I will now go to a speaker in the gallery.

I’ll just make sure that the mic over here is working okay and do you want to test that out and then we’ll be five minutes. Wonderful, okay, you have five minutes, go ahead. Okay, I should identify myself, I’m Kelly Leach. I live on one of the crescents in Northridge.

We had a 100% participation on our petition for our street and a 98% signing against the sidewalks. Let’s just establish my position, okay. There’s two fundamental flaws with this process. Sorry, Kelly, can you speak up a bit, we’re having a little bit of difficulty here?

Yeah, like this. There’s two fundamental flaws with this process. The quote, meaningful engagement step is not meaningful engagement when it’s at the end of the process to tell residents what they are getting, whether they want it or not. The process should start with engagement to first determine need and justification for sidewalks.

The current process presupposes the need for sidewalks and is not clear what EA process, if any, was followed. There is an environmental assessment act, but this current process does not appear to be following an EA process as it already presupposes the outcome. The stated objective of this project is to increase connectivity. As a longtime resident and regular walker, there already is connectivity and there are no demonstrated safety concerns that I’m aware of.

It is an established neighborhood with no land use changes. And as a result, no changes in need. The city report states that there have been three years of unprecedented and increasing opposition and petitions against the sidewalk initiative in the London plan. In the face of unprecedented opposition by residents of the city, they still suggest a further two-year trial.

How do you trial a sidewalk? How do you trial cutting down mature trees? How many years of protesting residents do you need to see that clearly this is a plan and process that is deeply flawed and needs to go back to the drawing board and go back to the drawing board before our neighborhood is irreparably and negatively impacted by it? You are pushing to fix a non-existent problem.

Thank you. Thank you. Oh, I should have mentioned this at the beginning, but we do not encourage clapping or noise after someone speaks. You may have some folks in the audience that will want to speak in opposition or for, we just want to make sure that we’re being fair to everybody and giving them a safe environment to make their comment.

Okay, I will move to a speaker online next, Gail Finley. Good morning. Thank you, sorry, I cannot work my camera today, but thank you for allowing me to speak properly. No problem, Gail.

Okay, so I will start the clock you a five minutes. Go ahead. Okay, thank you. I totally agree with the last speaker and also I would like to mention that one of the reasons we purchased our house approximately 14 years ago was because of the large front properties, the mature trees, no sidewalks, which allowed us to have a large driveway capacity.

So when we talk about putting in sidewalks and the possibilities of killing our trees and losing more of our front property to this venture, I’m not in agreement with this. I also find it interesting that in today’s meeting, you’re just looking for whether you’re gonna pass it yes or no, which means you’re gonna be moving forward regardless with this plan. I too don’t think there’s been enough consultation on this subject. I also agree that yes, we do need more lighting and visibility as a walker and I walk frequently.

I have never had any issues with traffic or other walkers or dogs for that matter, but the lighting is definitely a little bit challenging. I also find it interesting that you’re calling Del Keith a connector street to have sidewalks done within the next one to five years, yet you need a goma to get to the schools from that connector street. So to me that says that there wasn’t enough research or actually looking at the information because why would you have the connector street have sidewalks in the next five years, but the other one not for the next 10 years? So I’m not quite as elegant as the last speaker, but I just wanted to everybody to know that I do oppose to this and one of the reasons why I love our neighborhood is because it is such a warming, calming, tranquil place to live.

So thank you. Thank you. I’ll go to a speaker in the gallery now, appear at this mic, go ahead. If you’d like, you can start by stating your name.

Yes, my name is Wayne Tingle. I live on Tweed Crescent and I have for the last 42 years. I have a few questions for both the process. Some last time our road, the first time our road was reconstructed was 54 years ago.

Is that still the planning outlook for new reconstruction in the future or has that changed? There’s an issue of, there’s fiber optic cable that’s going in in the neighborhood and somebody mentioned the street lights and I wondered about the timing of doing this one thing before the other and then digging up other services. The other issue that really hasn’t been addressed adequately, I don’t think is the winter maintenance issue and everybody knows what the sidewalks are like in the winter here and I can speak to the budget can implications of this forever. Once you put a sidewalk and you have to maintain it and anybody that’s written, walked on sidewalks in this area, know that the tree roots or the sidewalks are heaved and you come to the end of one section and it’s about two inches higher than the other and I had a sidewalk like that when I was three and I have seven stitches in my chin.

So I can speak from experience that that thing does happen and the budget implications of plowing these things in our winter climate forever should come before council before something like this is done. Thank you, that’s all I have to say. I came with four other people and we speak for about 11 residents of the Crescent and we’ve spoken to a few others. So that’s all I have to say, some questions but not my chances, sorry, thank you.

Thank you and so what I’ll do is I’ll save the questions that you’ve asked till the end and then I’ll put those questions to staff after. Thank you. Okay, I will go to a speaker online, Nicole Nielsen and then I’ll come over to this microphone over here. Hi, Nicole.

  • Hi everybody. Hello. - Okay, thank you. We can see you and hear you.

You have five minutes, go ahead. Thanks very much. Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak today. My name is Nicole Nielsen and I’m a resident of Glengile Crescent.

I do have a young child who I walk to daycare on a daily basis. I’ve never had any safety concerns on our street. I will not require the full five minutes allotted. I mean, I do appreciate the restraint from the city in not recommending sidewalks on both sides of the street for every street and I appreciate all the comments today, including Graham’s who has a differing opinion.

I think a lot of the points that he made were valid, but I still think that the recommendation today is still somewhat sweeping in its approach. For example, the recommendation indicates that many of the trees in the neighborhood are located in the center of the property. That’s not the case. Many of the trees are actually located at the edge of the property and would be impacted by the sidewalks and it would have a devastating effect on the neighborhood.

The recommendation also indicate the trees are end of life and would require significant intervention and pruning to address issues like overhanging ground effects. I would just like to put to this group that I would prefer my city dollars to be spent on pruning those trees than the implementation of sidewalks that are not desired by the community. The recommendation also references many members of the community’s safety concerns and I’m sensitive to those concerns. None of the recommended sidewalks were designated under the road safety strategy program.

And the majority instead were listed under the local road reconstruction program or the new sidewalk program. In my review of the recommendation, I did not see any evidence provided that there is an actual safety issue. Though residents may be raising safety concerns, there are no documented to my knowledge safety issues. And I appreciate that we should not wait for an incident in order to be reactionary.

However, the inverse is also true, that we should not be fear-mongering. So that my hope is in the absence of evidence that the city honors what the majority of the community wants. Thanks again very much for the opportunity to speak today. Thank you, I’ll go to the next speaker in the gallery if you appear at this microphone, if you don’t mind introducing yourself and you have five minutes.

Yeah, hello, my name is Doug Burbrick. I’m speaking today on behalf of my wife and myself. We’ve lived on Dalkeeth Avenue at 768 for 40 years. A number of the comments in the report, number of the comments today are very general, as if they apply to every street in Northridge.

Some do and some don’t. So my remarks today are going to be specifically directed to the recommendation to install a sidewalk on Dalkeeth Avenue. We’re strongly opposed to retrofitting this street to install a sidewalk, whether on one or both sides. I’ve read the report to the Civic Works Committee on this issue and I strongly believe that it fails to demonstrate any compelling need or benefit of sidewalks in so far as Dalkeeth Avenue is concerned.

Dalkeeth is a quiet street that serves only residential roads within the community and has relatively low traffic volumes and cut through is not an issue on that road. It doesn’t link to any arterial roads. There are no schools, no churches, and no commercial buildings on Dalkeeth Avenue. It is not on a city bus route.

There have been no traffic calming measures asked for or implemented on Dalkeeth. The street is welded at night by 19 streetlights that run the entire length of the road. Our family, including ourselves, our children, our grandchildren for 40 years have walked the streets on Dalkeeth as well as other streets in the neighborhood and we’ve not felt any concern with our safety. In our experience, cars, pedestrians, cyclists have all shared the road appropriately with due regard for each other as one would expect from a street that really only serves the community where we live.

The report on the other hand provides no actual evidence of safety or accessibility issues that need to be addressed. We and many of our neighbors actively participated in the feedback sessions to provide input on the need or lack thereof of sidewalks on Dalkeeth Avenue, including a petition signed by almost every resident of the street. It is our understanding that prior to this initiative, there was not a single request for a sidewalk on Dalkeeth Avenue. It’s also our understanding that during the consultation process, the feedback from residents of this street was overwhelmingly that sidewalks were not necessary or wanted based on any reasonable criteria, including safety and accessibility.

Despite the overwhelming feedback, the report recommends a sidewalk on Dalkeeth. The apparent reason, Dalkeeth is not a short road and it provides one entrance to Dalkeeth Park. However, the report fails to note that this entrance is on a long, straight section of Dalkeeth is paved and provides barrier-free entry, allowing wheeled vehicle access currently. In fact, people have been safely accessing the park through that access for over 60 years.

It’s quite telling that the report itself makes clear that the only streets exempted are short crescents or short courts with no pedestrian connections. All other streets were simply deemed to need sidewalks. This is our neighborhood. And if safety or accessibility really was an issue, for those of us who live there, we’d ask for help.

We’d be looking for you to improve the situation. There hasn’t been that kind of support or demand is telling. 30 seconds. In my view, the recommendation to install a sidewalk in Dalkeeth is, like a previous speaker said, an attempt to solve a problem that simply doesn’t exist.

With all due respect, the wishes of the community should not lightly be disregarded, unless it can be demonstrated that there is an actual, a real need or benefit that demonstrably outweighs the adverse impacts. Thank you for your consideration. Thank you. Okay, I’m gonna go to Patrizia Desensi online, and then I’ll go to the mic at the top.

Patrizia, can you unmute? Or are you joining us by phone if you wanna begin? If you’re joining us by phone, star six will unmute. Yeah, I’ll also— Go ahead, you have five minutes.

Also, I do agree with Doug. I live near the entrance to Dalkeeth Park. And there hasn’t been, I’ve been here for almost 17 years and I don’t see any increase in traffic, increase in cut-throughs. So, putting sidewalks in, for me, would be devastating for me to live here.

We don’t have much frontage to begin with, and to add sidewalks, for me, would feel uncomfortable in living in my own home. Just the distance from the edge of the sidewalk to the front of my home. I would have no privacy, we have large windows, and I moved into this neighborhood because of the trees, because of the quietness, and I don’t believe anything has changed. And I’m not sure why this is happening right now.

Dalkeeth is a quiet street, it’s a long street, I agree, but it is a quiet street. And I just wanted to put my two cents in to say that I completely disagree with the addition of one or two sidewalks, and I am a person who lives on Dalkeeth Avenue, so I completely agree with Doug and Ms. Leach in regards to the process of this, on how many people disagree with sidewalks, and I do really hope that you listen to what we’re saying and understand our feelings of sidewalks and the elimination of our frontage, of our trees, of our driveways, it’s gonna be, for me, fact that I would not feel comfortable in my own home. And this is how I’m feeling right now, and I’ve been thinking about this since the very beginning it started, and I just really don’t see a problem.

I mean, we’ve walked these streets for almost 17 years, and we’ve never had an issue, thank you. Thank you. I will go to the gentleman at the top mic. Go ahead, you can state your name, and you have five minutes.

Hello, my name’s Mike McDonald. I’m a 30-year resident of Dalkeeth Avenue as well, so good showing for the app coming out. I’m probably gonna restate a lot of what you’ve already heard from other residents, but I just— Sorry, do you mind adjusting the mic a bit? We’re having a bit difficult to hear you.

Yeah, that’s my, sorry about that. Thank you. So I’ll be repeating a few things, but a few comments I have on the report that I’ve read over, and I guess with the report or anything which is a plan, I would assume that two things really need to take place in order for a plan to move forward. I think first of all, you should have the acceptance and the desire of the community to have that plan implemented and put into place.

And second, you would have some empirical data which supports the need for that plan. And in both those cases, I don’t see that happening for the plan with all due respect. Everybody in this gallery, and I’m sure most online, I’m not gonna hedge numbers here, but the vast majority again would not be in support of the sidewalk inflammation plans that are recommended. And there’s really no empirical data which shows the need for it.

Or a subdivision which has existed for 60 years, I’ve lived there 30 years, and as the past two speakers have already indicated, there hasn’t been a proven need based on increased traffic patterns, traffic volumes, demographic changes, which require something as dramatic as the destruction of property and tree lines to make that happen. I’ve done a field digging, so I know there’s a street, a couple of maps that the city provides. One is the tree map of the city. And on Dalkitav itself, there shows curbside trees, approximately 80 mature.

The majority of them are Norway maple trees along the Crescent, provides great shade canopy for the residents, beautification around the, this time of year for fall, except for the ranking of the leaves, of course. But it’s something that we really enjoy in the neighborhood, and there’s a lot of protection, or want of protection of that forest environment that we have within the neighborhood. The second is, oh, sorry, just to speak around that the trees again. So I think the reporting of the gates, some of those trees are coming because of the nature of what they are, the Norway maples for the most part.

They’re moving toward a more of end of life state, perhaps. So this morning, nothing in arborist writing means myself. I would just ask of our good friends, Alexa and Google, what is the life expectancy of a Norway maple? If you ask Alexa, she says anything between 60 and 250 years.

Depends upon location and climate environments. If you ask Google, it says it’s around 150 years for a Norway maple. The subdivisions existed 50 to 60 years, so yes, there will be disease, there will be reasons to prune, replace certain trees, but by those indications, there isn’t a end of life situation coming immediately for those trees. The second thing is the road traffic patterns in the city, or in the neighborhood.

Again, the road maps for the city of London provides on site and actually in the report itself, shows those streets which do capture traffic volumes. Langerie, I think it indicates to be 1500 per day. Glenora is around the 3,500 McLean’s up to 4,500, and Clarnie may up to be above that, I believe, may get some of that slightly wrong, but it’s in those ballpark figures. Nothing is provided for the crescents and the avenue, in this case, Dolkeys Avenue.

And I assume I’m not provided simply because there’s just not enough need for the traffic study to be presented there. Having said that, I’ve done a bit of a study for myself. I have my driveway faces, Dolkey Thav, and I’ve set up my security camera to capture road traffic passing there over the past few days. And I’ll give you some numbers which I’ve indicated for where it is in front of my house, which is just south of Algoma on Dolkey Thav.

For the Sunday, this past Sunday, there was around 68 cars, which went back and forth across my security camera on Dolkey Thav. In on Monday, yesterday, there was approximately 110 to 120 vehicles going back and forth in the primary timelines between 6 a.m. and around 10 p.m. at night.

So I know Glen Gary, which is the lowest volume recorded traffic patterns in the city of 1500. Algoma, sorry, Dolkey Thav is one-tenth of that. So again, where does the need exist here? What drives the need to say, we need to have these sidewalks put into place because traffic volumes are up, accident reports are higher.

Those things exist, I would be there. But if not, I don’t understand the reason for it. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay, I have no other speakers online, so I’ll move to this microphone over here. Hi, my name is— You can state your name and your prime minutes. My name is Paul Harris. I live on Tweed Crescent, and I’ve lived there for 50 years.

Plus, I have had three children over those 50 years and representing some of the other neighbors who have two and three children as well. We’ve had parents and children walk into elementary school. We’ve never had any safety issues in those years. So far as I’m concerned, the safety issue has never been a problem.

Yes, usually we walk against traffic. The whole issue of sidewalks, if they go in, if the concern is more cars parked on the street, I feel with sidewalks, there’s gonna be even more cars parking on the street because you can’t supposedly block sidewalks. So I think it’s a safety issue that has never been a problem and they’re trying to make sidewalks a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist. Thank you.

I’ll go over to this mic over here. If you can state your name and you have five minutes. Thanks, my name is Sean Burns. I live at 743 Dunboying Crescent.

I’m here with my wife, Linda, and our neighbor, Kelly, who lives at 739. We are opposed to the sidewalks. Many of the points that have been said so far are the same points that I wanna make, but let me just please underline them. My wife and I moved into the Northridge neighborhood 11 years ago because there’s a reputation in the city for how beautiful this community is with all the mature trees and the peacefulness of it.

So I’d like to say is that we have a large living room window. One of the other speakers also said this, that they felt uncomfortable if a sidewalk was moved closer to the front of their house. We feel exactly the same way and we’ve even talked about moving if the sidewalks go in. Right now, we sit in the living room quite often and we observe the behavior of the street.

Dunboying has very low vehicular traffic. It’s not a through street, obviously, it’s a crescent and it’s not the only people that use the street or the people that live on it. And for pedestrian traffic, we do see people occasionally walking up and down the street, but it’s not a pathway to a destination. People do not use Del Keith Park and Dunboying Crescent in conjunction with each other to get to a church or a shop or a school.

So I’d like to just reiterate with a few other people that also said is that I don’t see a problem at all and I don’t think we should be digging for a solution for a problem that doesn’t exist. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, I have another speaker up here at this microphone.

Just wanna remind people if your points have been made, please don’t feel like you need to repeat them. We do hear, we do understand that those are collective opinions as well when you’re stating so. So I’ll go over to here to this microphone. You have five minutes if you can start by stating your name.

Thank you. Thank you. My name is Pete Sanford, I live at 47 Tweed Crescent. I’ve left, my family and I have lived there for over 50 years and I don’t, I see the installation of a sidewalk as a safety hazard.

Be quite frank with you. In my opinion, I walk and run those streets over the past 40, 50 years, believe me, I know what goes on out there. And I have yet to see children coming home from school that when they walk up the Crescent, if they’re gonna walk on half of a sidewalk and the other half they’re going to walk on the road, I really feel that this is a conundrum, which is the safest area. And furthermore, the sidewalks, we need to find some new drivers for those plows that go along the sidewalks and tear up everybody’s property.

And yeah, it may seem like a minor thing, but there’s a lot of damage done by that. People have to repair their lawns and look after things. And furthermore, they usually plow them when it’s too late. It’s not consistent.

They’re not sanded consistently. The roads, they’re perfect in the winter time. They’re plowed, there’s bare spots. The kids walk down those bare spots.

The people in the Crescent, they don’t race up and down the street like fools. They’re always aware of the children. So I really can’t see why we need sidewalks. Like I’d say, that’s installing a safety hazard.

You can’t have half of a Crescent with sidewalks and the other half with outside walks. What does that accomplish? Paying the millennium? And furthermore, I don’t need to talk about the damage that’s done to properties, property values, the fact that we have to pay for these sidewalks, pay for a hazard.

It doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. So on that basis, why should we even pay for a hazard? I really don’t see any need for these sidewalks whatsoever. I’d like to know what criteria it takes place to determine whether we get sidewalks or not.

Is that by one person that wants a sidewalk or two or three? Where is it determined by the neighborhood? Could you answer that question for me, please? Thank you.

Thank you. Are there other speakers? If so, if you can move towards the microphones, either you can stay in your name and you have five minutes. My name is Beverly Lazar and I live on Maxwell Crescent near the McLean and Glenora intersection.

I just wanted to reiterate that the destruction of the trees does impact the canopy of London, which is one of London’s focuses, as well as the enjoyment of our neighborhood has much to do with the nature. It’s going to drastically impact at least the birds and the squirrels. I just, our family is very opposed to having any sidewalks implemented. We don’t have a problem with traffic.

We’ve never had a problem walking on the roads. We see people walking on the roads all over the time and there’ve been no issues that I’m aware of. And I would like to have information about where you can get more information about the justification for this plan. I’m not sure where it would be online, but the idea about the traffic problems or the reason for the connectivity, I don’t believe that today’s collection of very passionate people really represents how many people would be here if they weren’t at work or what have you, because the participation in the petitions has been so overwhelming and so overwhelmingly against the sidewalks.

So I just wanted to say that. I’m sure there would be many more people here if it were maybe at a different time of day or a different way of providing this kind of message. Thank you. Thank you.

Any further speakers? Any online? Okay, seeing no further speakers, I will look for a motion mover and a seconder to close the public participation meeting. Councillor Cuddy and Councillor McAllister.

This is for Northridge, so we will close the public participation meeting once we open the vote for Northridge and we’ll move on to discussion and debate after we go through some of those questions. Okay, so we’ll look up to open the vote. Councillor Van Merebergen. Hello, yes.

Opposing the vote, the motion carries five to zero. Thank you. Before we begin discussion on Northridge, I want to go back to some of the questions that were asked by members of the public and just help to clear up some of those outstanding questions. So some of them were interrelated, so I will just kind of put those questions together.

Those were related to the criteria for deciding where sidewalk should be placed, as well as the justification. And I know, Ms. Dan, you mentioned the policy by which you’re following with this, but if you just wanted to provide any more commentary on that, Ms. Dan.

Yes, through the chair, as I mentioned earlier, the goal of our NCP process is to find a balanced approach to the current mobility policy. In doing that, we did look at community input in terms of destinations, desire routes, feedback for where people felt safe, versus where some folks did comment on feeling less safe walking on streets, but the other balance of it is looking at other policies that we have to consider as well, and that includes our equity framework from our anti-racism and anti-oppression policies, our climate emergency lens, these are all things that council is also directed that we consider when we look at recommendations. So this was meant to be a holistic approach that certainly took into the feedback of the neighborhood who helped us understand the trends and how people move and how they use their streets, and then tried to balance that with the applicable policies. Thank you.

And we also had a question regarding the timing or how often local road reconstruction takes place. Yes, thank you through the chair. And I appreciate the question. The timing that’s been indicated on the NCP map and the table within the report, that’s an indication of when those streets are in the warrant zone to be reconstructed.

So if it’s identified under a local road reconstruction program, that’s because the Paven Quality Index has reached a level that within one to five, six to 10 or beyond years, that Paven Quality is gonna get to the point where we’re gonna be coming in anyways to fix the road. Sometimes the trigger might be if the underground infrastructure needs to be repaired, if we have to fix the sewers or the water mains, that may be the trigger. And so the table indicates the timing for when we anticipate that that need would arise and which program would likely trigger it in some cases where we have more strategic or priority sidewalk connections where we don’t have infrastructure needs coming up. That’s when the new sidewalk program could be used to come in, we’re not rebuilding the road, but we can do a quick construction of a sidewalk on those key gaps.

Thank you. Those are all the questions that I had that were put forward. Before we begin conversation on this, I’m wondering, is there a mover and seconder for the recommendation? Okay, I’ve got Councillor Trozzo and Councillor Cuddy.

Yes, I’d like to move the staff report. I was going to add several conditions, but it seems as if you’ve covered them by saying that many of those questions would come up during the second point. So I’ll move the staff report as it is. Okay, so we have a mover for the staff report and Councillor Cuddy, you were second.

I’m gonna move the motion by Councillor Provol that we, is it, is it long? No, it’s not. Oh, six, I apologize. Thank you, and that’s what I did.

I asked for a seconder to the motion. That’s what I was looking for. Through you Chair, I’ll make an amendment to the staff report. Just a moment, there’s a lot of cross debate guys right now, if, sorry, members of council, or committee, can we just hold on a second?

We’re just looking at both the motion as well as Councillor Pervall had submitted some language that Councillor Cuddy did agree to move. We’re just looking whether or not, if you were to second it, if that, if you were to consider that, ‘cause you asked about whether or not you could second and make an amendment, just looking at the language. Thank you, Chair. If there’s no seconder for the staff report, then it will just— Yes, then what we would do is we’d look to put an alternative motion on the floor.

Thank you. Okay, so right now we’re going to deal with the motion that’s on the floor, which I’m looking for a seconder. I’ve not heard from anyone willing to second. So with that, I’ll look for an alternative motion to be put forward.

Councillor Cuddy, you’re looking to put an alternative motion forward. Thank you, Chair. I’ll put the, move the alternative motion. Do you have an in front of you to read, or would you like me to read it?

Could you read it, please? And it was sent yesterday, it was circulated yesterday to members of the committee, but I will read it out, and we will also put it on the screen. So this is the motion by which you’re looking for a seconder. So that the Northridge Neighborhood Connectivity Plan, as appended to the staff report dated November 14th, 2023, be approved to inform the annual renewal lending construction program with the exception of the proposed Glengary Avenue, Delkeeth Avenue, Algoma Avenue, Glengile Crescent, Denboying Crescent, Maxwell Crescent, and Tweed Crescent sidewalks.

So do you have a seconder? I do. Councillor Van Merebergen, it’s going to be second. I’ll second.

Thank you. Okay, so I have a seconder with Councillor Van Merebergen. Okay. So I have a mover and seconder, I’m looking for discussion on the motion.

I’ll go to Council, I’ll go to committee members first, and then to visiting Councillors, I understand Councillor Pribble that you want to provide context, and I do agree that that will be helpful. So I’ll go to Councillor McAllister, then Councillor Cuddy, and then I will move to other members that are not on the committee. Councillor McAllister, go ahead. Thank you, and through the chair.

And I do appreciate the ward councilor who represents this area being here today to speak to this issue. I’m sure he’ll have a lot to say. Having done a lot of canvassing in terms of the sidewalk program, I can say, this is one of those issues that does divide communities. I don’t like to see that, but I can understand where people have their passions in terms of their properties, and what they like to see in terms of their neighborhood.

For me, the red line is usually in terms of areas around schools, and whether there’s enough of a push in terms of the families, especially. For my own perspective, where I’ve seen neighborhoods really push for the sidewalks, where there is legitimate concerns in terms of the safety, especially around kids walking to school. From what I’ve heard thus far, though, I haven’t seen that. I know the council will probably speak to that more, but in terms of what I’ve heard so far, the western portion of the sidewalks, which is what Councillor has suggested we approve, seem to fit in terms of what’s needed for the neighborhood, but the eastern portion does not currently.

What I would also say is, for a lot of what I’ve heard today, really does boil down to if there’s a desire in the neighborhood petitions speak to that, and I’ve seen that in terms of petitions, whether that be for sidewalks or traffic calming for street lights, and so if there is a desire in the neighborhoods, I would say to residents that that is a very good route to take, and if you can reach that threshold, that that is a good avenue to utilize. And I haven’t seen that in terms of the report. I understand what staff have tried to do. I’m not knocking them because this is the direction that they’ve been given, and they’ve done their job, so I appreciate where they’re coming from, but I also appreciate what we’ve heard from the community, so thank you for the input.

Thank you, okay, I’ll go over to Councillor Cady. Go ahead. Thank you, Chair, and through you, my colleague mentioned earlier that he didn’t see any letters in the added report, but what’s really important, Chair, is all of these people who took their time to come today, and thank you, ‘cause this is what’s really important. You taking the time out of your day to come and speak to us and tell us what you want, and I’m grateful to that.

I know all of my committee members are grateful, and my colleague, your council reached out to me last week, told me how important this was, what he’s heard, and the fact that you’ve come up today, and you’ve spoken to us, and we appreciate it, and we thank you, and thank you for taking the time, and that’s all I have to say, Chair, and I’m very grateful that we have this opportunity to discuss it, thank you. Thank you, I want to acknowledge that visiting Councillor Ferreira is here as well. Thanks for joining us in this conversation. I will go to, okay, Councillor Trosso, would you like to wait until Councillor Provelle speaks, ‘cause he had his hand up next?

Okay, so I’ll go to the ward, Councillor, first, next, and then I’ll go to Councillor Trosso. Okay, thank you, Chair. My full council, if you can go to page 18 under printed, or if it’s not printed, go on page 19, electronic, where is the map, I just want to walk you through, through the reasoning why the motion is supporting certain streets, crescents, and certain not. And if you can look at, we’ll start with the Glengiriaaf, and Glengiriaaf, as you can see on the east side, has a sidewalk all the way between Glengiria and Fanshawe, and I spent, by the way, just so you know, during the last two weeks, I really spent a lot of time in this neighbourhood.

I just want to let you know that out of 28 individuals walking on this street, on this street, there was never any issue, they were always walking on the sidewalk, and when it goes to the Claremont, where the sidewalk ends, everyone crossed, and they went north all the way to Fanshawe, or from Fanshawe, all the way down south on, sorry, on the east side, south towards the Glenora. So there was never any issues there, and there’s a proposal from the staff to extend from Claremont to Fanshawe for the second sidewalk on the opposite side, certainly don’t see a need that whatsoever, and by Claremont, yes, there should be, I would recommend a cross pedestrian crosswalk so people can walk over. If I go to the Glengiria west, those are the four streets, four roads, avenues that I’m supporting, and the reason why I’m supporting is that I did end up talking, by the way, to 24 students, 15 of them would prefer sidewalk, nine of them had no opinion as there were no issues. But one thing is, in these streets that I’m mentioning, North Vernon started already with the sidewalk, so where you see it’s already there.

By the way, if anyone is here from North Vernon, I do realize we need to do better in terms of the sidewalk, and currently we have actually cars scratching the bottom of their cars, which we will fix. So there’s the extension to the North Vernon, and then all the way around between Vermont and Lauderdale on the east side, or the north side, there’s actually enough space between the hydro poles and the street to actually extend for the curb face sidewalks. So that would certainly work. I don’t know if to end it, I’ll leave it with the staff in terms of the North Vernon, or go all the way to the end, because the staff is telling me about the path there that there could be or should be traffic, so I think that this certainly would make more sense to me.

If I look at the LTCO transportation, I’m going now to the east of Glengarry. We received five out of the seven proposed to the east. We received five petitions, one which we haven’t received was from Tress Crescent, which we have a representation here from, and also we didn’t receive one from Glengarry. So we do have proposals, sorry, we do have petitions from all the streets that we are really proposing.

So the people that live on these streets, they don’t want them, they don’t want the sidewalks, and they have, I’m not going to repeat all the reasons that have been already said here. But one thing is, if you look at this, we are right now investing in the street lights all the way from Glengarry, all the way to Fanshawe Park Road. So it’s safe, and we have Fanshawe Park Road, we have the sidewalk, we have Glengarry all the way as well. So we are really addressing the people that are cutting through mainly.

If you look, if you want us to look at the map, and someone told me, yeah, but algoma, they can first of all, there was a very good point made that we are doing Dalkeeth and then algoma some years later. But if you look at this, there is very little time savings and distance, people just need to go around, and there’s no more. If you look at the lengths, what was said by staff few minutes ago, there is no safer, there’s the lights that we are installing, making an investment, there’s no safer place to get around to the LTC, to the schools, just go around, and then there’s the potential distance for, not for cutting through, but the people that live there, the distance, they don’t want the sidewalks, we already heard that. So that’s why support, or sorry, not support of the one on the east, people who live there, they don’t want it, people who are cutting through, if you look at the map, it’s gonna be additional two, three minutes to get around, but it’s safe.

It’s even to the park on Fanshawe, same thing. There’s no need for the two halves, because if they do wanna go safe way, they can go all the way to Fanshawe, then turn right and get to the park. So we do have options, and in my eyes, if you look at the lens where we’ll talk about our staff, this is actually a safe for options, in terms of the street lights. Jordan, I talk to 23 students and 41 residents, living and cutting through, who are walking on these roads, I ask them, if they have had any safety concerns, if they know of any others they would, or if they saw or heard any accidents, I honestly, from all these, that I talk to, I receive zero.

If you look at the feedback we received, overwhelmingly, it is against the sidewalks. Councilor, you have a couple more minutes or seconds. Couple more minutes or seconds. Couple more seconds.

Second. So I’m just gonna finish this, that we are here to serve people, the people have spoken. I do think, just so you know, I do think that we should revisit this, not pushing because we are having challenging times and put additional pressures on the people. I don’t think it’s fair, and the neighborhood doesn’t want it.

There are many reasons why there is no need for the ones east that I’ve promoted, and I hope I will get a support of this committee. Thank you very much, and if you have any questions, I’ll be more than happy to answer them, thank you. Thank you. Okay, I have Councilor Chassa, go ahead.

I’d like to start by asking the staff a question to the chair. You said here today and you listened to the objections, and I know you were listening to them carefully. Are these the types of objections that you can deal with in the phase two of the consultation, especially with respect to being careful not to take down trees and using the alternative sidewalk technology? Ms.

Stan? Through the chair. So what we’re essentially recommending is where a sidewalk should go to be designed in the future with engagement with the street. An alternative would be to have that approval of any given sidewalk recommendation subject to bringing that street-level engagement back to this committee before going forward.

So there’s an opportunity to see once the design is completed, that’s another option. So it’s really sort of, you can decide whether to approve the plan in part in whole, not at all, or there’s the additional option of asking us to bring a design back before having it go forward for approval, but then that would be down the road at the time of reconstruction. Councillor? Okay, well, especially based on what you just said through the chair, I’m not gonna support this amendment.

And I appreciate the fact that a lot of people came out to speak, a lot of people came out to speak against it. But based on what I’ve been told by the staff throughout this process, many of these concerns can be dealt with and alleviated, either administratively through the staff, or as you just suggested, which I think is a even better idea, bringing them back to council before they’re implemented. And with that, the only other point I wanna raise, I would be a lot happier with the substitute motion if for each of these streets, you actually cited, well, I mean, we have the London plan. And in section 349 of the London plan, we have seven criteria for what the exceptions are.

I think your motion would be stronger, and I think it’ll hold up at council better. If for each of the streets that you wanna take off of this, you actually indicated which one of these seven subdivisions you were coming under. But you’re not doing that. What you’re saying is, well, we’ve got petitions, people don’t want this.

As much as that’s persuasive, it’s not really built into one of the criterias in the London plan. And I think that we’re bound by using what’s in the London plan. And if we think that the London plan is defective, and if we think that section 349 needs to be amended, ‘cause I believe this is what governs our conduct right now, if we believe that section 349 needs to be amended, we should have a discussion about amending it. But I am satisfied that the flexibility that this staff has shown in terms of a couple of safety valves here, particularly this coming back to this committee, if we so choose before anything is dug up, does not lead me to want to support this carte bonch at this point without further justification under one of these seven criteria.

And I would invite the maker of the substitute motion, perhaps, to withdraw it for now, defer this and come back with an explanation about the seven criteria. We can’t ignore the seven criteria as much as we’d like to. As much as we want to be, as much as we want to listen to people in the gallery, we pass this London plan. And you’re asking us to not follow it.

And I think that we can either make the motion a little bit more specific as to each street that you want to take. We could either make the motion a little bit more specific, I’m sorry, am I out of order? Okay, we could either make the motion more specific in terms of the grounds for each one, which I think is doable, which I think is doable, or we could talk about changing this. But the fact of the matter is, there are very serious policy regions, which other than the first speaker, we’re really not reflected in this room today, behind why we have the active mobility section of this London plan, and why we’ve enacted very, very specific, very specific seven exceptions.

So you have to come within one of the exceptions, and I don’t think you’ve done that. So I think that the motion is defective, I think you could fix it, but I am not gonna be supporting this motion as it’s been drafted. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Councillor Cudi, I saw your hand up. I do have Deputy Mayor Lewis next, and then your second round of comments, if that’s okay. Okay, I’ll go to Deputy Mayor Lewis. Next, go ahead.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and I appreciate colleagues taking the time to listen to me today as a visiting member of this committee. I thought it was important for two reasons. One, in the item that was pulled that we’ll discuss later, I have a lot of new sidewalks, and so I wanna make some comments about that. But also, because as I look around the horseshoe today, I’m cognizant of only myself and Councillor Van Meerberg and have been through this process before as members of Council.

And I will say I went through this myself in the last term on Buck and Road, and while there were many objections to the sidewalk before its installation, after the installation, I hear nothing but positive feedback and good things about it. Now, that comes to the point that both Councillor Trussow and Ms. Dan raised about involving the neighborhood in the design because we went from a traditional sidewalk to occur facing sidewalk. It did prevent a church re-loss, and that was one of the key concerns in that area.

So I do absolutely first of all agree that the design consultation piece is important, and I will not exactly echo, but I will build on what Councillor Trussow was saying in that, and I’m not gonna to ask the mover and seconder to manage this on the floor. I’d be happy to work with them heading up to Council rather than saying with the exception of the proposed, doing a referral back on the proposed for some further engagement, so that we’re not taking them right out of the plan, but we are saying more engagement needs to happen before we make a decision on those, and I say that for a couple of reasons. I agree with the Councilor Glenn Gary. We already have a sidewalk on one side.

I really don’t feel the need to do two sides on every street, and I will say, section 349 of the London Plan, I absolutely think does need to be amended to reflect that. I think one side retrofit is quite a reasonable approach, and where we already have one side, I don’t feel the need to do two. I also think the Councilor raised excellent points as did members of the public, about cressants where we’re proposing only a sidewalk on half. If we’re gonna make the argument that a sidewalk belongs on a crescent, it should be the whole thing.

Not just half of it leading up to the park, because people may be coming from the other half of the crescent to the park. So it’s gotta be, if we’re going to entertain those, to me, it has to be the length of the crescent, not a segment. So I share that for food for thought moving forward, because I do agree, I did hear somebody say, “Why would you only do half a crescent?” And that creates a greater danger, because people then move from the sidewalk to the road, and I fully agree with that. So whether a full sidewalk on those cressants is appropriate or not, is a matter for a discussion in the future, I think a half a sidewalk doesn’t make sense.

So I can see where the Councilor is going on there. But I will say to the members of the public as well, I do appreciate you coming and taking the time today. But I do think it’s important to underline part of what Councilor Trussau said. We can’t take just the opinion of, we don’t see the need for one, as our sole decision-making.

We do have to think about the complete streets designs that we are trying to implement in neighborhoods across the city, both new and existing. We do have to take into consideration traffic, engineering, and those public safety components, not just for the people who live there today, but for the people who will live there in the future. Because the time will come, when whether it’s one of you, whether it’s myself, whether it’s Councilor Trussau, whether it’s Councilor Pribble, when we won’t be here anymore, and somebody else will be calling our home home. And we need to think about those folks in the future as well.

So typically on these local streets, and I don’t want to put words in Ms. Dan’s mouth because I have a few PQIs that I think need to be revisited in Ward 2 as well. But I think that for the most part, we’re typically looking at anywhere from a 25 to 30 year sort of timeframe where local roads are expected to last, sometimes 50, depending on how they’re engineered and the time they were built. So the window to do these in coordination with other road work is often very small.

And so if you miss the opportunity, then you’re jamming in outside of other work in the future, and that doesn’t make a lot of sense either. So I see where the Councilor’s trying to go. I respect that. I respect some of the concerns that I heard from the community today.

I’ll happily work with Councilor offline to see if there’s a way to improve this for Council. But I will say, I don’t like the idea of just accepting a bunch of streets that are recognized right now. I think there’s an opportunity to refer these for further discussion and some detailed design work before making a final decision on them. So I don’t probably share the same sort of comments on the next PPM.

So I’ll just say Ditto when that time comes. But I think that there’s a number of factors we have to balance here. And I think there were some good points raised today that some of these don’t really quite fit. Thank you, exactly on time.

Any further speakers? Okay, Councilor Cuddy, sorry, I’ll go back to you. Go ahead. Thank you, Chair and through you.

I’d like to remind committee that the London Plan is a guideline. It’s not the gospel, it’s not chiseled in stone. It is a guideline. And I know this because on Second Street at Oxford, we’re doing a development there and across in Fanshawe.

And we’ll make some changes to the London Plan to make it work. So it is a guideline and we are allowed to make changes to it. I appreciate and respect my colleagues’ opinions that I should change my motion. My motion will stay as is.

I can ask my seconder if he still wants a second, but I will not be changing. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Any Councilor McAllister and then Councilor McAllister, if you will take the chair so I can speak.

Thank you. Okay, thank you and through the chair. I do appreciate the discussion we’ve had today. A lot of good insight that I’ve gained from it, both from the public and from my colleagues.

I do actually agree with both Councillor Trosto and Deputy Mayor Lewis. I think the consultation could definitely do with some work. I think there is an opportunity to refine this a bit more. So I am a bit disappointed that there’s not better language in this in terms of going back and looking at some of these ‘cause the Deputy Mayor’s point, I do agree in terms of some of the presence, having the sidewalks on one side.

But I do think there are larger issues and longer term issues at play that we need to factor in. We need to build a city, not just for ourselves, but for future generations. And I think that that’s a factor we have to consider. I do often hear, you know, a lot of time, you know, I’ve lived in the neighbourhood for so many years and I appreciate that.

And that’s great that you’ve found that to be your home. But I think we also have to think to the future and what future Londoners are looking for in terms of active transportation and being able to get around their neighbourhoods. So I think that, unfortunately, I can’t support this as is ‘cause I do think that this needs a bit more work and I would like to see it referred. Thank you.

Thank you, if you don’t mind taking the chair for me. Thank you, recognising that I have the chair. Go ahead, Councillor Rome. Thank you and through you.

I wanna first start by thanking the public for attending today and for all those that took the time to write into council and committee members about this matter. I truly appreciate hearing from residents on all sides of this. I will say that we’re wearing our hat here as members of Committee of Civic Works, but we also have some former hats at play as well. Councillor Cuddy and I both represented this area as trustees for Thames Valley District School Board.

So we’re intimately aware of the neighbourhood. I remember canvassing this neighbourhood in 2018 when I ran for a trustee as well, talking to neighbours about school issues. And this past weekend, I spent an hour and a half with Councillor Pribble going street by street with him, looking at the connectivity, talking through what some of the concerns were from neighbours, but also challenging him on his position around some of these roads and the amendments that he was looking to put forward. However, I did find that he came from a place of knowledge and understanding of not only what the neighbourhood needs were, but also of how users are using those roadways currently, but also looking at what the future may look like as well.

So I think that there was an opportunity to get an understanding from actually being on those streets. Beautiful neighbourhood, absolutely beautiful. The tree cover, I absolutely see why neighbours are so inclined to want to protect that tree cover. And last year, when we were having this discussion in White Hills, that was exactly where the neighbours in my community were, they wanted to protect that tree canopy.

So I’m not sure if we’re able to, but through you, I’d like to ask staff what I know we’ve talked about expectancy in terms of some of the trees in the area, what kind of mitigation strategies, other than curb facing, can we look at in order to protect the canopy, or how much of the canopy is at risk based on putting in these sidewalks? Thank you, and through the chair. So removal of trees is never our first choice. We really do strive to reduce our tree impacts as much as possible while balancing our need for safe and reliable infrastructure.

When it comes time to reconstruct a street, there’s a lot of reasons why a tree might be impacted, and sidewalks is not the only one. Many times when we’re going to reconstruct the road, even if it’s just surface works to put it back like, for like even removing a curb can have an impact on the critical root structure. If you have trees that have spent generations growing around that structure. So we have to look at the safety of the trees, whether it’s underground servicing, that can sometimes, the trenching that has to happen, can have an impact on trees.

We also, before we start any project, do a full arborist review of the health of the existing trees. As I mentioned, sometimes looking at a tree, it’s hard to tell whether there are any health issues associated with it. So again, when we come to that second stage of engagement, we’re looking at the assessment of the trees, what’s going to be impacted by the construction, regardless of a sidewalk, and it helps inform where we might site a sidewalk within. If we know that we have poor health and we’re losing five out of eight trees on one side of a road, anyways, maybe that’s an opportunity to say, well, can we also look at putting a sidewalk in here?

Again, at this stage of the conversation, we’re just looking at the blueprint level to say, what are those key connections we want to protect for? It’s too early to know how those impacts would play out, and that’s why we do that street level engagement as we’re coming into the design stage for those future projects. Thank you. Sorry.

So just to continue on with my— No, go ahead. With my commentary. So yeah, I’m supportive of the motion that’s in front of us. I do understand why my colleagues have some concerns around how we’re implementing the London Plan and specifically around our policy on this item.

However, I do think that there’s some imperfection in the way that we’re doing this. As we’re engaging the community and we’re hearing considerable feedback, to then go in and then make the recommendation and then go back again after design is done, I think while that makes sense from an engagement strategy, I do think that people expect that their voices will be heard. And so I think that this interim step where we have the opportunity to look at this and we should be looking at this street by street because even though we may be counselors for a specific ward or area, neighbors and residents know their area best. And I do think that we have to respect that voice and I’ll be supporting this motion for that reason.

I will take the chair back for Councilor Callister. I’m turning the chair to Councilor Roman. Thank you so much. And I’ll look for any further speakers to the Northridge Neighborhood Connectivity Plan.

Madam Chair, I’d just speak if I could. Thank you, go ahead, Councilor Van Mirbergen. Well, as the Deputy Mayor stated, he and I were both through this in the last term of Council in a very big way. There was a lot of blowback and opposition to many of the streets that were identified to put sidewalks in and let’s keep in mind these were sidewalks for retrofitting older neighborhoods.

And so when you have an area that’s 50, 60, sometimes 70 years old, decades of residents raising their families and so on. And then all of a sudden we want to retrofit new sidewalks. It’s very disconcerting, very upsetting to many of these streets. Now, barring a real safety issue, cutting their lawns, removing mature trees, it’s just not what they want and frankly not what is needed.

And so it’s incumbent upon us as the local government to listen to these residents. And if the majority of the residents in a certain area on a certain street don’t want the sidewalk, who are we to override them and dictate and impose when it’s clearly not warranted? I’m 100% behind this motion and hopefully we can garner a unanimous vote on this current motion. Thanks, Chair.

Thank you, Councillor. Okay. It looks like I’ve exhausted my speakers list for members of committee and visiting Councillors. With that, we have a motion on the floor and I will look to open that motion for voting.

I’ll vote yes. Using the vote, the motion carries three to two. Thank you. Okay.

My colleagues, we have another public participation meeting, the Huron Heights Neighborhood Connectivity Plan. I am looking to move on this item unless somebody is looking to take a break before we go forward. Okay, not seeing that interest. Okay, so this is item 3.2 and our scheduled items.

It is the Huron Heights Neighborhood Connectivity Plan before we begin with public participation meeting. I’ll go over to Ms. Stan for a quick presentation and then we’ll look to open the public participation meeting. Thank you and through the chair.

So for the public participation meeting for Huron Heights, I have a similar summary. The Huron Heights area was identified for 2023 and CP engagement as both the local road reconstruction and new sidewalk programs have identified needs in the area in the coming years. This allows us to have that community conversation in advance of those projects. The neighborhood was constructed between 1958 and 1968.

The area is home to more than 10,500 residents with more than half of those people living in homes and the remainder living in either apartments or condos. Huron Heights is served by four elementary schools with Montcom and John Paul II High Schools nearby. Huron Heights has several local parts and connecting trails as well as recreational facilities. These include Huron Heights Park, the Northeast Pool, Genevieve Park, North London Optimist Community Center, Stronic Arena and Community Center, as well as Pawnee Park and Ted Early Soccer Fields.

Again, the red boundary indicates the NCP review area and the orange lines indicate the location of existing sidewalks. The long winding roads and crescent seen in Huron Heights are reflective of the design principles of the 1960s with only streets built with sidewalks being the neighborhood connector streets. The four quadrants of the Huron Heights NCP area are each structured in a slightly different way and they each have their own pedestrian destinations. So for each quadrant, the NCP recommendations focused on community feedback, pedestrian destinations and desire lines while also considering available neighborhood data, complete streets guidelines, the anti-racism, anti-oppression equity tool and our climate emergency screening tool.

At the same time, the NCP recognizes that clear feedback that we heard from this neighborhood as well that looking to avoid impacts to trees, driveways and landscaping. And so the NCP recommends exemptions to policy 349 for shorter low traffic crescents and courts that have no other pedestrian connections. In total, sidewalks are recommended for 20 streets in the Huron Heights neighborhood to be built at a time when they’re reconstructed. Alternatively, an exemption to the policy 349 is recommended for 38 streets, 24 crescents and 14 courts.

And so just for a little bit of context on that, I’m gonna just really quickly walk through each of the four quadrants of this area. We’ve got the section that’s west of Highbury. This quadrant has quite a bit of high density residential to the north of Victoria Road, including a seniors apartment at Cecilia Ave. We heard concerns about cut-through traffic combined with a high volume of pedestrians using Victoria and Genevieve crescents to access commercial areas to the east or to the school and park space to the west.

There’s also a number of well-used public path connections along these streets. Sidewalks are recommended for Victoria, Genevieve crescents, Michael Maas Street and Rock Street in this area. Between Highbury and Sanford, there are no sidewalks in this quadrant of the neighborhood at this point. We heard complaints about traffic speeds and poor driver compliance at stop signs.

The sidewalk recommendations for this part of Huron Heights aim to re-establish a bit of a more traditional pedestrian grid, so it did that by focusing on the spine of Petan Drive and then the cross streets that have connections to either other streets or pathways. If we go east of Sanford, staff had previously received requests for sidewalks on Tukesbury Crescent to support pedestrian connectivity for Evelyn Harris in public school. Based on feedback received and our neighborhood information, the NCP also recommends adding sidewalks to Perth Avenue, Perth Street and Sorrel Road to further support connections around the school. Sidewalks are recommended for Farnsboro Crescent along with a short connection on Langton Road, as Farnsboro was noted by many residents as a key neighborhood access point to the south.

And then Caledar was identified for a sidewalk due to its length and connection to employment lands. We recognize we did hear a lot of feedback about protecting the tree canopy for this street. It’s quite lovely and staff in this case left this on the recommendation because we’re quite confident we could find a design that would put the sidewalk behind the trees and protect for the streetscape. North of Highbury, the recommendations in this quadrant focus on improving connection to Chippewa Public School in Kayuga Park, which was recently upgraded and is also a busy site for organized sports.

Sidewalk connections are recommended for Kayuga Crescent, Pawnee Road and Pawnee Gate. We heard from some residents that the lack of sidewalks combined with frequent on-stream parking makes these streets feel unsafe when walking with children. In addition to the sidewalks, the NCP suggests monitoring the need for a new pedestrian crossing where Kayuga Crescent meets Oakville Avenue. Residents noted high pedestrian traffic and some concerns around safety.

And then staff have also identified seven locations throughout this entire area where we noticed pathway access points that weren’t meeting AODA standards. So you had a little bit of a barrier curb, you couldn’t ramp them. So we’ve flagged those to be upgraded with ramps and tactile plates. So with that, that’s my brief summary for the hearing heights.

I’ll turn it back to the chair to see open public participation. Thank you. Okay, so I will look for a mover and seconder to open the public participation meeting for hearing heights neighborhood connectivity plan. Moved by Councilor McAllister, second by Councillor Cuddy, and we’ll open that for voting.

I’ll vote yes. Opposing the vote, the motion carries five to zero. Thank you. And we have no one in gallery.

We are just going to double check that there is no one looking to speak online. We have no one online as well. So I’ll do one last call for anyone that’s looking to speak on the hearing heights connectivity plan and seeing and hearing none. I will look for a mover and seconder to close the public participation meeting, Councillor Cuddy, seconded by Councillor McAllister.

And we’ll open that for voting. Councillor Vameer-Burgen. I’ll vote yes. Thank you, closing the vote.

Motion carries five to zero. Thank you. So I will look to, oh, I have Councillor Trasso with his hand up to speak on this. Okay, go ahead.

Yes, I’d like to move to staff report. Okay, do I have a seconder for the staff report? Councillor McAllister. Okay, so I will look for debate on the motion.

Anyone looking to speak to, okay, Councillor Cuddy, go ahead. Thank you, through you, Chair, because this is my word, I know it intimately. And I’ve had many discussions with Mr. Dan about the sidewalks and the connectivity program.

And we’ve gone through a number of town halls and community meetings. And my residents have spoken quite vocally about where they do not want sidewalks. And they mentioned a lot of reasons. And I’m sorry they’re not here in the gallery today or they’re not online, but that doesn’t mean that they’re not interested in this.

They are. And they’ve spoken to me, they call me, they email me, I spend time out in that ward as visiting with them. And they truly have identified a couple of areas, which we have in the motion that they don’t want sidewalks. And I could go into the technical details for my colleagues and I’d rather not at this stage, but sorry.

Thank you, Councillor. Are you looking to move an amendment? Yes, an amendment to the motion. Yes.

I think you have that, Chair. Thank you. Just a moment. Can I continue?

Sorry. Okay, so this was an amendment. This is a motion that you circulated, which now you’re looking to amend with the following streets. Yes.

So if you’d like, I can read that in, but I do know this is circulated to members of the committee that the motion be amended by adding the words excluding the proposed Caledair Drive. Hope I said that right. Kyuga Crescent, Irving Place, Mark Street and Michael Street sidewalks. Please.

Seconder to that amendment. Are you looking to second, Councillor McMaster? Okay, comment. I’ll start.

Well, I haven’t finished speaking yet. Sorry. Okay, just a moment. Sorry.

Irving’s not on that street. It’s not on there. I apologize. It’s not on there.

Irving Place, did I not say it at lab? Sorry. Yeah, it’s hard. Oh, sorry, one second.

Just a moment. I just want to consult the list so that we have that correct in the amendment. Thank you. Okay, I see what you’re saying.

So in the amended version, we had Irving Place, but we’re taking that out. So that will be removed for your motion to amend. And you had a seconder. I heard Councillor Van Mirbergen agreed to second.

Correct. I will second. Okay, thank you. So we have a motion as an amendment, sorry, first to deal with on the original motion.

And the motion, the amendment is for Caledir Drive, Kyuga Crescent, Mark Street and Michael Street, sidewalks and over to you, Councillor Cuddy, to continue. Thank you, Chair. And just in conclusion, I am grateful again to staff for putting sidewalks on Tukesbury by the school, which are very badly needed. And also a heavily traveled area because of a lot of Fanshawe students.

And also on Pawnee, which is a feeder street for Chippewa. So it also has a number of crosswalks there for pedestrian crosswalks, so they for kids. So thank you very much for that. And I look forward to support for the my amendment to the motion.

Thank you. Thank you. Okay, so we’ve got an amendment on the floor right now. Any speakers to the amendment?

Councillor Chaso. Through the chair. May I ask the staff if you could briefly respond to the streets and the motion that are being taken out. And if you have any comments about that?

Ms. Stan? Yes, through the chair. So the NCP recommendations that are brought forward is staff recommendation based on all those policies that I mentioned.

As I said, committee has the opportunity to approve it in whole, in part, or not at all. So it seems like that’s the direction that you’re headed in. In terms of the ones that have been removed, as I mentioned, just highlighting some of the logic that we had for these recommendations. Kayuga was really to be able to support connection to Kayuga Park and the Michael and Mark Street area, those were trying to create that pedestrian grid structure.

And as I mentioned with Caledar, that was one that we felt that the length of the street and the connection to employment lands supported that. But again, recognizing that staff was fairly confident, we would be able to find a solution to protect the streetscape. Given it has large front yards, long driveways, we’d be able to do potentially a large boulevard to protect the trees. Thank you.

So through the chair to everybody, on the merits then, I’m not going to be supporting this amendment. And may I say for the same reasons that I discussed in the last motion, or should I go through all of them again for the record, or can I just incorporate what I said? I’d like to see briefly, I’d like to see, I’d like to see more of an identification of the exemption that they’re coming under. And yes, while it’s true that the London Plan has different interpretations in terms of how much we’re supposed to be following it, I do think that this is another example of us, if not ignoring, not following closely what’s in the London Plan.

I think we should either amend it. I would prefer to see these four streets taken back for further discussion. I’ll leave that to the maker of the motion as the amendment as to whether you want to do that. I think it would be wise.

But at this point, based on what’s on the table, I cannot support the amendment. Thank you. Thank you. Any additional speakers to the amendment?

Councilor McAlister. Thank you and through the chair. And I respect what both the Ward Councillors have done in terms of the amendments, you know, completely valid to listen to your constituents. I think I’m just trying to take a future approach to this.

One of the things I appreciate with the NCP, which I’ve seen in my own ward, is we’re not planning for the here and now, but we’re planning for the future. And although I do respect that people have lived in these neighborhoods for a very long time, I think one of the downfalls of London has been that we don’t plan for the future. And I want to see greater connectivity moving forward. And I think that this is one of the pieces of the puzzle that we’ve been missing for a long time, is that we’ve been planning in the here and now, and not planning for the future.

And I think that there is an opportunity for future engagement. I think there are opportunities in terms of changing the plan to better suit the needs of the neighborhood. But I think we’ve made far too many exemptions in the past, and it’s bid us an A.S. now.

And I think we need to start planning for the future. Thank you. Thank you for the colorful response. Councillor Cadi, go ahead.

Thank you, Chair. And I don’t disagree with what Councillor McAllister says. Let’s plan for the future. But we heard from the folks from Northridge that they’ve been there for 40 and 50 years, and they haven’t seen a noticeable increase in traffic, and they’ve survived there quite ably and well, and there haven’t been any accidents.

So I’m not sure we’ve heard people say many times, it’s a problem looking for a solution or whatever they say. Anyway, I don’t anticipate that there will be any more problems, whether it’s in Northridge or it’s in your own heights, because we haven’t had a problem there. And yeah, we’re looking at families, but we did hear young families talking about how they don’t want sidewalks for the reasons that they stated. And so, Chair, with all due respect to my colleagues, I think we need to listen to the residents.

And they’re not the residents in the future, by the way. They’re the residents now. So thank you very much, and I do hope I get your support for this motion. Thank you.

Thank you. Any additional speakers? Yes, Madam Chair, I’d like to speak. Okay, I’ll go to Councillor van Mirberg and then over to Councillor Pribble.

Thank you. I have to agree fully with Councillor Cuddy. We have to rely on the local Councillor, the local ward Councillor, about the fact that they know best in terms of their own particular area. So if I hear a local Councillor saying this road, that road, this other road doesn’t have support for sidewalks.

The majority do not want it. I take that, I take that to heart. And we have to go with the majority view of the tax paying residents. It’s their homes, their area.

Obviously, they’re more than comfortable with the status quo and the way things are. They have their own connectivity. They’ve forged it through decades of residents. And so we have to basically just use logic and common sense.

The fact is they don’t want it. They like what they’ve got. In most cases, it’s something that they’ve lived with, as I’ve said, for decades. So I’ll be supporting this amendment.

And I think Councillor Cuddy and also Councillor Pribble for bringing these amendments forward. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. I’ll go over to Councillor Pribble now.

Thank you, just a comment and supporting my, the two comments made by two full Councillors. And I just wanna say that I do believe that we need to revisit this. And I did ask, as a member of the Audit Committee, I asked for two areas. Our orders to look at value for the money.

And this is one initiative and the other one is homelessness. And I do think that until this is kind of put forward or we’ve revisit this, I would be standing behind the Councillor and especially the Councillors if we are doing our homework. And if we are coming up with, again, it’s not really just the support of the people, but really the reasons why we are not recommending. And as I said, just going back to mine, that it’s really cutting through and people are walking extra 100 meters or 50 meters when we provided a great lighting sidewalk, just for them not to be able to cut through potentially safe 30 seconds of time.

So anyways, I just wanna say, I totally agree. And I will, until this is revisited through London Plan and potentially through our auditors, value for money, I will certainly support the Councillors in these decisions because they are the ones who are daily speaking to people and they are the ones who are defending the reasoning behind it. So thank you very much. And I would be certainly at the council supporting the Councillors’ recommendation.

Thank you. Thank you. Seeing that we have no further speakers, I hope it’s okay with the committee that I speak from the chair. I just wanted to first thank staff for, again, providing the work that they have with this neighborhood connectivity plan for the countless hours of engagement that you’ve done.

I wanna thank Councillor Cuddy for his work as well with his constituents. Thank you for reaching out early for discussions on this. And I think this is one of those recommendations that we should say makes sense in terms of the neighborhood connectivity plan where we have 16 streets that are basically being recommended and four where we’re saying, you know what, not these four. And when I looked at the connectivity related to those streets, they were less about how they connect into the walkability for, let’s say, schools and things like that.

They were more about how they feed into the rest of the grid. So I trust that the word Councillor who has engaged with his residents knows that area very well and intimately knows those streets. And unfortunately, I hadn’t had a chance to drive down all of them, but I did drive down a bunch of them and walked them as well in a few cases. And I can tell you that I noticed similarly that where it really made a difference where you really saw the need was along some of the streets that were closer to the schools.

So thank you again for that engagement. I will be supporting this amendment. Councillor McAllister. Thank you for you two staff.

I just have a question in terms of the AOD guidelines and in terms of new subdivision construction and what’s required for sidewalks, because I think a lot of with the NCP, it’s this old way of building versus new way of building. And what are the current requirements in terms of sidewalk construction? Ms. Stan, he has through the chair without exception on new subdivision sidewalks are installed on both sides of every street.

Thank you, just to clarify, is that for subdivisions that were approved before a certain amount of time, before a certain point in time? In terms of the date that it comes into effect, I wouldn’t be able to speak to that. I’d have to check back in with my partners in the planning division. But I do know that the current policy is applied to, as we get new draft plans of subdivision for approval, they include sidewalks on both sides of every street.

Thank you. Okay, looking for any further speakers before we call the vote. Seeing none, we’ll open that for voting. Councillor Boehmeer for good.

I’ll vote yes, I’ll vote yes. Voting the vote, the motion carries, three to two. Okay, so that addresses the amendment. Now we’ll move back to the main motion.

Any speakers on the main motion? So we’re actually putting up the motion as amended and then looking for a mover and seconder for the motion as amended. Looking for a mover for I’ve Councillor Cuddy, I’ll second that motion. Any speakers, the motion as amended?

Seeing none, I will look to open that motion. Oh yes. Voting the vote, the motion carries, three to two. Okay, thank you everyone.

We are now on to item four, items for direction, which is what was 2.3, the new sidewalk project list for 2024. So this was in front of us just going back to the report to be received and looking for a mover and a seconder and then we can begin the conversation. Councillor Cuddy and Councillor McAllister, thank you. And I know that there was some interest in having this conversation about this item.

Any speakers to this? Or Deputy Mayor Lewis, go ahead. Thank you and I appreciate the committee again allowing me an opportunity to speak on this one. There’s a number of road reconstruction and new sidewalk program projects in ward two on this list.

And I will say despite the fact that there are some neighborhood objections on the Bow Street Burnside Drive, I’m very supportive of this. This is an active walk to school route for students at both JP Robarts and Holy Family Elementary Schools. There, Mr. Boss and Mr.

Hall were out last week. We did a main street with residents. And I apologize to them for being a little late ‘cause I arrived at the end of their presentation and at the time where we had a few residents who were not happy that they were getting a sidewalk. And then a couple of residents who were very happy and left when they found out it wasn’t on their side of the street because we’re only doing one side here that comes back to my original concern about retrofitting perhaps being more appropriate only on one side.

But the long and short of it is, I’ve heard many of the arguments that we heard today. I’ve lived here for 49 years. I’ve lived here for 38 years. My children walk to school without a sidewalk and it was just fine.

And I asked them, would you let your child walk today? And the one fellow said to me, not what the way London drivers are today. Well, that’s exactly why we needed the sidewalk. But the design there, we already know curb facing can fit.

So that is an option on that street. We have already put in speed cushions to slow traffic as a response to a neighborhood petition and a traffic study that did indicate that average speeds were above the posted limit by a reasonable amount to justify the traffic calming. So I’m very supportive of this. And again, it comes back to that multiple layers of factors that have to be considered not just the objections of the residents.

And I’ll tell you who didn’t show up at the main street. The 20 or so parents from the home and school association I talked to at the month, they’re monthly meeting about three weeks before who were all very supportive because they want their child to be able to walk to school. They don’t want to have to drive their child to school but they don’t feel safe with their child on the street. So often we hear the people who object and not the people who are actually supportive.

So I always balance that when I’m listening to public input on these things. That said, I recognize that counselors in other words have done their own engagement and they’ll take that for what it’s worth. But I did have one issue with the recommendations that are before us today. And it is found in Appendix A in the local road reconstruction projects.

The second item is Sovereign Court. This is a cul-de-sac in an industrial zone. This is not a residential zone. It is only 145 meters.

And the recommendation is construct new sidewalk on both sides. I fully support the Sovereign Road project listed ahead of it. There is transit service there. There are people who take the bus to get to work.

But for 150 meters to a dead-end cul-de-sac that serves one business and has a vacant lot. I can’t be supportive of that. And I can’t be supportive of it both because I genuinely don’t see the legitimate need but also because of the ongoing operational costs of plowing an extra 300 meters to go around a cul-de-sac to serve one business entrance. Which quite honestly seems to be predominantly drive to work employees.

The parking lot is always full. And I did a drive-by there again this morning before coming in just to refresh in my head exactly where we were talking about. So I would ask colleagues to consider and I hope that somebody on the committee will consider removing this one. I just don’t see the necessity for 150 meters of a cul-de-sac which is actually consistent with the exemptions under the London Plan for short distance cul-de-sacs and crescents.

So I think this one should be removed. Thank you. Councillor Tressa. Thank you very much for pointing to a very, very specific exemption.

And I’d just like to ask the staff if there’s any response to that. Is there a bus stop that people get off and use the sidewalk to get to this place? I just wanna satisfy myself. I thought the deputy mayor was very clear but could you just answer that?

Thank you, Ms. Stan. Yes, through the chair. I appreciate the feedback.

I think in particular with the industrial lands, we’ve been trying to go more with sidewalks than with less to be able to support employment. You make valid points about the length of the cul-de-sac. I honestly think the report does say both sides. I think it was meant to say one side.

I think definitely that is not necessarily warranted for both. We can certainly either not consider it going forward or another option would be to engage with the business at the end of the cul-de-sac and see what the makeup of their transit or their modalities for people getting to their employment businesses and if they think there’s value in it, but certainly not on both sides. We can take that back and look at it further. Thank you.

Any further speakers to cite him, Councillor Trossa? Is there an employee group there that you could also consult? Ms. Stan, we could certainly engage with the businesses that are on that cul-de-sac to see what their needs are.

I’m asking about employees who may view things differently than the employer. Ms. Stan, certainly we could, when we reach out to our contacts there and whatever contact information we can ask about whether there are any employment groups or any other, whatever sort of groups are part of that to employment group that would maybe have some thoughts that they want to feedback. We’ll try to take an inclusive approach to consulting with that.

Councillor? So if I understand it then you’re taking that off the table for the motion that’s in front of us now. Ms. Stan?

The motion in front of us is to receive the report. Yeah, so just to clarify for this report through the chair, this is meant to be our annual heads up on any of the projects that are coming up in our next year’s construction program where they would trigger. What we wanted to do is make sure that we’re taking a no surprises approach for any Councillors that may have a road project in their ward that is triggering a new sidewalk. We certainly will take back any feedback that you’d have.

We’re at the point now where we’re just heading into our design stage and so we’re certainly open to hearing feedback or any suggestions on how we should engage in designing those. Similar to what I had spoken to with the last agenda item, anywhere where we are, adding a new sidewalk, we will be doing that street level engagement, whether it was part of an NCP or not. And that’s the work that Daniel Hall and John Boss were just doing last week with the Burnside Drive. So these aren’t set in stone, these are just the ones where we’ve identified that through the design process we’ll consider opportunities for sidewalks.

The only other question then through the chair is may I, I know we shouldn’t do cross debate, but may I ask the Deputy Mayor what his feeling is on this? ‘Cause I’d like to defer to him on this. Sure, I’ll go back to the Deputy Mayor, go ahead. Certainly, I’m happy to respond to that.

The local road improvement project that’s happening on Sovereign Road is absolutely needed for our industrial areas. As I indicated, there is transit service on Sovereign Road. So I believe that the walkability is being met by the Sovereign Road project. I believe for the sake of operational moving forward and just in general the need.

So there may be two businesses that are referenced as having addresses on Sovereign Court, but one is actually front facing onto Sovereign Road. So while the address would be court, the entrance would be on Sovereign Road and accessed by the sidewalk there. So I genuinely think that this is just not a good investment of our money for 150 meters and that we should delete this one from the project. Thank you, back to the Councillor Trostle.

Yeah, thank you for clarifying that up. Based on your very detailed representation, so I’m going to make that motion to delete that for the reasons you stated. It’s a moment. We’re just checking to see if it’s something where we need to say with the motion to receive with the exception of and then put Sovereign Court, Deputy Mayor Lewis.

If I can suggest that the motion might read that the report be received and that civic administration be directed to remove Sovereign Court from the list in Appendix A. Thank you, that’s what we’re doing right now. Second that, Madam Chair. Okay, so we’re just posting that into E-Scribe for you.

It would be basically taking the motion and giving it a part A and B. So it’s open for you if you would like. I can read it out as well. That with respect to the matter of sidewalks, the following actions be taken.

A, that on the recommendation, the Deputy City Manager, Environment and Infrastructure, the staff report dated November 14th, 2023, with respect to the new sidewalk project listed 2024, be received, and B, the civic administration be directed to remove Sovereign Court from Appendix A of the above-noted staff. Looking like we’ve got some agreement, I’ve got Councillor Moved by Councillor Trozzo and seconded by Councillor Van Mirbergen. Councillor McAllister, you had your hand up, go ahead. Thank you and through you.

I just wanted to thank staff for the inclusion of the King Edward Avenue. That’s the one that’s Thompson Road to Dieb Street. I’ve received a lot of inquiries from this neighborhood. I know Glenn Karen had its own NCP.

It’s an area that has really identified gaps in terms of sidewalk connectivity. So it’s great to see this. And one of the things I want to do with this one is just kind of present another perspective in terms of why some of these areas really do need it. In terms of talking to the school board and some of the schools in those areas, especially when it comes to lower income families, these are kids that have to walk.

There’s no option. In some cases, yes, you do have schools where there’s a backup in terms of kids being dropped off, but then you have other cases where parents don’t have an option and the kids have to walk. And in some cases, especially along King Edward, it’s being identified as a road where speeding is an issue. And so I do appreciate this being there.

I know there’s still work to be done in terms of speed studies that are ongoing in that area as well, but I just wanted to call that out and thank you for that ‘cause it is an area where I do get a lot of inquiries. So thank you. Thank you for that. Okay, so looking to committee to see if there’s any further speakers on the motion in front of us.

Seeing none, it is an e-scribe for you to view and I will look to open it for voting. Oh, yes. Closing the vote, the motion carries five to zero. Okay, thank you everyone.

So that deals with our items that were four direction. There are no different matters. I’ve not been made aware of any additional business at this point. So move to item six, adjournment.

Looking for a motion to adjourn. I’ll move adjournment. Thank you, Councillor Grandmereberg and seconded by Councillor Rosso wants to agree with you again. So I will go with that by a show of hands.

Thank you, we are adjourned. Thank you everyone for your cooperation today, thanks. And thank you, Chair.