City closes awkward road allowance
A makeshift driveway leading to homes perched above Kingsway Avenue is no longer legally a road, or the city of Medicine Hat’s responsibility — it’s just the latest in an ongoing effort to tidy up century-old planning maps.
On Monday, council voted to close a road allowance in the South Flats that extended 12th Street up steep cliffs of the Southeast Hill. That existed only on paper, though over the years a track up to houses on the 1200 Block was carved out.
A council committee heard last week that with one of those homes changing ownership, the new owner had petitioned that the designation of the lot be changed, and that an access agreement be drawn up. It will remain municipal land, though all improvements will be the responsibility of the adjacent owner.
Council approved the road closure unanimously on Monday after a public hearing garnered no submissions.
Every year city legal and planning staff work to close one or two awkward road allowances.
They are holdovers from the original city plan drawn in the early 1900s on a grid with little regard for actual geography. Therefore portions of land originally set aside for roads or homes sit on steep slopes, in creekbeds or other undevelopable locations.
In previous years, City Hall has moved to close portions of roadway for Sixth Avenue, which exists only as a pathway, and two years ago exacted a landswap near South Boundary Road when it was discovered that Improvement District No. 1 built a road on private land, rather than an adjacent allowance.