Support for sound wall divided
Survey finds Beaconsfield residents split 50/50 over barrier on Hwy. 20
While Beaconsfield Mayor Georges Bourelle received an earful at Monday’s council meeting from several proponents pushing for a sound wall to be built on the south side of Highway 20, he points to a survey conducted by a marketing firm on behalf of the city that indicates at least half of all residents are unconvinced about its necessity.
During question period, several residents demanded the mayor and council take the lead to promote the sound wall project, considering Quebec Transport Minister Robert Poëti had promised earlier this fall that the province would cover 75 per cent of the anticipated $20-million bill for a barrier along a section of Highway 20 in Beaconsfield.
Normally, Transport Quebec has offered a 50-50 cost sharing formula to municipalities seeking to add a sound wall along an existing highway. The offer to pay 75 per cent made by the minster during a private meeting with a Beaconsfield delegation in September has yet to be formalized or confirmed in writing by Transport Quebec, city officials pointed out.
Sound wall backers decried a lack of leadership and transparency from the mayor and council. One man suggested the mayor was using the survey results to wash his hands of the sound wall project. A resident stated the sound wall addresses health and environmental concerns related to highway noise.
Resident Derrick Pounds, who has been lobbying for years for a sound barrier along Highway 20, said he has a 850-name petition in support of the project.
“There is more and more traffic. It’s getting worse,” he said of noise coming from Highway 20. “The city has done a poor job on that,” he added.
Pounds said the city should accept the 75-per-cent offer from the minster and proceed with the sound wall project. He advocates the city’s share for a noise barrier should be paid by the Beaconsfield community at large. He calculated that if the city’s $5-million share was paid by all 6,500 homeowners, it would amount to an additional $45 on everyone’s annual tax bill over a 20-year period.
“We’re a community, we share the costs (for many municipal services),” he said.
Bourelle reiterated several times that proponents should do their best to convince fellow residents of the need for the sound wall, noting if council eventually tables a borrowing bylaw to finance the city’s portion of a sound wall, which could be in the $5-million range, the loan item will face a public register and referendum process.
If enough voters petition for a register and then sign it to oppose the loan bylaw, council would then have to either drop the item or call a city-wide referendum, which could cost about $200,000, said director general Patrice Boileau.
The survey, based on a phone poll of 600 voters from across the city Oct. 16-23, indicates support for the sound wall project is muted, particularly when it relates to the cost and the effect on tax bills of residents who live in the areas that won’t directly benefit, the mayor said.
Bourelle said the survey will be used to steer council as it prepares to resolve the contentious sound wall issue, one way or the other.
“The objective was to get an overall pulse of the community,” the mayor said of the survey.
“The survey tells us a few things about people’s concerns, which we need to address,” he added. “The next steps we are planning to do is hold some open houses, information sessions, and try to answer some of the questions that people have, like, will the sound bounce back on the north side? We can start looking more closely at some scenarios in terms on how we would be addressing the financing of it? And how it would get paid?”
According to the survey report, which can be found on the city’s website, overall support from voters is almost split 50-50, factoring in a margin of error of four percentage points for the poll.
“The wall is certainly more favourable on the south side, generally speaking, than on the north side because, of course, the people that are affected by the wall live on the south side,” the mayor told the Montreal Gazette. “It’s very divided. A lot of people are concerned about the efficiency of the wall, the esthetics of the wall. Ad one of the biggest concerns is, who pays? Even though we did get a very good deal from the ministry, which is as good a deal as we will ever get.”