Residents of west end fed up with noise, lights
The councillor representing core neighbourhoods on the city’s west side says there is no simple or quick solution for the long-standing problem of loud noise and bright lights emanating from the West Industrial area.
That is unlikely to please some people living near the sprawling industrial park, who say the problem is only getting worse and the city could take several immediate steps to make their lives more tolerable.
In an interview this week, Coun. Hilary Gough expressed sympathy with the Pleasant Hill residents and committed to looking for solutions, but noted there is no panacea for the issue, which was identified by the city as far back as 1978.
“It shouldn’t be a huge surprise that there isn’t an immediate fix. This activity has been ongoing, and the nuisance has been a problem for many, many decades,” Gough said.
“It’s going to take time to find resolutions.”
Adam Pollock disagrees. Pollock lives on 17th Street, a stone’s throw from Cindercrete Products Ltd.’s dry-mix concrete factory, and has long campaigned for city hall to solve the problem.
He said the city could stop leasing a narrow band of property along 17th Street to Cindercrete, which would create a larger buffer for the people northwest of the industrial area.
City council could also amend the noise and zoning bylaws to ensure loud industrial noise and bright lights do not keep nearby people awake deep into the night, potentially affecting their health, he added.
“If the noise bylaw says this kind of activity is allowed, then the noise bylaw is broken. If the zoning bylaw says this kind of activity is allowed, then the zoning bylaw is broken. Both those bylaws can be amended … to protect people.”
The problem is essentially related to zoning, and the activities permitted under each designation. City hall maintains that the companies in the area are complying with all relevant bylaws.
While Cindercrete’s lease agreement with the city prohibits any nuisance to “the owners or occupiers of neighbouring lands,” city administrators have said the company uses the leased land for storage, and is therefore in line with the bylaw.
Gough acknowledged as much, saying the problem reflects changing expectations “around the interaction of land uses, (for example) residential next to industrial, in the world” and in Saskatoon.
At the same time, Gough said it’s not clear whether the zoning and noise bylaws could be amended to immediately address the problem, in part because bylaw changes must apply evenly to the entire city.
The Ward 2 councillor did suggest hiring an expert to examine the sites and look at ways to “mitigate” the problem.
The West Industrial area’s local area plan “envisions a long-term transition ... to less intensive uses,” but city administrators have said that is unlikely to happen until the companies leave of their own choice.
Gough said revisiting that plan, with input from the community, is “really important.” Cindercrete has also expressed interest in consultations, and said some mitigation steps have already been taken — although residents question that.
Pollock has said he wants Gough as an ally in his fight, but he and Pleasant Hill Community Association member Katelyn Siggelkow have both expressed frustration with city hall’s perceived lack of action.
“We aren’t coming to the city asking them to spend millions of dollars relocating these businesses; we’re just asking them to create distance between us, and to use the tools that they do have to achieve meaningful results,” he said.
“It feels like the city is hoping we’ll give up, just through the futility of it — cave in to fatalism, that it will always just be this way,” said Siggelkow, whose association supports Pollock’s call for change.
Siggelkow and Pollock are not giving up. They plan to bring the issue to city council’s planning and development committee at its next meeting, on Aug. 17.
“It’s not OK for people to live under these conditions,” Siggelkow said. “And it’s definitely not OK for these conditions to be relegated to the marginalized, believing they don’t have the energy or the expertise or the brains to do something about it.”
It’s not OK for people to live under these conditions.