Saanich fails to put brakes on McKenzie cloverleaf
B.C.’s transportation minister says project going ahead despite concerns about park
Saanich council voted early Tuesday to ask the province to put the brakes on its partial cloverleaf plan for the McKenzie interchange due to the design’s damaging effect on Cuthbert Holmes Park, but B.C.’s transportation minister said the project is going ahead.
Council passed a much-amended motion, moved by Coun. Vic Derman, by a vote of 6-3, having heard Monday night from residents about how much they feared for the future of the urban wilderness park once the cloverleaf carves off 1.4 hectares from its current 25.6-hectare size.
Bill Williamson told council he was initially pleased that the interchange would address traffic problems but then realized the province was “going to pave the park … for the benefit of a few people who live miles away.”
The $85-million cloverleaf design, announced April 26 by B.C. Transportation Minister Todd Stone, is the most intrusive of three proposals and will likely lead to more congestion on the McKenzie corridor, the majority of councillors decided. The province should reconsider and “select another option,” they suggested.
But Stone said his ministry will not consider another option. “We’re going to stick with this particular plan, but work closely to ease the impacts on the park.”
He said he was surprised by the vote as ministry staff were meeting Monday with Saanich parks and recreation staff, talking about environmental mitigation, one of 12 meetings that addressed Cuthbert Holmes Park issues. “I was led to believe up to last night that council was generally behind this plan and supportive of it.”
Derman said that staff meetings are “a far cry” from the ministry meeting with Saanich council, given the municipality is a major stakeholder. He said the ministry’s consultation time line was compressed, catching council off guard.
Stone touted the project as having many region-wide benefits. “There are huge benefits for motorists up and down the south Island. It’s going to be good for the environment, good for transit riders, good for cyclists and pedestrians, so we’re going to move forward.”
Williamson responded: “No one who was at the Saanich council meeting … and heard the pleas of so many people to save the park from being paved would understand the minister’s response. It isn’t the number of meetings that matters, it is the listening and caring at those meetings.”
Mayor Richard Atwell said Saanich residents have a larger stake in the interchange than people who live farther out and their concerns have been “underaddressed,” but there’s still time given that “shovels are not in the ground and contracts have not been let.”
He voted against rejecting the cloverleaf, as did councillors Leif Wergeland and Susan Brice. Brice, chairwoman of the Victoria Regional Transit Commission, referred to the significant amount of work the ministry is putting into transit considerations. Wergeland argued the vote came too late and said he has never been as embarrassed in his 20 years on council as he was by this vote. “Saanich did not look good today in the region.”
Langford Mayor Stew Young decried the last-minute approach to a done deal that the region has sought for 25 years.
Neighbours close to the park are far outnumbered by 10,000 West Shore drivers who are stalled every day in the Colwood Crawl, he said. “It’s not just for the West Shore, it’s the economy of the whole region.”
Construction is slated to begin this fall. Stone said that the partial cloverleaf was preferred by 75 per cent of the people who took part in public consultations.
Derman, who expressed disappointment in Stone’s reaction, suggested those responses were mostly from drivers who will drive by the park and do not live in Saanich.
Coun. Dean Murdock said he has been inundated by residents expressing frustration with “devastation to a natural gem,” calling Cuthbert Holmes a unique nature preserve in a busy urban area. “We need to ask the ministry to reconsider because they did not have a Saanich focus,” added Coun. Fred Haynes.
View Royal council voted Tuesday night to endorse the province’s interchange plan. “There is no design where everyone will be happy. We need to accept that and move forward,” Mayor David Screech said.
The Transportation Ministry is to unveil its final plan at a May 18 open house, 3:30 to 7:30 p.m., at St. Joseph the Worker Parish Hall, 753 Burnside Rd. West.