Free Hammonds Plains Road, urges councillor
HRM debates removing controlled access from a section of a busy corridor in growing community
Controlling access to a section of Hammonds Plains Road adds to congestion, stifles economic development and contributes to the problem of having few emergency access roads in this growing community, argued Coun. Pam Lovelace (Hammonds Plains - St. Margarets).
At the transportation committee on Thursday, she was hoping to remove controlled access from Hammonds Plains Road — particularly a section from Highway 103 to Pockwock Road. It’s about a seven-kilometre stretch with the Highland Park subdivision in the middle.
“What we’ve done effectively is not only remove economic development opportunities for new business development on this major corridor, but more importantly we’ve restricted the ability to actually build a grid, a road network within a very busy community that desperately needs access.”
PLAN FIRST, OPEN IT LATER
But her colleagues on council didn’t agree. They said that there needs to be a discussion around economic development for that area and a detailed road network plan in place before it’s opened up.
“We can’t just open this big can of worms because when it’s open you can’t just undo it. And we can’t make a bad situation worse,” said Coun. Patty Cuttell (Spryfield - Sambro Loop - Prospect Road).
“I can’t support this right now because it’s too wide open and it just opens us up to too many bad decisions that we can’t undo.”
Access roads can be added even though Hammonds Plains Road currently falls under the restricted access bylaw, said Coun. Shawn Cleary (Halifax West Armdale), It would just need approval from the engineering office.
“That’s the whole point of controlled access is you control it.”
According to a staff report, the bylaw allows for the consideration of new access points “in exceptional circumstances and in consideration of good access management principles.”
DEVELOPERS WOULD PAY FOR ROADS
Lovelace fired back, saying the cart isn’t before the horse because the horse already left the barn.
“There isn’t just a couple hundred units — there are over 2,000 units being built right now. One of them is a 198-unit building — one building,” she said.
“So when you talk about congestion, yeah, we have congestion and the only road network is the Hammonds Plains Road between Highway 103 and Pockwock Road. That’s it. No other egress point (beyond a gated emergency exit).”
If a developer had been permitted to develop, they would have paid for a road, not the taxpayer, and rather than growing economic development in the area, we are restricting it, she said.
“It doesn’t make sense to have this tiny little portion of Hammonds Plains Road, which was inside the wildfire, not have the ability to have development come forward and developers recommend moving forward with paying to create egress.”
In the end, she didn’t have the support she needed and the staff-recommended status quo — Hammonds Plains Road maintained under the controlled access bylaw — was approved.