EPC votes to nix Charleswood corridor until area plan developed

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This article was published 29/11/2017 (2881 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

City hall appears to have found a compromise solution to quell the outrage over the controversial south Charleswood east-west corridor route.

At Wednesday’s executive policy committee meeting — which had to be moved into Winnipeg council chambers to accommodate almost 100 residents who came to watch the proceedings — Coun. Marty Morantz withdrew his plan to twin Wilkes Avenue as the only option for the proposed east-west route, and instead proposed planning be halted until a precinct plan is developed for the area, with input from all area residents.

Morantz (Charleswood-Tuxedo-Whyte Ridge) said he believed the compromise is similar to a proposal offered by the South Wilkes Community Association a few minutes earlier, and will move the matter forward.

“I’ve said many times, I’m 100 per cent with the residents of Charleswood,” said Morantz, who explained the corridor was proposed in absence of an overall plan for the area.

“This revised motion sets the area in the right direction for the proper land-use plan that is consultative and respects the existing developed areas,” Morantz read from a prepared statement.

The south Charleswood corridor debate was resumed after Mayor Brian Bowman and members of his EPC laid the issue over at its Nov. 8 meeting, on the grounds they didn’t have enough information to make a decision.

City hall had been studying a southward extension of the William R. Clement Parkway and options for an east-west corridor linking the parkway to Kenaston Boulevard as part of the city’s long-term plan to complete the inner-ring road network.

City staff and a consulting firm presented three options for an east-west route to area residents in January 2016. The residents overwhelming favoured the Wilkes widening, but the consulting firm, with the apparent approval of public works department staff, submitted a new route — the southwest extension of the Sterling Lyon Parkway, which would have involved the expropriation of almost 100 properties — to the province in July 2017.

Area residents learned of the new route at special meetings in October, which prompted them to form a community group and lobby city hall against what was repeatedly referred to as the “rogue” route.

Morantz claimed no knowledge of the new route and sided with the residents. He initially wanted his EPC colleagues to choose a widened Wilkes as the only option for the east-west corridor through the area, and to permanently eliminate study on any other corridor proposal.

The Morantz compromise allows all existing studies on alternative routes be made available to staff and consultants, but obligates city hall to consider concerns of area residents and the character of their neighbourhoods in the final selection.

EPC unanimously approved the compromise. It goes to council Dec. 13 for a vote.

A lawyer representing a handful of residents who would have been impacted by the Wilkes twinning plan said he supported the intent of the compromise and unsuccessfully requested EPC to further postpone a decision to allow those residents time to consider it.

Morantz said his compromise was developed in close consultation with area residents, councillors and the administration.

David Ames, president of the South Wilkes Community Association, had brought a compromise of his own to Wednesday’s meeting, telling reporters the group realized they were creating a hardship on the smaller group of residents and recognized they had to change tactics to resolve the dispute.

“We’re moving a road and prescribing it onto them without consultation, and that’s what happened to us,” Ames said. “The layover allowed us to really critically look at what we were asking to happen.”

Ames said he would like to see a more detailed, broader development plan that encompasses a much larger area than what EPC approved, but added he was encouraged with the Morantz compromise.

He said he remains confident city hall will not proceed on the “rogue” route.

aldo.santin@freepress.mb.ca

https://media.winnipegfreepress.com/documents/CoW+Wilkes+Amending+Motion+112917.pdf|Wilkes Amending Motion