Development too large!

At the Committee of the Whole (COW) meeting on October 25th regarding Infrastructure costs for the 424 condo unit development on Banks Crescent, it was very good to hear the thoughtful questions and discussions by Council to better understand the impact.

District Staff had been asked to present Infrastructure costs for discussion. However only the potential benefits from the direct off site works and fees from the development cost charges (DCC) were presented, not the more important aspect of Infrastructure and ongoing maintenance costs to the town and residents who will all pay whether or not the development is completed. The estimated $1.4 million DCC fees for road improvements to upgrade Solly to Latimer and Latimer to Banks Crescent cannot be used by the District to upgrade these 2 roads as they are not on the current Districts project list. Who will then pay?

With regards to road upgrades and costs, it was interesting to hear that there has been no traffic study done on Latimer where the 2000 additional trips per day will originate from. Staff's comment at the meeting that “there are only a handful of houses”, on the street was offense in its dismissive tone, as 2000 car trips/day will have huge impact on the very short local road of 12 houses with steep driveways. Staff also stated that the local hills and corners are a challenge and that not all road issues will be addressed. Why then even consider a development of this density in this location? 

How could the developers traffic studies (3 of them) ever have been considered as acceptable when this street of a “handful of houses”, was omitted from the study and will bear the brunt of the additional 2000 car trips/day. How many residents in Summerland would like 2000 car trips/per day passing in front of their home? Would the people that head up the group in favour of this development be so cavalier in their support if 2000 more cars passed their home every day? Probably not.

The traffic studies also did not take into consideration the additional traffic on Latimer north to Peach Orchard that many residents use to go to town, or the traffic coming from Highway 97 along Lakeshore Drive and up Macdonald and Gillespie. Currently there are no infrastructure costs provided by the developer allocated to upgrade Latimer to Peach Orchard or Solly to Lakeshore. Who will pay for them?

Please residents of Summerland, council and staff, drive around these steep, narrow, windy roads and try to envision 2000 more car trips per day on them. Imagine truckloads of fill over 5 to 7 years of construction navigating the twists and turns of Solly road, a road that was designated a local road due to its topography and limited ability to accommodate large heavy vehicles. Scary at best, risky and dangerous at worst.

Diana Smith