Winnipeg poised to trash Sterling Lyon Parkway extension route after opposition from Wilkes South residents
Expropriation plan would be like 'running a road through living rooms,' councillor suggests
The City of Winnipeg is poised to trash part of its plan to extend the Sterling Lyon Parkway due to objections from property owners living on residential streets south of Wilkes Avenue.
Since 2015, the city has been looking at several ways to better align Sterling Lyon with Wilkes Avenue and carry more motor vehicles between the South Tuxedo area and the Perimeter Highway. The study is part of a broader plan to extend the William Clement Parkway south of Grant Avenue to complete another chunk of an inner ring road originally envisioned in the 1950s.
As part of the planning effort, the city contracted consulting firm WSP to study three Sterling Lyon-Wilkes connections: one along Wilkes Avenue, a second a few hundred metres south of Wilkes and a third much farther south.
In September, WSP proposed what city officials describe as a fourth option that combines aspects of the Wilkes alignment with the route farther south. When the firm contacted the province, letters were sent to dozens of Wilkes South property owners — including no fewer than 10 residential property owners — informing them of the potential for full or partial expropriations.
David Ames, a surgeon who moved into a neo-modernist, 3,000-square-foot home on Loudoun Road earlier this year, was surprised when the previous property owner presented him with the letter.
"I opened it and I was confused and shocked. I didn't understand what this meant. I thought it had something to do with the William Clement Parkway," Ames said Monday in an interview.
Dismayed by the prospect of a freeway running across his property, Ames and several other Wilkes South property owners formed a community organization and hired former Charleswood-Tuxedo councillor Paula Havixbeck to represent their interests at city hall.
"I don't think running a road through living rooms and front yards is a viable option in Winnipeg, and I don't think any councillor would feel that way," Morantz said Monday in an interview.
On Tuesday morning, council's public works committee will consider a Morantz motion to quash the idea of extending Sterling Lyon Parkway through the Wilkes South neighbourhood and ensure the road follows the Wilkes Avenue alignment instead.
The councillor said he also wants to know why consulting firm WSP chose the alignment in the first place and triggered the start of an environmental-consultation process that alarmed his constituents. He noted the same firm planned the Marion Street widening abandoned by council after its scope expanded to include expropriations and the price tag ballooned to $566 million.
City refuses to divulge project cost
Richard Tebinka, WSP's regional transportation planner, said he could not comment and referred questions to the City of Winnipeg.
Doug McNeil, the city's chief administrative officer, declined to say what factors contributed to WSP's choice of Sterling Lyon Parkway extension routes, though he confirmed city transportation officials played a role in the decision.
The CAO said WSP provided the city with an estimate for the work but said he would not make that information public before he shared it with members of council.
McNeil also suggested public works officials should have made him and Morantz aware of their decision to support WSP's alignment.
"We didn't internally review that, including with senior administration or with the councillor, or externally with the public, and that's why they're upset and understandably so," said McNeil, who met with Ames and other Wilkes South residents concerning the route decision.
Ames said he was told the decision to plan a more southerly route was made to allow Sterling Lyon Parkway to carry more motor vehicles and avoid a Manitoba Hydro substation.
He said he is pleased Morantz is poised to ensure the city will use the Wilkes Avenue option instead.
Eric Vogan, president of Urban Development Institute and the vice-president of residential-property developer Qualico, says the Wilkes alignment will not meet the city's transportation needs.
He says the city never should have allowed residential development on streets running south of Wilkes Avenue without considering the future demands for a high-volume, east-west transportation corridor.
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