Ojibway Park supporters irate over deferral of road closure discussion at city hall
Park wildlife advocates shout at transportation committee after discussion deferred
The ongoing bid to protect wildlife in Windsor's Ojibway Park turned nasty Wednesday with supporters of the park shouting their frustrations at city councillors.
Members of Windsor's environment committee were scheduled to discuss whether it was worth studying the closure of Matchette Road, which Ojibway advocates say would protect the park's wildlife.
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Before any discussion began, though, the committee deferred all talks because they wanted to explore the feasibility of creating a wildlife ecopassage designed to help animals cross the road safely.
By doing so, the committee killed any opportunity for residents to speak about the possible closure of Matchette.
"I'm very, very frustrated," said Nancy Pancheshan of the Save Ojibway group. "It's incredibly frustrating to waste a day and come down, when this could have been dealt with before and people could have been notified."
Frustrating delays
The original discussion about closing Matchette stems from a staff report outlining an environmental assessment that could cost anywhere between $150,000 and $250,000.
The report suggests closing the road could cause a host of problems. Some of those issues include forcing traffic to spill over onto surrounding roads and eliminating access to nearby land earmarked for development.
But an environmental study would have looked at other options, staff wrote in the report. And that means there was no need to delay Wednesday's conversation, said Jonathan Choquette, a conservation biologist with SCC Ecological.
"All those things would have been part of an environmental assessment anyway because it looks at alternatives. Deferring it to look at alternatives doesn't make sense to me," he said. "It's annoying to come out here and then to just be deferred."