UNB woodlot slow to develop, so Fredericton turns sights elsewhere for new neighbourhood

The lack of residential development in one of Fredericton's four designated growth areas has the city looking at designating land elsewhere as a future neighbourhood.

In the seven years since the city adopted its growth strategy, 4,100 new housing units have been built.

None of those have been on land owned by the University of New Brunswick, despite its being earmarked in 2017 as one of four areas for new residential development.

That's now prompting the city to consider allowing development on lands around Doak Road, with council directing city staff Monday night to come up with a plan for how to do so.

"Nothing has happened on those [UNB] lands, and it's put an awful lot of development pressure on the other nodes that were identified under the growth strategy," said Coun. Jason Lejeune, chair of the city's economic vitality committee.

"So we really want to have staff examine the Doak Road area to see if it's a feasible option to alleviate some of the pressure in the other growth nodes."

Fredericton's 2017 growth strategy laid out a plan to encourage density in the downtown and allow new developments on the city's outskirts that would accommodate the addition of 32,000 new residents.

That plan imagined 8,000 new residents living downtown, and 24,000 new residents living in four new residential neighbourhoods.

Those new neighbourhoods included one in the Brookside Drive-Ring Road area and another to the east of Cliffe Street, both on the north side of the city.

The others were on the south side in the Bishop Drive-Hanwell Road area, and along the north and south sides of Knowledge Park Drive, on lands known as the UNB woodlot.

Fredericton planning director Ken Forrest said the city has seen residential growth in the three of these areas and none at all on the UNB land.

"Our challenge is we're dealing with a tremendous amount of growth and on the south side of the [St. John] river, we only have one kind of new neighbourhood functioning to accommodate that growth," Forrest said.

"So it just, it gets to a point where, you know, how much longer can we wait for that [UNB woodlot area] to light up, or do we look at another option?"

A staff report about a potential Doak Road neighbourhood in the city's southeast describes the area as central and close to the uptown commercial area, industrial park and Grant-Harvey Centre.

"Finally and significantly, the city owns approximately 105 hectares (260 acres) of land in the Doak Road area; enough land for almost 2,600 residential units or over 5,000 residents," the staff report says.

"There are other owners of large tracts of land in the area, making it relatively easy to develop when infrastructure is extended."

A map attached to the staff report highlights the area around Doak Road that could potentially be designated as a new neighbourhood.

Forrest said city staff and consultants will be narrowing that area down based on the specific location that makes most practical sense for creating a new neigbourhood.

"The kind of planning document the city is talking about preparing would require us to take a look at where the current extent of [municipal] servicing is, what the current road network capabilities are, and then what would be required to extend into that area," Forrest said.

"So that requires a fair bit of planning and engineering analysis so that we... can ultimately come back to council with a realistic sense of … the capital investments that would be required to accomplish that task."

Councillors also agreed to accept $225,000 from the province's Regional Development Corporation to create the Doak Road Master Plan.

Forrest said he expects the plan to be completed before the end of this year.

If councillors decide to go ahead creating the new neighbourhood, the city's municipal plan would need to be amended, which would require public engagement with residents, Lejeune said.