(Photo: Over 100 residents signed a petition against the traffic plan for Potter’s Key. The image has been blurred to protect the privacy of residents.)
Echowoods resident Chris Levesque could have spent yesterday’s sunny Sunday afternoon putting up his Christmas lights. Instead, he helped collect over 100 signatures on a petition against Minto’s traffic plan for the proposed Potter’s Key subdivision.
Levesque, his cousin, and another neighbour canvassed houses in the Echowoods and Lloydalex area, just west of the proposed development. The petition will be presented to councillor Shad Qadri.
Levesque says most of his neighbours are concerned about the volume of traffic that would come through their neighbourhood from Potter’s Key, and some were concerned about loss of green space.
The petition they signed states:
“This is a petition against the proposed traffic plan for the new Potter’s Key sub-division being built directly between the communities of Echowoods and Jackson Trails in Stittsville. This is based on the information presented to us on November 4th 2015 at the GRC by Minto and the City.”
Levesque, who lives on Echwoods, says that the road can’t handle the extra traffic, and he has concerns about resident safety with more cars travelling through his subdivision. He also says several residents weren’t aware of the subdivision plans at all. (The residents have set up a Facebook page to raise awareness.)
The proposed subdivision does not have an exit to Hazeldean Road, so cars would be funnelled down Echowoods to the west, or Jackson Trails to the east. The Jackson Trails Community Association is also opposed to the traffic plan. Councillor Qadri says he won’t support the development without road access to Hazeldean Road.
There is obviously future access to hazledean planned, with an opening for a road currently in the plan. People need to do their homework when they buy a house, especially in these new communities, and find out what is going on around them and what the future plans are. You can’t complain when someone want to put houses in “your” greenspace behind your house when you don’t own it. If you don’t like the way these builders operate, don’t buy their houses and support their business model.
Communities expand, traffic increases and eventually your little neck of the woods becomes part of the bigger picture. Learn it. Deal with it. Move on with your life. In case you haven’t noticed, there are lots of other people here too, and some of them would like to have a home just like you do.