Masonic Hall rezoning proposal to go to Public Hearing stage September 14th

At Tuesday's City Council meeting, the city moved forward with the process related to the rezoning of the Masonic Hall, sending the proposed redevelopment of a portion of the hall to furniture storage to the Public Hearing phase.

The decision was reached following a review by City Planner of the path to this point, with Mr. Krekic reminding council of the current shortage of industrial and light industrial zoned land in the city, with few developers inclined at the moment to take on the task of developing land for industrial purposes.

With that as the background, he outlined for Council how there may be a need for some shifting of established zoning to address the need for such proposals as the storage concept under consideration at the moment.

Mr. Krekic also noted that the Masonic Hall had recently hosted a public information session related to the proposal, which would see MacKenzie Furniture use the storage area for storage of furniture for their downtown store.

A public hearing is now set for Sept
14th regarding a proposal to use part
of the Masonic Hall for furniture storage

At that public meeting, Mr Krekic observed that a number of residents offered up some thoughts related to the potential impact on their neighbourhood of the proposed zoning change.

Among some of their concerns, the need for safety measures related to the playground down the street from the Masonic Hall, as well as comments related to potential noise when the trucks pull in and pull out.

Those were concerns that Councillor Cunningham noted he had heard about from those living in the area, with the Councillor suggesting that the proponent of the storage area may wish to put in place additional staff during loading and unloading to make the process safer.

"I was wondering if the deliveries are being made during the daytime then the people that are looking at doing the deliveries could have some of their staff there to make sure when its backing up across the street, or something like that, that they have swampers ... I think that the people that are  going  to be doing the deliveries would love to have  a swamper or somebody to help them backup. It's such a small thing to ask for considering the safety of kids and that in the neighbourhood"

Councilor Mirau sought some clarification on the covenant that would be in place regarding the use of the proposed storage area, while Mayor Brain had questions related to the hours of operation the users  of the storage area, might be making use of.

Following the overview, Council provided second reading to the zoning proposals and send the process on to a Public Hearing, scheduled to take place at City Hall on September 14th.

A look at our previous note on the Masonic Hall zoning proposal can be found below:

Area residents to get first comments for proposed rezoning of Masonic Hall

You can review Tuesday evening's discussion on the proposed development from the City's Video Archive starting at the 16 minute mark and continuing on until the 35 minute point.



For more items related to Tuesday's Council session see our Timeline feature here.

Further background on City Council developments can be found on our archive page.