In attendance:
Scott Fraser MLA
Brenda McLean Excecutive Assistant to Scott Fraser
Joe Stanhope Chairman RDN Area G Director
Dave Bartram Area H Director
Barbara Thomas Ministry of Transportation, District manager
Dave Edgar MOT Planner
Carol Mason RDN CAO
John Finnie RDN GM
Paul Thorkelsson RDN GM
Paul Thompson RDN Long Range Planning
Elaine Peligren President CMRA
Gerry Anderson V.P. CMRA
Tim Peligren CMRA Member
Dave Jones Officer CMRA
Meeting was introduced by Scott Fraser
Introductions were made and Dave Jones presented the CMRA material that follows:
Thanks to Scott Fraser for setting up our meeting with the Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure Shirley Bond and deputy Minister of Highways Mike Proudfoot and for facilitating this meeting as suggested by the minister,the CMRA would like to recognize Lou Biggaman for attending and supporting the highway access proposal and Dave Bartram for writing his letter in support of access.
We Noticed that the access gate has been reinstalled off Nahmint. I am amazed at how fast the ministry was able to accomplish this, the residents will be very pleased that the ambulance service will be able to get to them in half the time it used to take.
I would like to give a quick rundown on a few of the highway accesses we have researched starting with the Current access south of the little Qualicum River and ending with are current plan which we feel has the best chance of success.
The access south of the river on the OCP map is not close enough to our community node approximately 4 KM from the end of Corcan, This would be the most expensive venture and would have to run through a regional park and across a river creating problems with environmentalists.
The next access was our original proposal for lights off Nahmint onto 19. At the time of proposal the CMRA did not know of the claus in the Vancouver Island Highways agreement requiring consensus of all signatories in our vast area to slow speed limits for a light to be installed obviously a non starter but part of the educational process for our group.
Our next research project was to have Ramps off Nahmint North and South and Ramps off Koskimo North and South we talked to residents and the consensus was they would not want this option and after our surveyor took shots of the site the grade was to extreme for a South bound ramp.
We moved North of Corcan to a site owned publicly on the right hand side of the road facing north bound, with the left side owned by the one of the largest developers in our area Wicklow West. We consulted Wicklow and got a group together and walked the property, it would only be an issue to 1 property a large farm to the east of 19 but it is a kilometer from Corcan to where the access to 19 would be and 4 kilometers to the Horn lake interchange. There is no under pass again more costly than our last proposal but a possibility.
I would like to hand out the map of our latest design and give the reasons why the CMRA executive feel this is the best option. This would be the cheapest to build, all grades being relatively level, the design affects only 2 or 3 properties directly and this direct access is what all of our members have vocally told us they want.
We will not put this map on the web at this time as we need approval of the design from ministry of transportation planners before it can be taken to public consultation or the RDN will consider opening up the 3 OCP’s required to make the access ramps to Highway 19 from Corcan and Nahmint a reality, deadlines for this next step have been set for September 30 2010 in time for our AGM. We discussed many things but the long and short of it is the next step is to make sure the design is workable before the RDN will consider making the OCP changes required.
The meeting ran 45 minutes.