Moncton City Council voted 7 – 3 in favour of rezoning land between Ryan Street and Twin Oaks Drive to allow a developer to build 473 residential housing units.
Council imposed 16 conditions on the developer after residents, including Andrew MacKinnon raised concerns over privacy, and the paving over of a wetland.
“We’re very sad to see the last wetland in the north end of Moncton that was undeveloped being developed, especially considering it was protected when they bought it,” says MacKinnon. “So this is just kind of an opportunity with a gap in legislation that allowed this to happen, and now that wetland is gone.”
MacKinnon says a lesson he learned is residents must stand up for themselves.
“Council is obsessed with growth, and if the residents of Ryan and Teaberry hadn’t organized the first time this came up, we wouldn’t have things like the increase in the buffer behind our own properties,” says MacKinnon. “It’s really out to residents to look out for themselves because this Council and [Planning] Advisory Committee isn’t doing it.”
MacKinnon concedes the increased privacy buffers are welcome, but the loss of the wetland is a big blow to the community.
“We’re still losing one of Moncton’s last wetlands, and this was an area where literally kids from all around the neighbourhood used to come in their rubber boots and catch frogs, and tadpoles and stuff, [but] we weren’t naive enough to think that area was never going to be developed,” says MacKinnon.
However, he says it’s a shame the planning department would rather build a pond, instead of maintaining the wetland that was already there doing that job.
Some of those 16 conditions include larger landscaped buffers between existing homes, and the new construction, while apartment buildings are restricted to a maximum of three storeys.
