For many residents of Park Place, the still relatively new town house and single family dwelling development on the land of Quartier Cavendish has been complicated by the constant flow of people using their parking lot and greenspace as a shortcut to and from the bus stop.
I have been meeting with many of these residents for several months now. On a number of occasions I have observed the flow of pedestrians at different times of day. At peak times they literally pass by in droves.
Our original plans for the greenspace at the corner of Cavendish and Kildare was to build some kind of parkette there. However, in light of the many complaints we received from residents we put our original plan on hold and looked at various alternatives. A Public Spaces Committee meeting was called, consisting of city officials and some members of council, and I believe we came up with a good plan. Rather than a parkette (essentially greenspace, benches and paths), we will beautify the area and make it more of passing. The paths will be designed in such a way that pedestrians will not necessarily use Park Place as a shortcut; Kildare Road will become a viable alternative. We will also have some fencing to protect the private parking area of the town houses. Trees and bushes will be planted to insure privacy.
Because of the time we took to review the project, our original goal of having this area put together for the fall became unrealistic. It will now have to wait until next spring. In in the interim, we have installed some attractive blue fencing to limit the flow of pedestrians to one area to and from Park Place and block them from walking on the parking lot. We had left the bushes unprotected by fencing, but pedestrians decided in some cases to walk through them. So more fencing is on order.
While there were requests to totally seal this area off, there are residents of Park Place who do appreciate the "short cut" to get to and from Cavendish and Kildare. We hope the compromise is satisfactory. I thank Urban Planning Director Charles Senekal for all of his time and patience on this dossier.
