AUDIO: MyMcMurray’s Tyler King speaks to provincial infrastructure minister Wayne Drysdale:
[audio:http://pmd.country933.com/audio/tyler-news/waynedrysdalejune132014.mp3]Provincial infrastructure minister Wayne Drysdale says the entire land release agreement with the city, signed back in January, will be null and void at the end of the month.
That’s because council voted last night to reject the plan for Phase 2 of Parsons Creek, which would have seen almost 200 hectares of land transferred to the city for development north of Timberlea.
“Just the way I see it right now, there’s no way we’ll be able to go forward with the original deal,” said Drysdale, “and it took us a long time to put the last one together.”
“I just don’t understand why they would turn it down.”
Drysdale says other parts of the deal – like the city taking over the twinning of Highway 69, adding extra lanes to Highway 63, or receiving more land in the south of town, might also be cancelled.
“Once they turn down the zoning, we can’t re-apply for six months. Part of the whole agreement – the first part of it is, we had to transfer that land in Parsons Creek to Wood Buffalo,” said Drysdale. “The agreement will be null and void at the end of June because we haven’t transferred them the land.”
The original deal was unanimously approved by council, and would have seen the city expand 63 to 6 lanes from Hospital Street to the Athabasca River, with bus lanes.
“They’ll lose that whole construction season now,” said Drysdale. “We signed the deal in January, and they could have been twinning that road [Highway 69] by now.”
“We’re trying to give them 131 million dollars worth of land, and they’re stopping us,” he added.
“Any other municipality would be glad to have that offer, I can tell you that.”
Councillors Guy Boutilier, Jane Stroud, Sheldon Germain, and Allan Vinni voted against the deal, while Mayor Melissa Blake and councillors Lance Bussieres and Phil Meagher voted in favour.
Councillors Tyran Ault, Keith McGrath, and Julia Cardinal weren’t in the chamber when the vote was called.
