Resolution at music centre site

By Doug Hallett, Guelph Tribune
Sep 11, 2009

Almost all the trees near the Guelph Youth Music Centre parking lot are to be saved under a new plan that would see the lot expanded only slightly.

“In less than a month we’ve gone a great distance,” said Coun. Ian Findlay, who chaired a group of citizens chosen to work on a new plan after an expansion plan outlined by city staff in August drew an angry response.

The group endorsed a conceptual plan Wednesday night that’s also acceptable to the Guelph Youth Music Centre and the adjoining Navy League of Canada branch, and that city staff are “comfortable with,” Findlay said Thursday.

Staff will now “formalize” the plan, hoping to get the parking lot redone this fall as originally planned, he said in an interview.

The new plan calls for a parking lot that’s similar in size to the current one, but with a different shape and with delineated parking spots. It would be paved with asphalt and have a few more parking spots than the current gravel lot, which doesn’t have marked spaces.

Instead of the more than 60 parking spaces in the original plan, which would have meant the removal of several healthy, mature trees, the new plan calls for 42 spaces and saves almost all the trees, Findlay said. Removal of one healthy black walnut tree is “unavoidable,” he said, but an Austrian pine that will also need to be removed is “non-native and diseased.” As well, a tree in front of the music centre entrance is unhealthy and needs to be removed for safety reasons.

To help make up for fewer additional parking spots, the city is talking to Guelph Transit about the possibility of running buses closer to the Guelph Youth Music Centre and is looking at other parking options in the area, including the possibility of on-street parking on Cardigan Street, Findlay said.

The new plan eliminates the storm sewer and catch basin drainage system originally proposed for the parking lot expansion. Instead, water would drain off the parking lot to a spot to the east where grass would cover crushed stone that would “contain and filter the water before it goes into the river,” he said.

Residents on the focus group wanted to avoid storm sewers because they didn’t want the project to be “over-engineered,” he said. “They wanted it to be a less intrusive design on the land.”

The group also told city staff they want LED (light-emitting diode) lights used on the parking lot, which are more energy-efficient and also provide more options for dimming of lights, Findlay said. They want LED lights with a “yellow, amber tone,” which might respond to motion sensors so they’re not at full intensity if there’s no activity in the parking lot.

Two outstanding issues are making sure the lighting that’s chosen is acceptable to nearby residents and dealing with landscaping of the site, Findlay said. The group will meet with city staff at a later date to deal with landscaping, which probably won’t get done this year.

The group looked at alternatives to paving the parking lot with asphalt, Findlay said, but a permeable surface that was examined was found not to be suitable to a northern climate. Such a surface could get plugged in winter by salt and sand, leading to “excessive” costs for maintaining it in good working order, he said.

Findlay said he’d been “fascinated to see the level of commitment” by members of the group, which met about twice a week for the last month.

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