By Chad Ingram
Published October 3 2017
The owner of the Home Hardware store in Haliburton Village must construct a left-hand turn lane at what will be the new store’s location along County Road 21.
At a Sept. 27 meeting Walker’s Home Hardware owner Jerry Walker made a presentation to Haliburton County council asking council reconsider county planning staff’s recommendation that he and development partner Jamie Chisholm construct a left-hand turn lane at the property near Industrial Park Road where the new store is to be located.
A second commercial building whose use is yet to be identified will also be located on the property.
“We’ve completed all the studies and all the reporting as requested” Walker said of the project the planning stages of which began in the spring of 2016. “We relocated the entrance to the east of the development at the request of public works to keep it away from the industrial park.”
Walker had previously offered fill that will be excavated during construction to the future widening of County Road 21 something that has been recommended in an engineering report.
“We’ve also discussed some of the excess fill we’ll have on site to put across the road for future widening” he said.
Walker and Chisholm had a traffic study performed by consultant C.C. Tatham which concluded a left-hand turn lane was not required at the location.
“The study by C.C. Tatham has shown that a turning lane is not warranted” Walker said.
He continued by saying that the tax on the three properties that will make up the development property is approximately $6000 per year.
“My partner and I right now at this point are going to invest over $3.5 million in this project” Walker said. He said that was just for the Home Hardware portion of the project and that he would be willing to write a requirement for a turning lane for the second building to be constructed later into the site plan agreement.
“We would like to respectfully ask council to reconsider the turning lane at this point” Walker said.
While councillors said they understood the construction of the turning lane would add additional financial burden to the project they stood by the recommendation from county planning staff.
A corridor study being conducted by the county for that area of County Road 21 is indicating that any new businesses will require turning lanes.
“I certainly see what the developer is saying here” said Dysart et al Reeve Murray Fearrey.
However Fearrey pointed out that other developers were required to make such improvements along the stretch including in one case the installation of traffic lights.
“I know it’s an imposition but I think it will be better for the business to have a left-hand turn lane” he said.
“There’s an awful lot of traffic there” said Dysart et al Deputy-reeve Andrea Roberts.
