Dear Editor:
An open letter to Centre Wellington councillors.
Just making my usual statements when I read about things like the proposed apartment building on the St. Andrew East site in Fergus that was once the “Opportunity Shop”.
Seventeen units with 13 parking spaces? Where is it proposed the other four tenants will park? Where is it proposed that occupants with two cars per unit put those extra cars? I bet the Ralph Bassett building businesses will have even more parking lot spaces their customers are unable to use – they already lose a few to Gente’s customers who have nowhere else to go.
This reminds me of a situation that began in 1986 at 200 River Street – the first condos in Fergus – where I lived for 15 years. Designers and developers assumed that people moving into condos would have one car per couple. There are 38 units in that building and only 20 indoor parking spaces There were an additional 18 outdoor parking spaces and a visitor’s lot.
So, when couples moved in with one car per person, immediately there was an extra car using visitors. If they had offspring living at home, two visitors’ spaces got used daily. If a couple each owned a car and they had a truck for getting their fifth wheel up north for the summer or down south for the winter, that often got left in the visitors area. The visitors’ lot was frequently inadequate and the indoor garage pitifully so – and this happened over 30 years ago because of poor planning and permissions granted that hadn’t been thought through thoroughly.
This new building can readily go taller – that’s a nice open space on that corner – but there’s insufficient parking. Few people in Fergus can walk to the stores they need access to and even those who can usually need their vehicles to get their shopping home.
Council should only approve this upward extension based on some redesign that allows more tenants’ cars to park on their own property instead of infringing on the rest of the quiet residential neighbourhood and busy nearby businesses.
Please consider this: I haven’t been able to shop in downtown Fergus (which I once loved doing) for nearly four years as parking spaces are never available. This can only make things worse!
Helen Marucci,
Fergus
*Editor’s note: There are 13 parking spaces on the site of the apartment building, plus another nine across the road, for a total of 22 for this development.