Moncton City Council approved the beginning of the rezoning needed to develop the former MHS.
The application from Heritage Developments will allow commercial tenants, including a potential 123,000 square foot contact centre.
Director of Urban Planning Bill Budd responded to concerns from Council about the 1,010 parking spaces.
“Not all workers are coming and leaving at the same time, you can have overlapping shifts,” says Budd. “They’re in that business, they know their parking needs, we reviewed this with them, so that’s just on the contact centre operation.”
Budd says those needs don’t even account for the proposed 800 – 1,200 seat theatre, and an auditorium intended to be made into cultural spaces.
He adds there are also going to be other potential retail businesses there that will also need parking, so while this number seems high, it is in line with the proposed short term and long term development.
Budd adds they are also doing an extra public information session which will allow them “to be in an informal setting, share the plans, address questions, and if there are issues understand what the issues are, and that’s the intent, so we’re trying to do some additional consultation to help the neighbourhood understand the project.”
Mayor Dawn Arnold explains the public engagement process.
“The public presentation will be on September 18th, there will be a public hearing on November 6th, but prior to that, there will be some sort of public engagement session so that everyone can get up to speed on what’s happening,” says Arnold.
Arnold adds a traffic impact study is also necessary, as is review of the changes by the Heritage Conservation Board, and the Planning Advisory Committee.
Moncton City Council conducted the first reading of the by-laws at the September 5th meeting which marks the beginning of the rezoning process.