No new roundabout for north end

Hundreds of Halifax residents got their wish last night: No roundabout.

Halifax North End Coun. Jerry Blumenthal asked council to drop the idea of a roundabout on Duffus Street, Novalea Drive and Devonshire Avenue.

“They don’t want to be second-class citizens. They feel pedestrians should have a much better right-of-way than vehicles,” Blumenthal said.

Out of 604 emails and phone messages from residents, 587 opposed a roundabout. About 300 people attended a public information meeting last week and many of them didn’t like the idea of a roundabout. Blumenthal said visually impaired residents are concerned about a lack of audible signals, and the last fatality at that intersection was in 1966, before lights were installed.

Some councillors wanted staff to come back with a report before the idea of a roundabout in this intersection was quashed. Coun. Bill Karsten said while he respects the community’s feedback, it might be helpful to stop misinformation about roundabouts.

Other councillors said they shouldn’t force the north end community to have a roundabout if they don’t want it.

“It’s their neighbourhood and they should have a say,” said Coun. Jackie Barkhouse.

Coun. Linda Mosher agreed.

“If it works, why fix it?”

Other business
• The HRM has a new, 8,000-acre park.

The Western Common Wilderness master plan was approved at Halifax regional council last night.

This parcel of land between Highway 103, Prospect Road and Highway 333 was previously a back-up water supply for the city. But over the past few years, a committee developed a plan to build trails and canoe routes through the property as well as adding supervised swimming at Nichols Lake.

It’s a five-phase plan that will build the trails between now and 2030. It was approved by council last night.

• In other news, council decided not to charge residents $5 if they’re given a late reminder notice to pay their taxes.

User fees and charges were expected to go up because it was passed as part of the budget as a way to increase revenues. But several councillors balked when some of the finer details were put up for approval last night.

A motion to keep a not-sufficient-funds charge at $20 instead of increasing it to $40 was defeated.