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Yellowknife city councillors are set to vote on a motion instructing staff to draw up subdivision plans for portions of Lundquist Road and School Draw Avenue.
City proposals to develop parts of those areas have drawn the ire of some residents, who say the municipality is encroaching into wetlands and could ruin vital habitat.
Municipal staff have recommended that councillors approve rezoning two blocks of land – currently designated parks and recreation – to allow for some residential development.
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The plans would also involve adding land to a nature preserve and introducing a 10-metre buffer zone between the preserve and any future development.
Mayor Ben Hendriksen has already suggested he opposes rezoning at least one parcel of land in question due to the level of opposition. (The rezoning plan also has some support.)
“Right now, the community is not with us and, quite frankly, I’m not fully there yet either,” he said last week.
The city received more than 200 comments from the public regarding the Willow Flats rezoning plan, the vast majority in opposition. Pages upon pages of written submissions were included in a public agenda for last week’s meeting.
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At their Monday, September 22 meeting, councillors will vote on a motion directing staff to “develop a plan of subdivision to create seven multi-unit lots” along School Draw Avenue and “a multi-unit block and a nature preservation block” in the vicinity of Lundquist Road.
One of two bylaws authorizing rezoning of the areas will also have its first reading at the coming meeting.
Last week, Hendriksen delayed a vote regarding the more contentious area, around Lundquist Road, as several councillors were not present. The other bylaw passed first reading.
Three readings and a public hearing must take place before the new bylaws can come into effect.
