The city could be on track to make some changes at a Guelph train crossing.
But while discussions are in its very early stages — and it remains unknown whether changes will come to fruition — there's concern for the future of homes in the area. Residents also feel they were left in the dark on an initial open house held earlier this month.
A recent consultant report stated the city should consider looking at creating an underpass for the train crossing at Edinburgh Road, north of Waterloo Avenue in the next 10 to 15 years.
This was prompted by "federal regulatory changes" that led to the closure of Dublin Street at the train crossing, and looking forward to the implementation of future all day two-way GO train service.
Jennifer Juste, Guelph's manager of transportation planning, said looking into other crossings, only the crossing at Edinburgh was flagged as one they should look at further.
"The other crossings are good to go," she said.
However, nearby residents said a document highlighted about 20 properties in red, which could feel an impact if the underpass comes to pass.
"It really upset quite a few people," Mike Savage, a homeowner in the area, told GuelphToday before a pair of public meetings earlier this week.
He's not wrong. The HaveYourSay forum on the city's website was flooded with comments.
One poster, identified only as 'Ben3', called for a more pragmatic solution, saying "demolishing family homes where children live, all for a temporary detour, seems extremely callous and shortsighted."
Another, identified as Josh Greenlaw, admitted he's all for two-way all day GO, but proposing an underpass here seems "unnecessary."
"A huge waste of taxpayer dollars (keeping in mind the delays will be much greater at Paisley anyway)," he said. "And involves demolishing several century homes, decreasing the beauty of our community, displacing people, etc."
What was posted was a high level sketch Juste said is "not going into any detailed design at all, where we would typically mitigate those issues."
"It was just really for comparative purposes," she said. "To look at underpass impact versus overpass impact versus at-grade."
Savage said the document shouldn't have been published the way it was publicly, with fears it could drop the price of homes nearby.
It was a common concern presented online, and in public meetings.
"I think when the residents saw that document without understanding the full context, there was a reaction for sure. Seeing your home as potentially impacted is unsettling," Juste said.
She believes the meetings were "excellent," and felt residents were relieved once they heard all the options they're exploring.
But Juste added they're taking the concerns presented back to the consulting team "and consider a different way to represent the technical study on the grade separation that's not as explicit to people's properties themselves."
Juste said in the end, the final report would supersede the current draft report, and hopes buyers and sellers use the most recent documentation available when researching a property.
The other big thing was the apparent lack of consultation with property owners.
Savage said there was an open house June 1 to discuss the option, but nobody knew about it, only that there was a "passive" sign posted near the crossing.
Juste said they're looking into why residents were not notified directly.
"That is a concern to us," she said. "We often will use a print and mail service to distribute a large number of direct mail outs like that if we don't have staff capacity to do it directly.
"There seems to have been a problem with a number of people saying they didn't receive anything. We are looking into that internally before we reach out to the person that we worked with to see if it was on our end or on their end, and make sure that doesn't happen again."
The Edinburgh crossing will be up for discussion this Monday at city council.
Mayor Cam Guthrie will speak to it, with a recommendation to move ahead with an environmental assessment, and only analyze and consider putting in an underpass or overpass "if no other suitable alternative is found first through the EA process.”
If approved, the assessment is budgeted to start in 2023 and it could take up to two years to not only do all the studies needed, but go through the results with the community.
The findings could go back to council for a decision in late 2024 or early 2025.
"Only at that point would we know with certainty, based on the recommendation, if there are actually any potential property impacts," Juste said.
"Council would have that opportunity to discuss and deliberate on it, and make their final decision if that's the option they want to proceed with."
Savage, however, wonders why the study should even be started at all. He said it's fully expected an underpass option will be determined to be unfeasible.
"It seems stupid that the city will be spending $300,000 to find out what we all know as common sense," he said.
