As construction of the new two-lane Niska Road Bridge continues, a late court challenge has been filed seeking a judicial review of the city's statutory power to replace it.
Longtime local environmental watchdog and activist Hugh Whiteley and Vince Hanson were in Superior Court on Woolwich Street Tuesday morning asking for a review of the City of Guelph’s statutory power to replace the one-lane load-restricted heritage bridge on Niska Road with a two-lane highway-standard bridge.
On Tuesday, Justice Michael Gibson said it was implausible that the motion could be heard in under three hours and asked that a new date be set with a more realistic timeframe.
The applicants are asking the court to rule that the Niska Road project does not conform to the Official Plan and that the city’s decision to proceed with the project in its present form should be set aside.
They believe the decision is in contravention of section 24 of the Planning Act, they outlined in a press release.
"Section 24 of the Planning Act states that no public work shall be undertaken by the City that does not conform with the Official Plan of the City," they said.
Before adjourning, Gibson was presented with a letter from the office of the Ministry of the Attorney General which said it did not receive sufficient notice of the application due to a fax error.
The letter said the ministry expected the application to be adjourned, in part, because the 'voluminous' amount of materials filed by the applicant.
Whiteley told GuelphToday immediately after the hearing that environmental assessment documents included in the application account for thousands of pages, not counting other documentation.
"If the application is adjourned," said the letter, "then the Ministry will advise whether it intends to participate in the application."
Whiteley told GuelphToday he is encouraged that the ministry's involvement means the application is being taken seriously.
On Nov. 5 a new date will be set at assignment court for the next hearing of the application.
The application takes issue with three aspects of the Niska Road Improvement Project that they say do not appear to conform with the city’s own Official Plan.
- the absence of the Niska Road Improvement Project from Schedule 5 of the Official Plan.
- failure to conduct a joint environmental assessment of the project with Wellington County.
- the absence of traffic-volume-control measures required by the Official Plan.
"Niska Road is a minor collector road and, more specifically, a two-lane collector road in a primarily residential neighbourhood," the opponents said in a press release.
According to Whiteley, if the court does find the project to be nonconforming, the city has two options to bring the project in conformity with the Official Plan: conduct the joint EA with Wellington County on connection alternatives between County Road 124 and Hwy 6 to determine whether any municipal road connecting link is needed and, if so, whether the Niska Road alternative is the preferred option; or introduce traffic traffic-volume-control measures to the project.
Construction of the two-lane Niska Road Bridge is expected to be completed sometime in 2019.
