Residents living near a Goldstream Avenue parking lot used by Langford Lake patrons hope redevelopment of the area won’t compromise safety on the roadway.
The gravel lot, currently provided for visitors using the beachfront access to the northeast side of the lake across the street, was purchased from the City of Langford by a developer who has agreed to retain some public parking.
“This is already a narrow road where someone has died because they were hit by a car,” said Wendy MacDonald, who lives on Shelby Place, adjacent to the entrance to the beach access.
“The sunlight comes in and blinds them. This could make (the area) a whole lot more dangerous if this is not a parking lot. We need answers.”
Earlier this year, Langford resident Meesha-Chan Grubisic was struck by a vehicle along the 1100-block of Goldstream Ave., not far from the parking lot.
Langford director of planning Matthew Baldwin said the developer who bought the property has promised to have some parking remain in the area and city staff are currently working out the details. Just how many spots might be available for the public is still up in the air.
The property, which extends from the Trans Canada Highway down to Goldstream Avenue and was formerly owned by the Provincial Capital Commission, has been rezoned from a residential lot to permit a range of business and technology commercial uses, including a technology park.
“According to the information that was given at the city hall meeting May 20, this is going to be used as a utilities corridor,” said Greg Craven who lives next to the lot.
“No specifics were given in respect to what type of utilities, whether they were sewer, water, hydro, drainage or access to this new development. No other information other than that was given.”
Langford Coun. Denise Blackwell isn’t sure what the parking area would look like yet, but she sounded confident it would be taken care of.
“Staff are working out the details, so I am sure we will retain as much parking as is needed,” she said. “We try and do what we can to get as much use out of our parks as possible… Absolutely we need parking around all our parks, they are working on the plans.”
MacDonald simply wants more information about the lot. “They have got a plan but they are not sharing the plan with us,” she said. “We need to know what is going on, what the plan is for this particular piece of property.”
Calls to the developer were not returned by the Gazette deadline.
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