The city has been getting a glimpse of what Saint Johners think about the South Central Peninsula, as work continues on the development of a neighborhood plan for the uptown, South end and Waterloo Village.
When it comes to community engagement thus far, work done has included been 30 stakeholder meetings, more than 200 comments on a digital engagement platform and more than 240 comments were gathered at the public launch event.
For the waterfront, the expansion of public access was identified as the top issue with 54-percent, meantime with community well-being, the top issue there at 39-percent is that schools are important.
“There’s a gap identified which is activities and places for youth. As children age, there begin to be fewer things for youth to do and really to increase the family-friendliness of the neighborhood,” says the city’s Jeff Cyr.
“Some key spaces where people suggested would be great opportunities for growth included places like the Fundy Quay, Water Street, filling in the gaps in Queen Square, the former Bargain Shop, Union Street, Waterloo Street, St. Vincents, as well as the Prince Edward Square area.”
A two and a half day engagement event, described as a deep dive into the places and topics that are most important to the community, will provide direction to the creation of the neighborhood plan.
The Central Peninsula Summit is being held from July 6 to July 8 at St. John the Baptist King Edward School on St. James Street in the South end.
“This event will really be the first opportunity to publicly unveil to the community what we’ve heard so far in our prior engagement events, as well as for our consultants to begin to share their preliminary analysis of the central peninsula and what are the opportunities for growth and change,” says Cyr.
The final neighborhood plan is expected in February 2018.
