Fredericton develops plans for new neighbourhood on city's southeast edge
CBC
A new section of Fredericton might be carved out of the woods to help ease the city's growing pains.
Since 2005, the city has been eyeing a possible development on Doak Road, but plans are inching closer to reality after a feasibility study was presented to council on Nov. 25.
The road, just off Alison Boulevard and the Vanier Highway, is a dead end in the city's southeast.
"The city's been growing quite exponentially," Fredrick Van Rooyen, a Fredericton senior planner, said in an interview.
He said it's still early in the process, and final plans for development have not been approved yet.
About 77 per cent of the proposed development area is city-owned, Van Rooyen said, and it would sell the property to developers once infrastructure, such as roads, sidewalks, culverts, water and sewer lines are added.
New housing would be built on a mix of the city-owned and private land, much of which is now forested. Property records show several developers own parcels of land adjacent to the city's.
Van Rooyen said the core would be zoned for mixed-used commercial and residential and would be "a mix of housing types, with high [density] transitioning down to medium- and lower-density residential."
When the city first adopted a growth strategy in 2017, Fredericton was getting about 1,000 new residents a year. Last year, that number jumped to 3,000, Van Rooyen said.
The feasibility study, which is preliminary, lays out a subdivision plan for more than 3,000 units.
Developing the infrastructure needed to accommodate construction — new roads, sidewalks, culverts and city water connections — would cost the city just over $53 million over a five-phase plan.
The plans also include a location for a potential new school.
The feasibility study was approved by council last week. Van Rooyen said the city will now apply for federal housing funds and start a more detailed engineering design for the first phase of the project.
The report was put together by EXP, an engineering, architecture design and consulting firm, in consultation with Zzap Architecture and Planning.
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