This week in Westlock, we’ve seen several examples of the importance of medium- and long-term planning. Unfortunately, what we have are examples of how things should not have been done.
To begin with, town council heard noise-related complaints this week about two local businesses — Precision Design and The Rev.
Certainly, the residential neighbours of these businesses have every right to enjoy their property free from undue noise or disturbance from their neighbours. And, in the absence of a mutually agreeable solution between the parties involved, these issues must come before council.
Fair enough. You can’t blame the residents for wanting to enjoy their homes free from the disturbances of a constantly running fan in one case or a late-night bar crowd in the other.
But we can’t blame the business owners in these cases, either. They have gone through the correct channels to get the proper licences to set up their businesses in areas where the land is zoned to allow them.
Precision’s business is allowed in its location, and it just happens to need a fan to deal with the heat from the machines it uses. Similarly, The Rev is allowed to operate where it is, as the lot is zoned commercial. When you have a nightclub, there is going to be some noise late at night and, unfortunately, a few drunken hooligans.
The question here is who thought it would be reasonable to zone a neighbourhood so that a nightclub could be right next door to a residence, or that an industrial facility like Precision could be right next door to houses and a seniors’ centre. It doesn’t take a professional geographer to tell you that these different uses of the space could result in some conflict.
And this lack of foresight isn’t limited to the decisions made by prior councils and administrations. The ongoing traffic problems on 99 St., which are most certainly due to the traffic from the new Westlock Rotary Spirit Centre, should have been identified from the start and addressed then.
But now we’re looking at it, after the fact, and wondering why people are choosing to use the 99 St. access and wondering what we can do to mitigate the effects of this traffic on residents.
The answer, which should have come years ago, is to simply show a little foresight.
