Developer Danny Williams is in another battle with City of St. John’s over the requirement for another roundabout in Galway.
Williams’ company, DewCor, applied for permits to build two medium-sized buildings in the Shoppes at Galway; one for a bank, the other for a new Five Guys restaurant.
He calls the requirement for another roundabout — at a cost of about $3.6 million versus $400,000 for a traffic signal — excessive.
The city, he says, wants a sixth roundabout near the intersection with Costco and Starbucks.
“So that’s like one (roundabout) every 100 metres or less, which we feel is extremely excessive,” Williams tells VOCM News.
DewCor performed a traffic study, as required by the capital city, at “considerable cost” and it recommended that a signal light would be adequate “for the foreseeable future.”
Williams says he even offered to reserve the land should another roundabout be required in future, but says that idea was rejected.
“We have a study that they requested, and they set the terms of reference for, and it’s a company that the city uses themselves, and they reject it. Then we kind of go ‘well, where do turn now?’ ”
He says the question was asked of him several times during a recent business event
Ellsworth says the process is clear and another roundabout is justified using Williams’ own traffic numbers, adding a similar issue played out in 2016.
“So that’s on the developer,” he told city council on Tuesday.
“When they decide they’re ready to make a commitment to development, and they’re ready to put the infrastructure in place to allow traffic to move safely, freely, and to allow safe, easy access for emergency responders and those types of things, then they’ll be able to do their infrastructure upgrades, and therefore get more permits to move forward
“So, any allusion that the City of St. John’s is withholding permits is not correct.”