In the Nov. 2 issue of the Castlegar News, the City of Castlegar ran an ad announcing its application for a disposition of Crown land on a section of Dubé Road.
The city’s intent is to ensure access for commercial businesses located farther along the road, but a Blueberry resident says the road was supposed to have been closed to public access 20 years ago, and Blueberry residents don’t want commercial traffic alongside their properties.
Amid the controversy, no one was able to provide a clear reason as to why the road was never closed in the first place.
According to Phil Markin, director of development services, the City of Castlegar has applied for the disposition of the land “to make sure that there’s access for the industrial residents on the north side of it.”
The north side is actually Blueberry Road, though Google Maps calls the whole stretch Dubé Road.
Markin says that when the Ministry of Transportation and Highways upgraded the interchange between Highway 22 and Blueberry Road in 2014, it prevented large trucks from using the turn because it’s too narrow.
Kenton Holuboff, the owner of Kenton’s Auto Body & Hull Painting on Blueberry Road, agrees.
“It’s pretty tight,” he says.
Holuboff says his business used to be accessed directly off of the highway, but that changed when the north-end turn was put in. Now he says customers have trouble accessing his business and he has to explain to them how to access it from the south.
It’s also the case that only vehicles travelling north on Highway 22 can use the turn at all.
As for traffic leaving Blueberry Road, vehicles can only head north from that point and Holuboff says it’s not very safe due to traffic speeding on the highway.
“It’s hard to pull out … at the top here because … you don’t know if you pull out in front of a car if it’s going to nail you or not,” he says.
So access to the businesses on Blueberry Road is primarily through Blueberry on Dubé Road, using the south access point.
Markin says that’s what the Ministry of Transportation and Highways intended all along, and showed the Castlegar News a letter dated Sept. 15, 1995 from the Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks, which states: “Access to Highway 22 from the proposed development will be from two possible locations, essentially as it exists presently. The main access point is located approximately 200m south of the development site. The current intersection will be considered as the main access point for the development site and, according [sic] the Ministry of Transportation and Highways (MOTH), will be the only access permitted for industrial vehicles.”
Further on it says: “Highway access at the north access point will be limited to right turns only for vehicles entering and exiting the highway, according to preliminary correspondence received from MOTH. Use of this intersection will be restricted to passenger and emergency vehicles only and is not intended for use by the industrial or commercial vehicles.”
But that letter predates a City of Castlegar bylaw signed in April of 1997 ordering that the section of the road the City of Castlegar is currently applying for “is hereby closed and stopped up to traffic of all kinds.”
The bylaw was followed by a highway abandonment order, signed by the Assistant Deputy Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing on Dec. 24, 1997.
Bob Horst has lived in Blueberry for 27 years and was part of the Blueberry Land Use Committee that negotiated to have the section of road closed back in 1997.
His yard backs onto Dubé Road and he and his neighbours have been raising concerns about the noise made by commercial vehicles for quite some time.
“From … 7:30 to quarter to eight in the morning, continuously until about six o’clock in the evening, up and down all day long, seven days a week,” Horst says of the traffic. “And then you get the weekend traffic because kids come up here and party.”
Horst pointed to evidence of burnouts on the section of the road in question.
He acknowledges that the north access is not suitable for large commercial vehicles, but says that’s something that should have been taken into consideration when the turn was built.
In regards to whether or not Blueberry residents were consulted since it became clear the road would not be closed, Markin said, “They’ve been communicating with us and we’ve responded to them. We’ve asked for their understanding because of the recent upgrades to the highway.”
But Horst is unsatisfied with communication between residents and the city.
“They either don’t talk to us or they send us verbiage letters that actually mean absolutely nothing,” he said.
Ideally, Horst said he and his neighbours would like to see the road physically closed to vehicular traffic, but left open to pedestrian and bicycle access.
Asked why the road was never closed to traffic, Markin said, “It was closed and it was closed on behalf of the province by the city, but after that time it was still being maintained and there were public funds applied to it. So that’s our position why it’s still a section 42 road.”
Section 42 of the Transportation Act says that “if public money is spent on a travelled road that is not a highway, the travelled road is deemed and declared to be a highway.”
Asked why the road was still maintained if it was closed, Markin referred us to the province, who Markin says continued to maintain the road until Blueberry was amalgamated into the City of Castlegar in 2004, after which point the city continued maintaining the road.
A media request made to the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure led to a response from a spokesperson from the Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development, who said the road was never physically closed because the portion of the road owned by the Crown is not a full thoroughfare and stops where it meets privately held land.
While a section of the road does cross private property, there are not barriers or “no trespassing” signs to stop it from being used as a thoroughfare.
For his part, business owner Holuboff hopes that if the city takes ownership of the road, it will lead to improvements.
“I don’t know if they’re going to repave it or what they’re going to do, but they gotta get their mitts onto that road for us to have access because we’re really suffering with our businesses here,” he says.
Asked about the future of Dubé Road, should the city’s application be successful, Markin said, “That could be something the City would look at moving forward. Subject to budget considerations. The road alignment may change should a developer decide to subdivide the 18-acre property at some time in the future.”
For more information on the City of Castlegar’s application for the disposition of Crown land, visit arfd.gov.bc.ca/ApplicationPosting/viewpost.jsp?PostID=53906. There you can also submit a comment on the application until Dec. 8.