Maple Street in Elmira may or may not be getting a makeover this year, but the parking spaces adjacent to the Home Hardware store will remain either way.
In a mood to compromise Tuesday night, Woolwich councillors listened to arguments made by business owner Krista McBay, rejecting an engineering staff recommendation to reconstruct the street, install sidewalks on both sides and eliminate perpendicular parking adjacent to the store.
At first scrapping the project altogether, councillors appeared to settle on extending the west-side sidewalk all the way to William Street, connecting Church Street with Riverside Public School. The township will also look at resurfacing the street, which runs alongside the township’s new administrative building.
Its proximity led McBay to suggest the work was being done simply to spruce up the street to match the new facility.
That argument struck a chord with Coun. Mark Bauman, who questioned the need for the project, especially if there are no underground services to be replaced. Doing the work for cosmetic reasons makes little sense, he suggested.
“We don’t need to look for more ways to spend money.”
The project was put off last year after tenders came in at $180,000, more than three times the $58,000 budget. New plans, including replacing the perpendicular parking with 45-degree angle parking, are being drawn up, and the work will be retendered later in the year.
