City of Surrey Open House – 160 street widening project
Recently, I attended the Open House presented by the City of Surrey to inform local residence of the pending construction to widen 160 street. Although, according to the attendance map, there seemed to be good participation from Wills Creek, I still feel the need to have further discussions with our homeowners. Here are a few of my notes as a result of my discussion with City planners, Engineers and traffic managers:
• This will be a large project, everyone in the area should plan on major commute time increases, and delays, this will affect EVERY homeowner in Wills Creek for the duration of the project.
• I am deeply concerned how the City handled this information process (this will be discussed at our information session), the lack of available information, lack of transparency in the whole process.
• Homeowners at 3122 will experience the largest impact as a result of the proposed changes to 160 street and traffic flow patterns
• Surface road drainage will improve, ditches along 160 will be removed, properly graded roads and catch basins will now be put in place.
• No left turn (south heading up the hill) has been planned into the only exit from 3122. Although this has been discussed as not being acceptable, and the City willing to look at options. My further discussion with Engineering shows there is NO acceptable alternative, therefore don’t expect a solution to be available, given the location to a major intersection on 32 & 160
• The widening of 160 street will see the roadway, sidewalk and bike lanes, pushed up against the strata fence along 160 street, there is NO projected easement
• Traffic volumes are expected to exceed 18,000 vehicles per day (max allowable for an arterial road is 24,000 vehicles, 32 Ave is nearing that max volume) – remember this is now considered an arterial roadway. Which means the City will be pushing traffic from 24 Ave down to 160 as a collector to 32 and Hwy 99
• With this expected increase in vehicle traffic, all homeowners should expect a considerable increase in noise and vehicle pollutants and dust (not to mention what you will be in store for during construction)
• The City will NOT consider or discuss the installation of a noise barrier or noise attenuation shield
• With the roadway now planned to be against our strata fence line, there is considerable concern over security and the potential for increased levels of vandalism and theft.
• Improved street lighting, which will mean a move towards LED and possibly a greater number of light standards, which could be the case at major busy intersections. {Tap on image to scrool through all 10 pages} PresentationBoards160StreetWidening
Consideration for Strata Council
We will need to be focused on how this development proceeds. Certain areas have my attention, such as how accurately was our fence line, property line surveyed. What is the potential risk to this strata should our fence line encroach on the survey boundary. Potential cost for moving fence line and or landscaping. Requesting more detailed survey info from the City may be our first step in our due diligence process. The City of Surrey is notorious for informing homeowners that they have exceeded the easement, on the final day with a short time frame towards corrections, which leaves most homeowners scrambling at the last minute, and has the tendency to drive our cost much higher.
Information Session with homeowners 3122.
Strata council would like to hold an internal information only session, with all homeowners from 3122 ONLY (due to limited space) to be held in our club house. The homeowners at 3122, we believe will be impacted the most by the proposed construction project and this will be our opportunity to address some comments and provide some guidance.
• Thursday Oct 4 @ Wills Creek Club House
• Time: Start 8.00 PM End 9.00 PM
Due to limited space, we ask that this meeting be confined to only homeowners from 3122 and possibly one homeowner per unit. Please bring a small folding chair.
Maintenance Committee Meeting
The next maintenance committee meeting will take place in our Club House @ 7.00 PM (19h00), Oct 15, 2018. All those who wish to be part of our maintenance committee you are welcome to attend.
On going Maintenance Projects in Wills Creek
As many of you have noticed, and commented, this has been a busy year for maintenance projects at Wills Creek. You are correct, and it will continue for the remainder of this year, as we conclude final discussions on the reconstruction of garage pillars / columns and upper level decks. This will involve a total of 4 homes, 6 pillars and 4 decks, with misc wood rot repairs to window sills and other wood trim areas.
On a personal note, this project has captured 60 hrs of my time from discussions with contractors, email, review of scope of work (SoW) proposals, budgets etc., (before it can be placed in front of council for review and approval) there are many hours of behind the scene activities that your council members engage in, before a project is approved to move forward. Approval to proceed will be released to the contractor in a few days, so that we don’t miss our spot on the production schedule. Finding and retaining good quality contractors is a challenge, as there is no shortage of work currently and contractors can be “picky” as to which projects they wish to undertake.
Our 3 – 5 year plan, was constructed to be proactive and as such has commenced;
1. Project 1 painting (coming to a close);
2. Soon to be released structural and rain-screen repairs (Nov commencement);
3. Followed shortly by eavestrough and gutter/downspout corrections (which will address surface drainage matters). This is currently being assessed as we await the contractors proposal.
All proposals which your council receives goes through a standard but effective review process. We envision this to be the formula for the next 5 years, as we address all the affected units. Some projects such as paint, will end earlier, with a 3 year overall plan. However, as constructed, calculated and proactive in our maintenance approach and staying focused in our budget we would like to be, we still have issues of “unforeseen urgency” that requires us to shift gears and re-focus to deal with both short term and long term maintenance issues. For example, Just recently a roofing problem has been identified in one of the units, which can no longer go unaddressed. We must undertake remedial repairs and further investigation to assess and correct this matter, and whether this will affect other similar design units or is this an isolated case. As such, we may have to develop an extended maintenance plan as part of the overall long term solution to mitigate any further roofing risk.
Also to note, we have been conducting investigations into sanitary back ups which have been occurring to specific units. One challenge which council had, was the IC (inspection chamber) was nowhere to be found. Our investigation has now provided a location of this IC, which was buried beneath the landscaping. We can now move on to the next phase and determine an action plan.
So, as you can see there is no shortage of work within our complex, no shortage of projects to assess and no shortage of challenges. Your council has many “balls in the air” as we juggle our priorities around, all the whilst as we keep a careful eye on our budgets and your money. An aggressive maintenance schedule as we have launched (plus other strata responsibilities) does not happen overnight nor does it happen with only one meeting per month. Your council members are on the job 24-7.
I would like to encourage you to join me thanking the other Council members and all the owners who volunteer their time on the various committees to make Wills Creek one of the best places to live in South Surrey.
President Roger Morin
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