Adam Prudhomme
Beaver Staff
Beverly Street residents successfully convinced Greater Napanee council to vote in their favour on Tuesday night and assign an alpha numeric civic number to the development currently under construction on their street.
Council was unanimous in their support of the motion, which was the second of six options put forward by staff. The motion was officially made by councillor Carol Harvey.
That option was the overwhelmingly popular choice of the dwellers of the approximately 70 units on Beverly Street, who were told in December they’d have to add 100 to their current civic address.
Prior to the vote, one resident told council to change her address, from which she also operates a business, would require dealing with upwards of 50 agencies for things such as health card, passport, personal cheques and business documents.
The residents made their preference clear at a meeting held last week specifically for those affected by the proposed changes.
Before Tuesday’s council meeting got started, mayor Gord Schermerhorn took responsibility for the original letter that was delivered in December.
“The first letter hand delivered to residents caused both frustration and confusion amongst the residents of Beverly Street,” said Schermerhorn. “I take full responsibility and I apologize for that letter being sent to you. Staff working with emergency services wanted to ensure that civic addressing is clear and is never a reason for a late or a delayed response to a life-saving call.”
Potential confusion for an emergency responded was among the cons listed for the solution of using alpha-numeric addresses. Letters in a civic address won’t be unique to Beverly Street however, as one member of the audience noted some 155 addresses in Greater Napanee have a letter in it.
On the issue of visibility and avoiding confusion, Schermerhorn suggested Harvey add to her motion the new buildings on Beverly Street must be well lit.
“Because there is such a concern with the A,B,C, what about having the sign numbers lit at night so they can be seen?,” said Schermerhorn. “These are new places, they can be wired in as we speak.”
After some discussion, Harvey agreed to make that part of her ultimately successful motion, which was met with applause from the Beverly Street residents in attendance.