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Residents concerned about parking development at St. John's airport

Residents concerned about parking development at St. John's airport

A lot has changed at the St. John's International Airport in the past few decades, but one resident in the area is troubled about a new, potentially very large, parking development.

Clayton Hospitality Inc. has applied to build a stand-alone 2.5 hectare, 625-space parking lot at 53 Radio Range Rd., a lot that would require changes to the city's regulations on maximum parking lot size.

The lot would be behind Don Hurd's home, where he has lived since 1974. He says he is concerned about construction of a parking lot of that size.

"We are afraid of devaluation of our property…there'll be cars there, there's an opportunity for vandalism, there's a fire danger, there's a number of problems," he said.

"We fear during the actual development that there might be a problem with rats and flooding and noise and that kind of thing."

Hurd said most of the people on the street are of the same mind, as the large parking lot would remove a forested area just behind their homes.

Not satisfied with response

Hurd said he and other residents presented their concerns to council during a public meeting in June 2015. He has written to council several times, he said, but isn't satisfied with council's handling of the situation.

"There's been no response, except now we see they're going to go ahead with it," he said.

Because going ahead with the project would require altering city regulations, the city may be making changes just to cater to the contractor's plans, Hurd said.

"It's a complicated thing because the regulation they have says that no parking lot can be more than half a hectare, and this parking lot is much bigger than that," he said.

"It does seem to us that the council [members] are changing the regulation so that they can approve the development, not because of any overall reason that they should change the regulation."

Despite all the expansion, Hurd doesn't regret buying a house near the airport and said he wants to remain in his home.

"We've lived here for a long time, we've enjoyed it, we still like it here," he said.

"We know things have got to change, ultimately, but we don't see why they have to put a parking lot behind us now."

The City of St. John's cited several parking lots during public consultations that are already above the 0.5 hectare maximum.

Council will vote on a resolution to remove the size restriction on stand-alone parking lots on Monday.