Neighbourhood Plan Areas leave issues unanswered

Neighbourhood Plan Areas for the Waverley West development are shown in the above photo.

An immediate issue from looking at this diagram is the plan for the Town Centre Plan Area.

Will this be a region for shopping centres, commercial buildings, office space, industrial space, high rise apartments or what? If this really is to be a shopping and commercial centre, based on the development of other cities, it is very likely, if it were to be successful in a major way, that some sort of "rapid transit" will be needed from the proposed Town Centre area to downtown Winnipeg - and to other places, such as the University of Manitoba. Without some sort of transit hub, people will have to use cars as their primary transportation means and they may well drive further (to the shopping centres at Kenaston and McGillivray, for example), rather than necessarily using the local shopping areas.

It is of interest that when I asked NDP Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Scott Smith in the Legislature about the plans for transit access to Waverley West, he answered with more waffles than a washboard.

Clearly, what seems to be lacking is coordination between the Province of Manitoba (which is a major land developer here) and the City of Winnipeg in terms of vision for rapid transit and transit corridors. Also lacking is a real understanding as to whether this is to be a suburb similar to other suburbs or whether there is to be more effective broad area planning which includes provincial and city planning beyond the boundaries of this region.