KIRKLAND – Residents peppered council members at Kirkland city hall with questions about a controversial housing project Monday night.
Eight-hundred housing units are set to be built on the site of the abandoned Merck campus on the Trans Canada service road near Saint-Charles Blvd.
Work would begin in 2016 and continue for five to seven years.
Beaconsfield resident Cherine Cheftechi came to the meeting armed with a petition with signatures collected from concerned residents.
“Traffic, the environment, the value of our houses, there are so many reasons to hold off on approving this project,” she said.
Kirkland Mayor Michel Gibson told residents that the residential project is better than the alternative.
If the zoning isn’t changed from industrial to residential, then the owners can go ahead with an industrial project and residents would have no say.
“That is simply a fact, a reality we have to live with,” Gibson explained to the packed council room.
Gibson said the owners had previously proposed an industrial project that would have turned the greenspace near Brunswick Blvd. into a parking lot.
Kirkland councillors voted to approve the zoning change from industrial to residential, but the issue isn’t over.
Residents can still sign a registry calling for a referendum on the matter.
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