Residents rallied on Saturday to save Surrey’s Hawthorne Park from redevelopment.
The proposed 105 Avenue Connector — a two-lane road between Whalley Boulevard and 150 Street — would cut through a park, school grounds and the front yards of some homes.
Residents are concerned that the roadway will disrupt their community and their way of life.
Steven Pettigrew said residents feel that city hall isn’t listening to their concerns.
“We’ve collected over 5,000 signatures,” he said. “We had 150-plus people at a delegation meeting. They all said the right things, gave us nice smiles and handshakes but they didn’t listen to us. They unanimously decided to put this road through.”
WATCH: Hawthorne Park concerns
Surrey City Councillor Mike Starchuk says if residents are able to collect more than 30-thousand signatures, the city would need to go back to the drawing board.
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“The city would have to go back to our engineers and try to figure out where else that we will be able to put the underground services that need to be relocated. And I’m not sure what we would do with regards to traffic because east-west traffic in the north end of town is problematic.”
Starchuk says this project is vital and improving transportation in the area has been looked at since 1986.
David Suzuki was scheduled to speak at the rally as well.
— With files from Simon Little, Janet Brown and Kyle Benning
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