A street along the Lake Simcoe shoreline will happily be staying in the dark.
Innisfil council agreed to halt the installation of streetlights along Limerick Street, following the pleas from neighbourhood residents there.
Michael Hayes, who canvassed the street with his neighbours Archie Gardiner and Chuck Willoughby, told councillors during open forum that they were able to connect with 95 per cent of the residents on Limerick Street and the overwhelming majority did not want to see any changes occur.
In fact, they seemingly weren’t aware it was even an option.
“Nobody knew this was about to happen or could possibly happen,” Hayes said. “They were very pleased we were taking the initiative to come to you to ask that this process not go through.
“One resident I spoke to today said, ‘go get ‘em,’ so, I’m here to get you,” he added.
The issue came to council at its Sept. 14 meeting through a motion put forward by Coun. Fred Drodge, whose ward includes Limerick Street.
Drodge used a section of the town’s corporate policy that acknowledges “some communities within the town may not wish to have streetlights installed” and that “if the urban community were to collectively voice the position that they do not want streetlights, the town could identify that community as a dark community and not install streetlights on their roadways.”
Coun. Linda Zanella wanted to know why anyone wouldn’t want streetlights on their road. Drodge was able to summarize his constituents’ concerns concisely.
“They really like to look up at the night sky and you really do lose a lot of that night view, even with the newer style streetlight; it does create a bit of a halo,” Drodge said. “Secondly, they’re a private people on that street. They don’t like a lot of foot traffic. So, when you put streetlights, you tend to have more people want to go down there.”
Just as succinctly, Hayes told councillors the residents simply didn’t want their street to change.
“Limerick Street would like to remain the way it is at the present,” Hayes said.
“It’s their own community, they thrive on their own; it’s a dead-end road,” Drodge added. “When they say they want to remain a dark community, that’s the way it’s been for many, many years. The people who live there are the type of people who want to live the way they’ve been living, which is in complete darkness.”
Drodge’s original motion called for the town to conduct a poll to determine whether residents wanted streetlights installed on Limerick. Given the results of the polling done by Hayes and his neighbours, where they went door-to-door and got the answers directly from the residents, director of growth and planning Andria Leigh said that wouldn’t be necessary.
“We wouldn’t look to go out with another poll by the town,” she said. “We would look to accept the petition that’s been provided.”
She also added there likely wouldn’t be a liability issue if the town didn’t install the lights, as there’s nothing in town policy to indicate when streetlights must be installed. That said, there are guidelines as to when streetlights might be a good idea, with safety being one of the determining factors.
“I think the policy is clear on the factors when streetlights would be considered, but there’s nothing that would require streetlights in all those locations, so I don’t think it opens it up for liability by not putting streetlights in,” Leigh said.
Accordingly, Drodge changed his motion to call on the town to not proceed with streetlight installation and that “Limerick Street should remain without streetlights and/or be deemed a dark community.”
A roar of applause rang from the audience once Mayor Lynn Dollin confirmed the motion was successful.
