July 14 Town council notes

Roger Varley, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

PRIDE banners get extension

In a rare divided vote, on Monday council approved a request from North Durham PRIDE to allow its banners to be displayed downtown until August 9. PRIDE asked for that extension because Uxbridge Pride Celebration is scheduled for that date at the parking lot near Wixan’s Bridge Restaurant

Councillors Todd Snooks and Gord Shreeve cast the only dissenting votes.

Angle parking on Brock still not recommended

Christopher Sidlar of LEA Consulting gave his final report to council Monday regarding parking in Uxbridge. It appeared to be relatively unchanged from a similar draft report presented to council back in April, with the consultants again recommending the removal of angle parking on upper Brock Street, to be replaced with parallel parking spots. The report said the move would take away eight parking spots on that block.

The report also noted that, taking in various scenarios, Uxbridge will have more parking spaces than are currently needed for the next couple of decades. It determined that a number of extra handicapped parking spaces should be added to the mix.

A screenshot of part of the virtual tour of an imagined downtown Uxbridge.

Virtual tour helps visualize a new downtown Uxbridge

Council watched a digital virtual tour of downtown Uxbridge during Monday’s council meeting, created by Render Developments for the Downtown Revitalization project.

The tour utilizes drone footage of the downtown area and provides highlights for two properties that are currently available for redevelopment, one being at the top of the hill on Brock St. W., where the Shell gas station was located, and the other being the now municipally-owned property on lower Brock, which includes the northeast corner of Brock and Toronto Streets, as well as the municipal parking lot and the former Circle K building. Render included in the virtual tour artistic renderings of both properties to provide an artistic concept of the potential redevelopment opportunity.

The virtual tour will be used in the township's marketing strategy and has been added to the Downtown Revitalization website, which is accessible through uxbridge.ca