A new section of Fredericton might be carved out of the woods to help ease the city’s growing pains.
Since 2005, the city has been eyeing a possible development on Doak Road, but plans are inching closer to reality after a feasibility study was presented to council on Nov. 25.
The road, just off Alison Boulevard and the Vanier Highway, is a dead end in the city’s southeast.
“The city’s been growing quite exponentially,” Fredrick Van Rooyen, a Fredericton senior planner, said in an interview.
He said it’s still early in the process, and final plans for development have not been approved yet.
About 77 per cent of the proposed development area is city-owned, Van Rooyen said, and it would sell the property to developers once infrastructure, such as roads, sidewalks, culverts, water and sewer lines are added.
Fredrick Van Rooyen, senior planner for the city, says if all goes to plan, construction of roads and infrastructure could start next fall. (Aidan Cox/CBC)
New housing would be built on a mix of the city-owned and private land, much of which is now forested. Property records show several developers own parcels of land adjacent to the city’s.
Van Rooyen said the core would be zoned for mixed-used commercial and residential and would be “a mix of housing types, with high [density] transitioning down to medium- and lower-density residential.”
When the city first adopted a growth strategy in 2017, Fredericton was getting about 1,000 new residents a year. Last year, that number jumped to 3,000, Van Rooyen said.
The feasibility study, which is preliminary, lays out a subdivision plan for more than 3,000 units.
Developing the infrastructure needed to accommodate construction — new roads, sidewalks, culverts and city water connections — would cost the city just over $53 million over a five-phase plan.
The plans also include a location for a potential new school.
An image from the preliminary feasibility study shows the possible development phases for the Doak Road development. The different colours show zoning types. (City of Fredericton)
The feasibility study was approved by council last week. Van Rooyen said the city will now apply for federal housing funds and start a more detailed engineering design for the first phase of the project.
The report was put together by EXP, an engineering, architecture design and consulting firm, in consultation with Zzap Architecture and Planning.
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Earlier this year, council expressed concern about a lack of growth in that sector of the city, and staff began to narrow down plans for Doak Road.
Timing of the project depends on funding, but Van Rooyen said if all goes to plan, a best-case scenario could see work on the infrastructure begin next fall. Construction of the neighbourhood could begin in 2026, he said.
He described the feasibility study as “very technical,” but as the city moves into the municipal plan process, there will be engagement with the public about plans for the development.
Proposal means big changes locally
Fern Forrest grew up in the 1960s in a home at the very end of Doak Road, one of six siblings, and remembers the area as mostly wide open fields back then.
“There were a lot of large families that lived on the Doak Road,” she said.
“A lot of them just grew up, and a lot of them have moved on.”
Fern Forrest says when she was growing up on Doak Road in the 1960s it didn’t feel like part of the city because it was quiet and rural. (Shane Fowler/CBC)
Despite the close proximity to downtown and being within city limits, Forrest said it didn’t feel like they were living in Fredericton.
“We had our own little paradise. We could play in our barns, we could play in the brooks and travel the roads — it was real free-living.”
Forrest said back when it was a dirt road, school buses wouldn’t go all the way to the end. She remembers her mother, Mavis Mazerall, having to fight the city to keep the road from falling into disrepair.
“They would only come to patch the potholes on Friday afternoons and would only use whatever asphalt they had left over from the week,” she said.
Forrest said she isn’t surprised to hear about plans for development.
“It was a matter of time, just a matter of time,” she said. “Just look at how the city’s growing in all directions.”
She moved away when she got married but her brother still lives on the family homestead today.
Forest said she doesn’t feel dismayed by the prospect of changes coming to her old neighbourhood.
“I now live on the Wilsey Road and everybody knows how much that has developed,” Forrest laughed.
“And I remember when that was a ‘Doak Road,’ with no homes on it.”