KSAC defers supermarket building application again
Unconvinced that plans for traffic flow in the vicinity of Gore Terrace can prevent traffic jams if a supermarket is built at 62 Constant Spring Road, the Kingston and St Andrew Corporation (KSAC) last week deferred, for the second time, approval of the building application for the facility.
The proposed supermarket for occupation by SuperPlus, which will consist of two offices, restrooms, cashier sales area and storage areas, was approved by the National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA) at a meeting on October 10, 2002.
But the KSAC’s Building and Town Planning Committee deferred approval on the building application for the first time on February 19, after questioning whether the additional traffic from the supermarket would create more traffic congestion in that area of the Constant Spring Road.
Winston Hartley, director of planning and development at the National Works Agency (NWA), told the committee that vehicles exiting the supermarket would be able to make a right turn at a traffic light to be placed at the Gore Terrace entrance by the Church of Latter Day Saints (Mormons).
But Trevor Bernard, chairman of the committee who argued that any right turn out of Gore Terrace onto the Constant Spring Road would create traffic congestion, again deferred the approval of the building application to the next meeting.
Hartley told the committee that he would invite the traffic management to attend the next Building and Planning committee meeting to address their concerns.
“You have to prevent right turns at any of the Gore Terrace entrances as it will create problems. That road (Constant Spring Road) is too busy for right turns. The residents by themselves are not bad, but if you are going to add more cars to it with this development, there will be a problem,” Bernard said.
The proposed supermarket was also discussed at a meeting of the Gore Terrace Citizens Association last week Thursday. At that meeting, representatives of NWA and NEPA displayed the plans and told the community about the traffic changes that would be made to accommodate the enterprise.
Leonard Francis, manager of the development control branch of NEPA, told the residents that before the application was approved by the agency, a survey was conducted by persons independent of the NEPA to gauge community acceptance of the supermarket. According to Francis, of 41 forms handed out to households, 21 were returned. Eleven households were in favour of the supermarket, eight against and two undecided.
A resident who expressed concern about garbage and rats was told that the supermarket would have no outside garbage receptacle. Compressed cubes would be used to burn the garbage in a sealed room.
Debbon Panton, proprietor of the Shell Gas Station at the corner of Gore Terrace, also asked if it was possible to have a gas station storing fuel underground so close to a supermarket.
But Francis said that the uses were compatible, as a landscaped area would separate the supermarket and gas station.
In addition, Hartley told the committee that vehicles leaving the supermarket would only be able to make right turns on to Constant Spring Road by the Mormon entrance and that only left turns could be made at the Gore Terrace entrance near to the Shell gas station closest to the bridge.
“Traffic lights are going to be put in to control everything and there is going to be a median strip,” Hartley said. However, Bernard said that he was mostly concerned about peak hours. “It is the peak time of day, for example when people leave work and stop to shop. Any right turn out of there is going to bring the whole intersection to what it is now, even after the road is widened,” he argued.
Bernard, who suggested that many of the traffic lights in the city “created more problems than they solved”, cited the traffic light by Chelsea Avenue from which a right turn can be made on to Half-Way-Tree Road.
“When you open that new bridge on the Constant Spring Road, if you put another light at Gore Terrace, it’s going to be crazy,” said Bernard.
Meanwhile, Councillor Lee Clarke said that “allowing a right turn by the Mormon Church would be foolish”. Clarke, who also asked what plans would be made to accommodate the nearby Merl Grove High School, was told that an overhead crossing would be constructed.