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- Residents raise traffic safety concerns about proposed Edmonds truck storage
Residents raise traffic safety concerns about proposed Edmonds truck storage
A truck storage facility at the Edmonds-area BC Hydro office building saw some opposition from neighbours who asked whether it was an appropriate development for the same area that a 14-year-old girl was hit and killed by a dump truck earlier this year.
Last week, BC Hydro’s proposal for a zoning amendment for 6900 Southpoint Dr. to add a truck storage building in its existing operations yard went to public hearing, and two speakers raised the issue of Muska Behzad’s death on May 5.
The incident drew a significant response from the community, and less than half a week after her death, the developers whose worksite was associated with the dump truck had built a temporary ad hoc sidewalk along the street.
According to a city staff report on the BC Hydro proposal, the proposed building would be about 1,323 square metres in area with 10 stalls to house 10 vehicles.
In a letter sent on behalf of her strata council in the 7000-block of 14th Avenue, Penny Oyama and her neighbours objected to the proposal.
Oyama said the documentation accompanying the staff report didn’t include the elementary school across Griffiths Drive, “in addition to the ever-increasing construction and populated residential buildings along 14th Avenue.”
“As well, there is the Byrne Creek Secondary School nearby. The Edmonds area of the city of Burnaby has already suffered a fatal construction accident just this spring related to that secondary school and the massive construction site at Southgate City,” she wrote, adding: “A repeat of this tragedy MUST not happen!”
In the public hearing, she said she and her neighbours were “extremely disturbed” by the death of Behzad.
Leslie Madison told council during the hearing that Oyama’s comments troubled her.
“I believe her concerns really need to be put back to the planning committee and see how that can be remedied so that residents in the area and their children can be living in safety while all this chaos is going around them,” Madison said.
The vehicle storage building itself isn’t expected to add any new BC Hydro service vehicles, according to the staff report, which stated that it is “to provide improved security and heating for the existing line trucks and operations vehicles in the yard.”