Lorette plans Dawson Road’s future

The first open house on the future of Lorette’s downtown gathered ideas from residents and gave some enticing possibilities on what Dawson Road could be.

Dozens walked through Lorette Parish Hall to take a peek at possible futures and have their say Jan. 14. The area covered stretches from Fairway Drive in the west to the Taché Community Dog Park in the east.

Urban Systems has been hired to create a secondary plan that will shape the community’s main road’s development for years to come. It is the third specific area plan after the Lorette Northwest plan in 2019 and the Centre of Canada plan in 2021.

The plan would look at land use, housing, transportation, recreation, and more.

These plans are available on Taché’s website under departments, planning, secondary plans. The displays from the first open house will be online at rmtache.ca by next week.

People can fill out an online survey on what they want to see in Lorette at www.surveymonkey.ca/r/LoretteMainStreet. There will be another open house with a date to be posted in the future on the RM site.

RM planner Gillian Kolody explained how these plans guide growth as more people move into new developments, and business and other opportunities follow.

“I think obviously as the population ages it’s good to make things age friendly, so walking’s a part of that. Accessibility’s a part of it, obviously safety for kids,” said Kolody, who was there with other administration and councillors along with and Urban Systems planner and an architect.

“I know council and the LUD are talking about commercial concentrated along here. So it’s like how can we give it more of a traditional Main Street feel,” said Kolody, adding signage and other ways to find things is a part of getting people from inside and outside of the community to enjoy their town.

Lorette is also looking at making a variety of housing types available in new developments. That could include single-famliy housing, apartments, and less dense multi-family housing like duplexes and town homes that were urged by a housing action plan presented by M Richard & Associates at the Taché council meeting earlier in the day.

A pedestrian friendly Dawson Road is ideal according to the planners and most comments written on sticky notes stuck on maps scattered through the hall.

Taché hired a consultant to draw up an active transportation plan, which was released at an open house last April. It includes short-term plans in Lorette to extend a new, paved multi-use path on the west side of Station Road from Spirit Park towards Pioneer’s Trail including a bridge to connect with the existing multi-use path across the ditch at the Manitoba Hydro sub-station on Station Road; extend a new, granular multi-use path on the south side of Dawson Road from the Red River Co-op to River Ridge Drive; create new multi-use connections at the back of the school grounds where the three existing multi-use paths terminate; and extend a new, paved multi-use path on the south side of Dawson Road from River Ridge Drive to Clubhouse Drive.