A 46-Unit Seniors’ Home Is The Latest Development Planned for Moncton’s North End
MONCTON – The Hub City’s rapidly growing north end could see another new development. A 46-unit senior care home is being planned on 599 Ryan Street, according to a rezoning application heard at the city council Monday.
The applicant is Sean Doucet, a representative of property owner Serenity Senior Living. The request seeks to rezone a two-unit dwelling area to a community use area. There’s currently a single-unit dwelling on the site, which the owner plans to remove.
The City didn’t put a time frame for the development, but the property owner aims to “get started right away,” says Director of Urban Planning Bill Budd when he presented the project to council.
The development will include a two-storey main building spanning 34,445 square feet. This building will contain 36 bedrooms on the first storey, with level two and three assisted care, a living room, a dining room, a kitchen and three sunrooms. Ten independent living apartments and “a couple of offices” will be built on the second storey, Budd said.
The proposed development will also have a parking lot with 26 spaces and four barrier-free spots, and a hair salon for residents.
“It will look like a residential building. It is a residential building,” Budd said.
Councillors were generally supportive of the project, with Bryan Butler and Greg Turner among those supporting it.
“Sounds like a great project for the north end, I can retire and just live right there,” Butler said.
“I love the project because we’ve approved a lot of daycares it seems in the north end, but it’s great to see a project for seniors as well,” Turner said.
However, Councillor Robert McKee questioned why no traffic study was required for the project. To this, the city’s Director of Design and Construction Alcide Richard said none was needed because the business attracts no more than 100 vehicles per hour at peak times.
“Because the impact is going to be low enough that it shouldn’t trigger a whole lot of things on our street,” he said.
The property is located in Moncton’s north end, a rapidly growing area of the city. McKee said with all the new developments being approved in that area, a traffic impact study of the general region should be considered.
“We have an abundance of smaller projects that might not meet that threshold, but if we add them all up together, it might be prudent to look at all of the newer projects coming together and what kind of effect they’ll have on the area for traffic.”
Richard said the City keeps an eye on overall traffic changes every few years or so.
“We’re nowhere near the capacity that [Ryan Street] can’t handle right now,” he said. “That doesn’t mean to say that if you were there 15 years ago, you wouldn’t notice more traffic that you did at that time. Of course, you would. But it doesn’t mean we need to start putting three lanes, four lanes and turn lanes, that kind of stuff.”
After passing this first reading, the application has to go to the Planning Advisory Committee for written reviews and a public hearing set for April 16.