A road by any other name would spell as street.
Committee of the whole recommended council approve a new road renaming policy based on a report from clerk Tara Reynolds during its April 2 meeting.
The policy outlines the guidelines for requesting a road renaming, proposing a new name, evaluating and reviewing it, consulting with agencies and the public, and the final implementation.
“It is recognized that changing the name of an existing and established street is significantly impactful to individuals, businesses, town departments and the community,” Reynolds said in the report.
To that end, requests for renaming will need to include a justification for the change, and all names will need to conform with existing policies and be reviewed by town staff and committees before being brought to council to authorize public consultation, the results of which will be submitted to council for final approval.
If a name change is approved, affected residents and other stakeholders will be notified of the timing.
Mayor James Leduc thanked the clerk for her report and emphasized the importance of renaming roads in “rural areas” before they become developed to impact the fewest residents.
“If we’re going to do anything, the time is now,” he said. “I want to make sure the public is involved heavily.”
The report also included another option to avoid the potential negative impacts of official renaming, a “symbolic” name change, in which signage would be installed with the symbolic name, but the road’s official name would remain the same.
Town chief administrative officer Geoff McKnight said the way in which that would impact property addresses could vary depending a number of factors including whether the road is under the jurisdiction of the town or the County of Simcoe, but assured council those factors would be included in the review.
“I really don’t have a nice neat response for you tonight,” he said. “We’d have to really look deeply into the impacts of changing those segments of roads.”
Leduc suggested symbolic changes should be avoided.
“We’re going to change it or not change it,” he said.
Ward 4 Coun. Joseph Giordano suggested adding a process to ensure any new names are submitted to tech companies like Google for inclusion in maps and global positioning systems (GPS), and when it comes to the more major east-west routes, Ward 5 Coun. Peter Ferragine suggested it might simpler to just keep the existing line numbers and avoid confusion.
While the town already has a policy for naming new streets, it made no provisions for renaming existing streets, an issue the heritage committee has been working to address since last summer. That's when they asked and council approved on Aug. 1 to have staff initiate the process of renaming Sideroad 10 to Middletown Sideroad, from Line 6 to north of Line 13.
Then as part of the Nov. 7 meeting, the committee asked and council approved to have staff provide a more detailed report on the requirements and process for several more roads, including:
- Urban Line 8
- Urban Line 6
- Line 6 east of Highway 400
- Sideroad 5 in the employment lands
The list also included several roads related to the new southwest arterial road (SWAR) which begins just east of Coffey Road, and runs east along Line 5 where it curves to join Sideroad 10, before continuing north to County Road 88.
The merging of those roads and severing of others has led to confusion among residents who asked for updated names among other safety concerns, many of which were addressed at the previous council meeting on March 19.
The roads proposed to be renamed as a result of the new SWAR include:
- The SWAR (from Line 6 to the Hwy. 400 interchange)
- Former Sideroad 10 south of the SWAR
- Former Line 5 east of the SWAR toward Canal Road
Ward 3 Coun. Ben Verkaik also chairs the committee and emphasized the importance of changing the names as soon as possible.
“We really do need to push this through, because there’s a lot of confusion,” he said. “We need to speed this up.”
For all of the road renaming requests from the committee, staff plan to establish consultations based on the new policy.
Recommendations from committee of the whole are considered for approval at the next regular council meeting.