Councillors worry about development at Little Mountain Park

Two Winnipeg city councillors want more information about the province's plans for a booming industrial area in northwest Winnipeg andhowthey impact a popular city park.

Thatcomes aftera CBC News story about fears Little Mountain Park is threatened by CentrePort and other nearbycommercial development plansin the booming northwest industrial sector.

St. Vital Coun. Brian Mayes saidhe and Old KildonanCoun. Devi Sharma are concerned because developers' plans show roads going right through the park, which is a heavily-used off-leash dog park.

Mayes said the city is writing to Manitoba's minister of infrastructure and transportation, Steve Ashton.

"We'd kind of thought this issue had been dealt with but based on what we found out a day or two ago, there may be some other plans out there we weren't aware of," he said.

"Coming out of that CBCstory it certainly sounded like there were some maps out there that we weren't aware of. So we want to find out what plans there might be for Chief Peguis Trail or any other roadway that might be somewhere down the line that would interfere with the park.

"I think we both wanted to find out all the facts on this."

The park belongs to the city of Winnipeg but is actually located inthe Rural Municipality of Rosser. As such,it's not in a city ward sono city councillor is responsible for it.

Mayes said earlier information persuaded him that the city had no plans right nowto extend the Chief Peguis Trail past Route 90. But he's changed his mind after CBC's story that showed a map on CentrePort's website illustrating howthe northwest corner of the park will be trimmed when the extension is built.

As well,a map on the website for the Brookside Business Park shows the extension will actually cut right through the park.

The agent for that development, Robert Scaletta, an independent agent for Shindico, said the information for the map came from the province.

He said the business park land is actually owned by a private investor in Alberta.