North Cowichan’s council is sending a letter to the City of Duncan requesting their gateway signs that are within North Cowichan’s boundaries be removed.
The decision was made at North Cowichan’s council meeting on Nov. 20 after a discussion on how the municipality intends to move forward with plans to update its gateway and municipal hall highway signs.
It was pointed out that three of the City of Duncan’s gateway signs — one near the southbound lane of the Trans-Canada Highway north of Beverly Street, another at the roundabout close to the Cowichan District Hospital, and the third near the Silver Bridge facing northbound traffic on the TCH — are all actually on North Cowichan property and their placement is causing confusion for many people.
But Coun. Mike Caljouw, who is a member of the Duncan Tourism Advisory Committee, said the City of Duncan decided in August to install a new primary gateway sign to replace the one near the Silver Bridge, at a cost of up to $22,000 plus taxes.
“I was the only one who voted against the committee’s motion to renew the sign and I just know that this is not going to land well with the city (of Duncan) and the residents there,” Caljouw said. “Personally, I was thinking of just the (City of Duncan’s gateway) sign north of town (which is located two kilometres north of Duncan in North Cowichan’s jurisdiction).”
North Cowichan wants to have more prominent signs on the municipality’s northern and southern boundaries on the TCH to, among other reasons, help give people a better sense of where North Cowichan begins and ends. Council decided at a meeting in July to hire Lanarc Consultants to help identify locations, scale, style, and options for materials and design for new gateway and municipal hall signs and Lanarc made a presentation at the meeting on Nov. 20 in which they recommended more than $500,000 in signage projects that would be completed over a number of years, if council agrees to move forward with them.
Council will discuss the options further during upcoming budget discussions.
North Cowichan Coun. Bruce Findlay said at the meeting on Nov. 20 that requesting that the City of Duncan move its gateway signs within its corporate boundaries would be in the best interests of both municipalities so there would be no confusion as to where their borders are.
But Coun. Christopher Justice said Duncan doesn’t have a highway presence and it’s important for the city to give people on the TCH, or whatever direction they are approaching from, directions to Duncan. He said the problem is that the current location of Duncan’s gateway signs make it seem to visitors that they are already in Duncan when they see them.
“So instead of asking (the city) to remove them, we should be asking them to refurbish or redesign them in such a way that it’s very clear that the signs are pointing to the way people should go if they want to get to Duncan. I wouldn’t want them to lose their directional signs.”
Council agreed to send the letter to the City of Duncan, with Justice opposed.
