A rather lacklustre housing sector for 2018 has lead to the put the breaks being put on any further expansion of the West Heath subdivision. There are four phases of the area on the southwest side of the city in play right now with the fifth and sixth phases expected to completed in the near future. With 11 city-owned lots left in the area, the Municipal Planning Commission was recommending that construction start to create more lots.

But that's been shelved after a meeting of council this week. Councillor Brian Swanson questioned why the city was willing to spend $4.5 million to develop more lots when we've had less than ten housing starts this year.

"We're going to open up another subdivision that, despite a stagnate population, further increases the footprint of this city and I think that is very poor urban planning," argued Swanson. "We haven't broken double-digit housing starts, we're at less than ten housing starts this year and this report concludes that we will average 122 housing starts per year for the next five years?"

Swanson said now that the work is done, the report can be pulled off the shelf when the market improves and there will be no negative impact. However, spending the $4.5 million now, when there are so many other projects that need funding, would be a bad idea.

Councillor Dawn Luhning agreed with many of the points that Swanson made Monday night but also questioned why the southwest corner of the city is seeing so much residential development and yet there doesn't appear to be any plans in place for dealing with the increased traffic.

"My biggest concern with the southwest side is that we don't have any plans to expand Thatcher Drive to go around the city to South Hill, we don't have plans for that and we don't have money for a bridge to do that so I don't know how much more we can force onto that side of the city."

Swanson and Luhning both pointed out that there are two other subdivisions on the northwest side of the city that have great access to major roads and still have lots for sale. Councillor Scott McMann was the only one to vote against the idea of tabling the report until 2019 budget talks.