City buying up properties to widen Highbury at Hamilton

Homeowners along Highbury near Trafalgar were told their properties are being expropriated. CTV London’s Bryan Bicknell explains why.

The city of London has started the ball rolling on improvements to the increasingly busy intersection of Highbury Avenue and Hamilton Road. They include the widening of Highbury.

But it means some people could lose their homes to expropriation.

“And according to the London city map, it shows it going through the houses on both sides of Highbury,” said Deb LeFaivre. The Highbury Avenue homeowner has lived in her home all of her life. Now, she said she’s being told the city is taking a piece of her property.

“But talking to the guy at city hall, he said they’re just taking probably half of our front yard,” she explained.

The city is in the process of acquiring 43 partial and nine full properties around the Highbury and Hamilton intersection, going both north and south, east and west, to make traffic improvements. Affected property owners have received a letter saying city Realty Services will be in touch to negotiate compensation.

The homes on the west side of Highbury north of Hamilton are already very close to the road. In the case of Deb LeFaivre’s property, the partial acquisition would eat up more than four metres of her front yard, bringing high volume traffic that much closer to her home.

Sarah Grady, Division Manager, Transportation Planning and Design, said several properties have already been acquired.

“Preferably we’d just take the partial. And if there’s not significant impacts to the rest of the lot, then we don’t need to take it. But there are some circumstances where we’re taking so much of a certain parcel of property, it kind of leaves the rest of it unusable, and there are cases where we would fully buy out the full property,” she explained.

LeFaivre’s next door neighbour, Debbie Evangelist, has owned her home for one year. She said she has mixed feelings.

“But I’m open minded on it. If it’s for the better, then what else can we do. I’m okay with it. As long as they offer us a nice compensation,” she said.

According to the city website, the planned improvements include:

• Additional northbound and southbound through lanes along Highbury Avenue North
• Median islands east and west of the intersection
• Eastbound right-turn lane
• Westbound dual left-turn lanes
• Northbound right-turn lane
• Eastbound and westbound bike lanes on Hamilton Road
• Landscaping and urban design elements
• Bus bays

Drivers CTV News spoke with welcome the improvements.

“London now, it’s pretty congested, so I encourage widening of roads, to be honest with you. Because it just moves people quicker, and it’s just more convenient for everybody,” said Curtis Hynds.

“And everyone always uses Highbury to go. So, I think it would be a good idea, depending on if the people who live there are okay with giving away the space to make the lanes bigger,” said motorist Zach Harris.

Construction is scheduled to begin in 2029.