Town Council approves three new street names honouring past community leaders

Written By Paula Brown

Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Shelburne Town Council has approved the naming of three new streets. 

During their meeting on Monday (Feb. 12) Shelburne Town Council received a report from Town Planner, Steve Wever, regarding the naming approval of three new streets at two subdivisions in the Town of Shelburne. 

The new subdivisions in need of street naming approval included Ravines Edge, a development of 58 townhouse units located at 600 Main Street East, and the Scone Developments, a development of 33 townhouses built along the east side of the former railway corridor on the west end. 

According to the report, the two private condominium street names proposed for the Ravines Edge Development are Walden Drive and Allen Road. The names were chosen from a list of local veterans, which was provided by the Shelburne Legion. 

C.E.H Walden served as President of the Shelburne Legion, Branch 220, in 1950. 

Based on information received from the Allen family in 2019, Samuel Russell Allen was a member of the Lorne Scots Reserve, operated Allen's Men's Wear on Main Street for 30 years until 197, served as a councillor for two terms in the 1960s, chairman of the public utilities commission in the 1970s, and was a volunteer firefighter. 

The report noted Lemcke Way as the proposed name for the Shelburne Towns development. 

The street was requested for consideration by the Lemcke family in honour of the late Carman Lemcke, who served as the Chief of the Shelburne Police Service from 1957 until his retirement in 1993. Chief Lemcke received the Police Exemplary Service Medal from the Governor General of Canada in 1986 and has been recognized as one of the longest serving police chiefs in Canadian history. 

The Town of Shelburne has a street naming policy that establishes uniform and logical naming of new streets. The policy requires new street names to be based on a particular theme that allows for the naming of all streets within a development to be consistent. The policy looks to maintain the hertiage and identity of Shelburne as well as recognize the contributions of significant individuals while adhering to emergency safety considerations.

Mayor Wade Mills questioned the possibility of switching the roadways named Walden Drive and Lemcke Way. 

“The development at Ravines Edge, we're proposing be called Walden Drive. I'm just wondering if that might be a more appropriate location for the Lemcke Way for a couple of reasons, the primary one is it's essentially within a block of where former Chief Lemcke lived and raised his family for 50 plus years,” said Mills. “I think there's more of a nexus between the name and that location than there is the other development on the west end.” 

Wever added that the two developers would need to be updated on the change to receive their comments and reactions before proceeding with new addressing plans.

“This is ultimately up to council to assign the street names as you see fit. There wasn't really any particular magic to how the three names were applied to the three streets. We had those three names at the top of the list and put them down on the streets that were available to be named,” explained Wever. 

The next step in the street naming process is to create an addressing plan for both subdivisions, which will be circulated to ensure there are no conflicts with other addresses in the county.