On March 16, the Times featured the story of local resident Dave Smith, who had concerns that the legal name of his road is unclear. He was worried that his road – Boundary Road, or South Gower Boundary Road, depending on who you ask – may be a puzzle to emergency services, since an ambulance took a while to reach a neighbour who needed one last year. This is in addition to the less severe, but still inconvenient, problem of delivery companies having trouble finding Dave’s house. Before the publication of the original story, an employee of the Municipality of North Grenville responded to the Times’ request for comment, and gave the firm answer that the legal name of Dave’s road is simply “Boundary Road,” not “South Gower Boundary Road” as Dave believes.
Late last week, Dave’s wife, Trish, reached out to the Times to provide an update, which has made the story much more complicated. She revealed that her husband had contacted the City of Ottawa, asking for their take on the road name.
“And guess what their response was?” said Trish. “The official name of our street, according to Ottawa, is South Gower Boundary Road! So as the Boundary Road between North Grenville and Ottawa… North Grenville’s official name for our street is Boundary Road, and Ottawa’s official name is South Gower Boundary Road. So we officially have two names!”
Trish says that Dave contacted the Municipality of North Grenville by email to show them the response from the City of Ottawa, and that the Municipality was “shocked”. She also pointed out that she and her husband are not the only ones who are aware of the two road names.
“I’ve even spoken to the regular mailman for our road, and he said the post office is aware of the two different names of our road, and that half the houses on our road use one name and the other half use the other,” Trish said.
Now, with the conflicting responses from the two municipalities, Trish and Dave simply want the City of Ottawa and the Municipality of North Grenville to communicate and come up with a consistent road name, once and for all.
