KINGSTON – A city councillor will ask staff to review the state of the Division Street entrance to Kingston after a former Queen’s University student wrote that the area is "an unkept eyesore."

In a letter dated June 28 and received at the Whig-Standard on Friday afternoon, Gil Boland, president of Ventawood Management and a former student at Queen’s University, writes about how disappointed he is in the state of the Division Street entrance to Kingston.

"As a former student at Queens University I couldn’t believe what a wild, untidy, unrecognizable mess the Division Street entrance to Kingston is," Boland writes. "I hesitated to turn off the 401 for gas and fast food as I was passing by last week."

Boland suggested the city obtain government grants to possibly fill in the small swamp to make a parkette with a statue of Sir John A. Macdonald.

"Alternatively, if the Conservation Authority wants to keep the swamp maybe you can turn it into a pond with a dancing fountain with coloured lights at night," Boland said. "If council members have better ideas please do something because the Division Street entrance at the 401 is an unkept eyesore and is not in keeping for a progressive city like Kingston."

City councillor for the area Mary-Rita Holland said on Saturday she didn’t see the letter come through official city means. After reading a copy sent to her from the Whig-Standard, Holland said she’ll be approaching staff about it early this week.

The first step will be clarifying if the land is the city’s responsibility or the province’s Ministry of Transportation. The ministry is responsible for Highway 401 and its on and off ramps.

"The first step is to see where we have jurisdiction," Holland said. "If we do have jurisdiction to the area he is referring to, it will certainly be my intention to have it cleaned up."

The letter suggested a parkette, and Holland acknowledged there isn’t a lot of park space for those who don’t wish to indulge in the commercial retail and restaurants, but she’s concerned that may impede traffic flow specifically designed by the ministry of transportation.

"There are a lot of controls around what can actually happen near a provincial highway because the Ministry of Transportation has a lot of regulations as far as what traffic is doing in and around that area," Holland said. "In terms of having it not look bad, I’m going to be following up to make sure anything we can do is taken care of."

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