In this update:

• Much accomplished, but waterfront not saved yet
• City launches $7.5m lawsuit on pier, resumes talks with contractor

Much accomplished, but waterfront not saved yet

City advisory committee meets Sept. 10, 9-11:30 am City Hall, Rm 247

Much has been accomplished since Save Our Waterfront was launched a year ago, and 2000 of you joined with me to seek a better plan than high-rise development replacing 2-story heritage buildings in the Old Lakeshore Road area of our downtown waterfront.

Some of those achievements are detailed below and you should all take pride in celebrating them. I couldn’t have done this without the support of the Save Our Waterfront leadership team and all 2000 of you standing with me, sending donations, putting up lawn signs, and lending your voice for a community-led vision for waterfront development.

But our work isn’t done. Our waterfront is far from saved. But you wouldn’t know that reading city information.

Heritage still at risk

I recently got an email from a local resident, Tanya, asking about the status of Save Our Waterfront.

She wrote: “[I’m] asking because I saw a while ago on the City of Burlington heritage page that Old Lakeshore Road is being protected.”

City Hall’s website says it “wishes to maintain the important heritage features of the neighbourhood.” Eleven properties in the area have some heritage value, but none of these – except Emma’s Back Porch – are fully protected from demolition.

To do that, city council would have to work with property owners to obtain formal heritage designation. That hasn’t happened. So heritage protection is, at best, incomplete, and to suggest otherwise to residents is simply misleading.

No guarantee of additional waterfront access

City Hall also says it “will provide access to the waterfront at Old Lakeshore Road.” In reality, because of zoning changes this council made, a developer could at any time build up to four 6- to 10-story buildings with no requirement to provide waterfront access.

If a developer can assemble properties, they can go even higher – 8- to 15-storys – but that would require taking out all the heritage buildings (so much for protection!). It would also require closing part of Old Lakeshore Road. In return, residents would get a one-block path along the waterfront.

Most residents tell me that’s just not worth it.

Missed opportunity to protect the area from intensification

The city blames the need for highrises on provincial Places to Grow legislation. What isn’t said is that city council decides where high-density development goes. Old Lakeshore Road was once excluded from intensification boundaries, as are several other unique, downtown neighborhoods. The current council added it into intensification boundaries.

Our waterfront east of Brant is on its way to looking like Toronto Harbourfront, when you add the potential for four new highrises in the Old Lakeshore Road area to the towers already built on the north side of Lakeshore Road, and also the 22-story and two 7-story towers already approved and for the south side of Lakeshore Road where the Riviera motel now sits. Those units are now in presales, with an expected opening of 2013.

The question isn’t “are highrises good or bad?” The question is “where is the best place for highrise development?” One or two highrises along Lakeshore Road might be acceptable, but nine or 10, with half of these on the water side, is quite another scenario.

Chicago and Boston: what vision can accomplish

A few weeks ago, I visited Chicago’s waterfront, and saw what visionary planning can accomplish: miles of waterfront parks and trails, with highrises well away from the water’s edge.

I also visited Boston, and saw the tourism value in preserving significant pieces of a city’s heritage – though these were hard-won and well-documented battles at the time, with much pressure to tear down these buildings and put up skyscrapers. Today, heritage exists equally with modern development in Boston’s downtown core. It can be done well – with a vision.

And that’s what’s lacking in our downtown.

What can be done?

So what can be done to seek more balanced, pedestrian-friendly development in this area that respects the existing heritage and village character? There are several steps the city can take:

• remove Old Lakeshore Road from the intensification boundaries;
• refuse to give up our public road;
• formally protect key heritage buildings by working with owners to secure heritage designations;
• change the Official Plan;
• consider strategic purchase of select waterfront lots;
• seek a hold on development while the entire community considers a better vision for this area.

The missed opportunity in all of this is that council did put a hold on development back in 2006, in recognition of the special character of this area. But instead of meaningful, city-wide consultation, there was one neighborhood meeting, and only residents within 120m were formally invited. Further, the design options they saw were much smaller in scale than what was eventually approved in 2008. The earliest the city could put another hold on development is January 2011.

It would be an opportunity to do it right this time.

What we’ve achieved

We’re facing an uphill battle to undo the damage that’s already been done by changing the Official Plan in the first place. And yet, we’ve already achieved a great deal. By continuing to work together, we can achieve even more.

Here are just some of our accomplishments over the past year:

We asked for: a citizen’s advisory committee on the waterfront.
We got: establishment of the Burlington Waterfront Access and Protection Advisory Committee, with representation from every ward. Meetings are open to the public and held the second Friday morning of every month at City Hall.

We sought: participant status at the Ontario Municipal Board hearing to oppose Tim Hortons attempt to go higher than 10-storys on their waterfront property beside Emma’s.
We achieved: Tim Hortons abandoned their appeal.

We asked for: support from Heritage Burlington to fast-track determination of the heritage assets in Old Lakeshore Road, starting with Emma’s Back Porch (the old Estaminet hotel).
We got: the Estaminet received heritage designation, with the consent of the owner.
Going forward:

We are working on several projects in the short term:

The Save Our Waterfront team is working with the new advisory committee whose mandate is to seek community input on waterfront development across Burlington, with a view to preservation and securing access. Two of our members sit on that committee, and I regularly attend the meetings as an observer.

We will be asking all candidates in the upcoming municipal election their views on waterfront development, and will post those answers online (including mine, as a Ward 2 candidate).

What you can do:

Ask the candidates for mayor and ward councillor in your area their position on waterfront development in Burlington. Ask all candidates if they will commit to the steps outlined above. Remind them that Save Our Waterfront is a city-wide movement: 75% of our members live outside Ward 2, most notably in Wards 1, 4 and 5. We also have dozens of members in Wards 3 and 6.

The long term goal of Save Our Waterfront is to balance development with community interests in access, heritage preservation and appropriate-scale development. along our waterfront.

Thanks for your support. Take time to celebrate our one year anniversary and many achievements so far, as we prepare to tackle the steps ahead.

City launches $7.5m lawsuit; resumes talks with contractor

Pier coming to council 7 pm, Tues. Sept. 7

Burlington has now formally launched a $7.5m lawsuit against the pier contractor, design engineer and others involved in this project. At the same time, the city has resumed talks with the contractor on a redesign proposal first presented in January.

The pier is coming before city council next Tues. Sept. 7. That’s the last opportunity to resolve the pier before the election.

We all hope to see a cost-effective and timely resolution, but these 11th hour developments seem like more of the same reactive decision-making that led to the demise of Freeman Station and the Pan Am games.

The fact is, council has had two years to resolve this issue. Questions about the pier design first arose in 2008 when the initial concrete pour of the deck level failed, leading to an ongoing debate over whether faulty design or faulty construction is to blame.

Council could even have settled this in January, when the contractor first offered to redesign the pier. The city chose instead to cut off negotiations to pursue “legal remedies” – although they waited until now to launch the lawsuit.

It’s only now – the last chance before the election – that council is poised to find a resolution. In the two year delay, legal and consulting fees have skyrocketed and the pier budget has ballooned $1 million. Now, the city is back where it was in January, resuming talks with the contractor.

Our city deserves greater transparency and oversight on capital projects. The recent decisions on the pier seem to be more about protecting political fortunes heading into an election than protecting the best interests of taxpayers. That’s not how to lead a city.

I will continue to track this story as it unfolds. In July, I presented our 200+ name petition seeking transparency on costs and options to complete the pier – something we still haven’t seen.

Watch the webcast of that meeting here. (I’m at the 1h5min mark).

You can still add your name to the petition by emailing me at , and I will continue to forward those names to City Hall.

Three key questions remain:

• What is the contractor’s offer?
• Would the amount the city has spent in the past two years on consulting and legal fees have met the contractor’s price to finish the pier?
• Will the $1 million in the current budget for unspecified “contingencies” be enough to complete the pier?

Need for leadership, transparency

I will continue to press for transparency on costs and options to complete the pier, and to that end have asked for the original budget to compare to the 2009 budget . I’ll forward those details when I have them.

I will also keep you posted on next week’s council meeting and the ongoing lawsuit.

Stay tuned!