A small turnout greeted the downtown councilor and city staff for a public meeting this week to discuss waterfront development and traffic issues. We know residents care about these issues – more than a 100 people have attended each of our last 2 meetings – so what gives?
Two thoughts come to mind. First, the meeting was poorly publicized at the last minute – a recurring theme at City Hall. Most of us only learned days before about the meeting, held Wed. Nov. 25, and a number of people heard about it from an email we circulated. Turnout would have been even lower without our efforts to spread the word. The city needs to do a better job.
City Talks, But Doesn’t Listen
Second, and this is more likely, residents have heard this song and dance before. These public meetings are mostly about residents listening to city officials defend their plans, rather than an opportunity for city officials to listen to the views of residents. The format is mostly question and answer – we ask, they answer – and there’s virtually no opportunity for dialogue and debate.
Wednesday evening was more of the same. We heard how Burlington is growing, that we need more people downtown, that the Old Lakeshore Road area of our waterfront is an eyesore waiting for redevelopment.
We get that. In fact, we even agree. This may come as a shock to our city council and staff, but it shouldn’t if they’ve been paying attention to the comments from our 2000 members across the city.
Save Our Waterfront’s goal, simply, is to achieve the right development in the right place.
City Needs More Faith in Community Input
What’s the right development? Ask residents. The community wasn’t meaningfully and broadly consulted before decisions were made. If councilors sought opinions of residents not just downtown but across town – and really listened – they’d find a lot of diverse and creative ideas. We’ll be posting an online poll soon, for you to weigh in on what you’d like to see along the waterfront. Watch for that.
What’s the right place for development? A number of possibilities exist, even in the downtown. This isn’t about moving growth to someone else’s backyard, although many of our members – 70% of whom live outside the downtown – have said they would welcome growth in their areas if it meant protecting the waterfront for the whole city.
The right development in the right place – these are exactly the conversations and debates we need to be having city-wide. One of the side benefits of Save Our Waterfront has been to foster and encourage that debate. As a result of our efforts to raise awareness, many people have emailed or met with their councilor and city staff, read information on ours and the city’s website, and attended public meetings. Even if we ultimately agree to disagree on some issues, this dialogue and debate is good for our democracy.
More Waterfront Challenges
What to do along the Old Lakeshore Road area is just one of several issues in the downtown and along our waterfront that we need to be discussing. Some of the others include:
- plans to plunk the historic Freeman Station in the West end of Spencer Smith Park. At the public meetings I’ve attended, residents have rightly suggested there are better places for the station, and we need to figure out what we’re going to use it for before selecting a site. But filling up our waterfront park with more buildings isn’t a good idea.
- plans for a $9 million expansion of the Joseph Brant Museum, just beyond the West end of Spencer Smith. The massive expansion would cover almost all the greenspace on that corner, a prominent intersection of North Shore, Maple and Lakeshore, and key entry point to our waterfront.
Watch for more details about these developments in an upcoming post.
Clearly there is a lot to talk about. That’s one of the reasons Save Our Waterfront is asking for a Citizens Advisory Committee on the Waterfront – to seek and capture the creativity of residents to develop a better plan for the waterfront, beyond the narrow interests of developers and a dozen people on staff and council at City Hall.
It was particularly troubling, one of the residents told me after the meeting, to hear our city planner talk favourably about the need to make deals with developers. What about making deals with citizens – to protect our interests?
The city’s vision for towers on the waterfront is not the community’s vision of the right development in the right place. We can do better.
We learned that at one time Old Lakeshore Road was envisaged as a heritage-based “entertainment district,” and staff originally proposed lower densities in that area. One thinks of the Distillery District in Toronto and elsewhere that have revitalized historic neighborhoods and made them tourist attractions. We’re wondering how that dropped off the table in Burlington.
Request for a Citizen’s Advisory Committee
There are so many possibilities to get it right along our waterfront, and there are many issues beyond the Old Lakeshore Road area. That’s why we’ll continue to press for community consultation.
Members of Save Our Waterfront are meeting with the downtown and Ward 5 councillors on Monday, Nov. 30 to find out whether they will support an Advisory Committee. So turn up the pressure this weekend. Write or call your councillor to:
1-support a hold on development in Old Lakeshore Road, until
2-meaningful city-wide consultation can take place, including but not limited to
3-a Citizens Advisory Committee on the Waterfront.
We’ll keep you posted on what happens.
But we know we have our work cut out for us. At Wednesday’s meeting the downtown councilor said he is “not about to ask council to reverse the Official Plan.”
If our council won’t change as a result of public feedback, then the public needs to change council. We’ll have our chance in 2010.
Save Our Waterfront is an initiative of A Better Burlington, your source for news and debate about what’s happening in our city. To learn about and comment on other issues in Burlington, sign up for our electronic newsletter at: http://abetterburlington.ca.
16 Comments
Would someone please give me a good reason to (1)increase the population downtown and (2) build towers along the beautiful lake shore? Is our council only interested in dollars, and not capable of showing foresight? If it takes dollars to keep those towers off of the Lake, let’s raise them! We have managed to raise money for a Arts Centre. Why can we not do the same to purchase the land in question. how much money would each taxpayer/resident of Burlington have to provide to do this? Does anyone know?
“It was particularly troubling, one of the residents told me after the meeting, to hear our city planner talk favourably about the need to make deals with developers. What about making deals with citizens – to protect our interests?”
I have quoted above from your text. If you remember, that was precisely my point when I first wrote a comment on this forum. Unfortunately I could not attend this meeting but I have the clear impression that is the very same city planner who spoke along these terms at another meeting I attended. One has to wonder where his loyalties are; the city residents/tax payers or certain developers? Then ask yourselves why! You can draw your own conclusions.
1. I am in facour of intensification..in fact we have no choice
2. This land is too expensive for the city to buy.
3.This land will change hands as soon as the economy corrects
4.this land does nothing for Burlington citizens now..there is no public access.
5
the proposals currently presented may change but in essence they are positive, dynamic changes. keep me posted.thanks!
Re making deals with developers, we were then told ‘that this was a good process, a fair process and a democratic process.’
Last time I checked, democracy involved the people somewhere along the line …
I am fairly new to Burlington and one of the things that attracted me here was the beautiful waterfront area. It infuriates me to think that most or all of that area could be taken up by high rise apartments and/or condominiums. I have to wonder what is it this for the city planner and the downtown councillor who seem to think that we need to make deals with the developers.
Members of council are wilfully playing a game of ‘dodgeball’ with citizens. It’s time we took up the guantlet and PUSHED this issue to the maximum. Everyone I speak to in Ward 4 is unconditionally opposed to the treatment SaveOurWaterfront has received at the hands of an indifferent council. Both Dennison and Jackson are accustomed to ‘governance by decree.’ It’s my earnest hope to end their incumbency in November 2010.
Perhaps our council should consider something even more visionary: a sustainable development model for the old lakeshore area. That’s what they’re working on with WaterfronToronto. Surely if they can do it there, we can make a more positive change here.
During the election in 2010 we must tell all potential councillors they must put their thoughts in writing and promise to vote by these thoughts. Also we should ask the developers to stay out of OUR water front.
Our waterfront, including Spencer Smith Park, is a PUBLIC MEETING PLACE, much like a City Square. However, Spencer Smith is a place where we take our leisure, to relax, and enjoy its pastoral beauty and whatever amenities are offered.
Because it is a PUBLIC MEETING PLACE, all residents should have been afforded an opportunity to express their opinions in order to make it a better place FOR BOTH CURRENT AND FUTURE GENERATIONS.
I can recall NO BANNER HEADLINES in either THE POST or THE SPECTATOR, both of which are obliging newspapers, to the effect that all residents WERE ASKED to participate in the decision making process.
I find two very weak statements in Mr. Dennison’s communication of October 20-09.
“4. March 25 2009 general public meeting advertised in post, notice mailed to each landowner and also to each land owner within 120 metres.
5. April May 09 guidelines on city web site with public comments invited.”
There was no POINTER provided in either newspaper, making reference to the City website, “with public comments invited.”
I think council has not ‘met the test’ of engaging the public on behalf of the public interest. Heaven only knows what might have happened if the Save Our
Waterfront Committee had not taken up this issue.
To assure you of the veracity of what I say, I will clear the contents of my exchange with Councillor Dennison (to you) this morning.
In the meantime, I do hope you can press for a moratorium against prceeding further until the public has had an opportunity for further active and widespread discussions.
In particular, I would like to know WHY and HOW the current council has permitted its previously reasoned stance, in accordance the Official Plan, to be eroded to the current higly favoured position for developers.
I find the goals of Save our Waterfront laudable, but a bit short-sighted. You have only to walk through the downtown on a November day to see the direction and low angle of the sun. High waterfront buildings on EITHER side of Lakeshore Road and even as far north as Caroline, Victoria or Ghent would effectively block direct winter sun from residents/ shoppers/ workers in the downtown, except along the north south streets. Why not a graduated series of height guidelines moving back from the lake? More people could then enjoy the sun AND the view.
Of course, we’re dealing with a City Hall who used prime land near the lakefront to put up a parking garage so perhaps there’s no hope for common sense to prevail…………..
If I had to speculate, I would say that the city is salivating for the high-rise condos in downtown Burlington for the tax revenues. Having little (to no) additional infrastructure costs to incur (and often they make the developers pay for trivial aesthetic improvements like pretty intersections and sidewalk features before granting approvals), the city stands to collect hundreds of thousands of dollars from these buildings. With penthouses valued at $1MM+, I think it’s a fair assumption that they want the cashflow!
Unfortunately your notification of the meeting with the councillor arrived with very short notice and I along with I suspect a number of people could not re-arrange our schedules.
Perhaps this informaton should be passed along to the Councillor so that he does not have the mistaken impression that there is a lack of interest.
Barry Partington
Do the city council not realize that the park that we are all in awe of also creates a great deal of revenue all year round? With the Sound of Music Festival, Ribfest, Jazz fest, etc. taking any more of the park away for “development” would threaten these festivals. Not to mention the city would no longer have that clean appeal that is has t so many people.
City Hall wants yet another group to be formed to ‘engage Burlington citizens…and to improve the support of citizen awareness’- the Civic Engagement Committee. If the same people hold the key positions in a number of city hall groups or committees, then, how is alternative change possible? How many more groups and how many more letters and petitions will it take before our voices are heard? The $9M spent on the unfinished Pier could have been used to purchase the Brock lands. Unfortunately the Burlington Post tells citizens how to vote and whom to vote for. Yes, the challenge now will be to get Burlington citizens to take part in the municipal election by learning about the issues,by forming positive solutions, by giving money, by giving time, and lastly, by taking the time to vote.
Allow me to bring to your attention the all-new Cam Jackson city council download … otherwise known as the Burlington Health Care Levy … which council is proposing we will ALL pay, in addition to the Ontario Health Care Levy.
The entire council voted in favour of this new tax. All citizens should inform themselves of the details of this move, which is entirely without precedent across the province.
More on the Burlington Health Care Levy … otherwise known as the DOUBLE-PAY HEALTH CARE LEVY, since most citizens ALREADY PAY the Ontario Health Care Levy.
“City projections show that, for example, a home assessed at $300,000 could pay an additional $57.54 hospital tax levy each year for 10 years in order to fund the local $60-million contribution.
Ipsos Reid recently conducted a $21,000 telephone survey of 600 Burlington residents to gauge local response to enacting the special tax levy.”