"Developers are “creative” – replied our city planner. If they can stabilize the shoreline to Conservation Halton’s satisfaction, anything’s possible."

When city council quietly changed the Official Plan in 2007 to allow towers as high as 15 storeys along our waterfront in the Old Lakeshore Road area, it highlighted a city-wide lack of meaningful public input on major decisions.

Our shoreline in the Old Lakeshore Road area of our downtown waterfront is not protected from development, as we’ve been led to believe, nor are the heritage buildings along the shore safe from demolition.

The Save Our Waterfront movement has been raising concerns about our weakened shoreline protection for a year now – ever since current city council removed the 20m setback from our own bylaws, inside of which no development is supposed take place. The rationale for removing the setbacks: Conservation Halton governs shoreline protection; they’ve got our back. This was a double regulation. Or so we were told.

Fast forward to last week, when the director of planning told the Burlington Waterfront Access and Protection Advisory committee it’s possible a 3-4 storey building could go on the vacant waterfront lot beside Emma’s Back Porch – even though almost the entire lot is within the setback supposedly governed by Conservation Halton (and no longer governed by our own bylaws).

The penny finally dropped for the downtown councillor, who has been saying this land is undevelopable and has waved off Save Our Waterfront’s concerns as misinformed fear-mongering.

“I thought you couldn’t develop because of setbacks,” he asked at the meeting.

Developers are “creative” – replied our city planner. If they can stabilize the shoreline to Conservation Halton’s satisfaction, anything’s possible. And the heritage buildings? They could all be torn down and replaced with a building of the same size and footprint – news to us, since we’ve been told only repairs and renovations are allowed.

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Former Burlington mayor Rob MacIsaac has weighed in on the pier project, criticizing current council's decision to pursue litigation, and saying vigilance and negotiation could have completed the pier long before now.

In an opinion piece in Saturday's Hamilton Spectator MacIsaac wrote, "Anyone who has managed a large capital project knows that unforeseen things always happen. The true test of ability in capital projects is to keep them moving despite the problems that arise. That requires constant vigilance and some give-and-take between all those involved. It takes no skill whatsoever to allow a big project to devolve into litigation. It is absolutely tragic that this project has become stalled and doubtless the present situation could have been avoided."

I agree. Though the pier was started under MacIsaac's term, problems arose on this term of council - theirs was the responsibility to complete the project. They didn't, and now it falls to the next council to finish the job.

The Official Plan is that vision for how and where our community wants to grow – but it is being routinely set aside, giving away 2, 3, and even 4 times the height and density limits in exchange for dubious community benefits negotiated without your input. These tradeoffs are worth millions to developers; in exchange, the community gets much smaller contributions to art or parking.

You want a better balance between development interests and community priorities.

It’s critical we get this balance right going forward, given the city aims to add 100 housing/employment units each year for the next 20 years. We can reach our growth targets and revitalize our neighborhoods without compromising their character.

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Virtually nothing happened on the project till January - of an election year - when the contractor Harm Schilthuis & Sons, offered to redesign the pier and finish it as early as this fall. Faced with going to taxpayers nine months before an election to admit that this project - seen as a waste of money by many residents - was going to cost even more, the city chose to "cut off negotiations to pursue legal remedies."

But the city waited till July to formally launch a lawsuit.

Then, weeks after that, the city stood down from the lawsuit, to resume negotiations with the contractor.

And days after that, the city thumbed their nose at those negotiations, and has decided to find out if anyone else can do the job better.

This knee jerk decision-making in search of a strategy seems more about protecting political fortunes than taxpayer interests. We are told council's goal is to protect taxpayers - and yet the best strategy for doing that has not been followed: finding a timely resolution to the dispute. Re-tenderiing promises more costs and delays, even if someone is found to complete the project for less than the contractor's offer.

And haven't we learned that the "lowest bidder" isn't always the best criteria for awarding a tender?

This issue is now bigger than the pier - it compromises Burlington's reputation as a well managed city and a decent client. Lurching from one course of action to another is negotiating in bad faith. Our city has shown it will negotiate today, sue tomorrow, then re-tender the whole job. I liken it to putting an offer on a house, and once the seller gets a firm price out of you, takes your price to the open market to see if anyone else can beat it.

Reputation is a huge factor in construction pricing, and friends in the industry tell me that Burlington's mismanagement of the pier will cost us a "risk" premium going forward, as jittery contractors simply build it into their bid price. No matter what price the city can negotiate from a contractor to complete the pier, the fact is costs are continuing to rise for the wrong thing: legal and consulting fees, not construction leading toward completion.

The pier has become a symbol of lack of transparency and accountability. The contractor says the additional costs to the complete the pier are "marginal."The city says they are "significant." The fact is, unless both parties are willing to put real numbers on the table everybody can say anything they want - taxpayers can't independently assess their claims without verified information.

When this project was originally tendered, the price was made public. The same needs to happen again. Using legal confidentiality as a blanket excuse to hide the numbers is an abuse of the legal process.

For many residents, the pier has become a defining issue in this election. It reveals poor oversight, no transparency, a lack of teamwork and leadership; and it has compromised Burlington's reputation as a well-managed city.

The pier dispute should have been quickly settled in 2008, when problems first arose. The design engineer should not also have been the contract administrator - tasked with impartial oversight of a dispute about their own design. The city could have re-tendered or accepted the contractor's offer in January.

Completing the project now falls to the next council, which officially takes office Dec. 1. By the time this project is complete it will be at least three years overdue, with millions in extra costs from staff time, legal expenses and consulting - not to mention increases in labour and materials due to inflation.

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.

We may never know whether poor design or poor construction techniques caused the delays in building Burlington's pier. Even professional engineers disagree on that point. But maligning the contractor’s reputation and spreading false rumours does nothing to advance dialogue and understanding of the situation, nor find a productive solution. Below, some of the rumours I've heard (including from city officials!), and the reality.

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More than 130 of you have written to me to add your name to a list of residents seeking transparency from the city on costs and options to finish the pier, now two years behind schedule with no completion date in sight. City officials claim they can’t provide those answers for confidential legal reasons, and yet all this information is readily available in public documents – if you know where to look.

We can’t let the city shirk its duty to be accountable and transparent to residents any longer.

A week ago, city council unanimously approved in principle the recommendations of the citizen’s report, Shape Burlington, which called for more transparency, and early public involvement in decision-making.

There’s no time like the present. Councillors can put their words into action by coming clean on the costs and options to finish the pier.

Transparency on taxes

They can also explain why our city taxes have increased at triple the rate of inflation – about 6% per year for the last 10 years. But you won’t know that from reading city press releases, which downplay the increases. Those details are below.

Other issues

You’ll also find a summary of other issues in our city, including details of two public meetings on Freeman Station (May 16 and 18), the first meeting of the new waterfront advisory committee (May 14), and an opportunity to speak out on accident victims being charged for fire truck calls (June 1).

As always, communication here is two-way – leave a comment below, or email me at mariannemeedward@bell.net to comment or add your name to the list of residents seeking transparency on the pier.

Read More]]> http://abetterburlington.ca/blog/2010/05/12/pier-transparency/feed/ 5 http://abetterburlington.ca/blog/2010/04/22/public-shut-out-of-decision-making-shape-burlington-report/ http://abetterburlington.ca/blog/2010/04/22/public-shut-out-of-decision-making-shape-burlington-report/#comments Thu, 22 Apr 2010 13:29:29 +0000 Marianne Meed Ward http://abetterburlington.ca/?p=1295 City Hall isn't listening and citizen confidence in local democracy is declining. City Hall has "a communications deficit." Those are just some of the findings of the Shape Burlington report on civic engagement released yesterday.

Those findings (full report via the link) are no surprise to followers of A Better Burlington community website, and the Save Our Waterfront initiative. A Better Burlington was launched a year ago to tell residents what City Hall is doing, and to solicit feedback and participation on a range of issues.

One of the biggest has been waterfront development. Residents were not broadly and meaningfully consulted before current city council approved high-rise towers for the Old Lakeshore Road area of our downtown waterfront. Save Our Waterfront was formed as an initiative of A Better Burlington to press for community input before decisions about our waterfront are made. An update on our progress and next steps is below.

But we are not alone in raising concerns about public input. They have been echoed by many other individuals and groups, cutting across a variety of issues. The common refrain: there's a "need for improvement" in public involvement, to quote Shape Burlington.

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]]> http://abetterburlington.ca/blog/2010/04/22/public-shut-out-of-decision-making-shape-burlington-report/feed/ 6 http://abetterburlington.ca/blog/2010/03/15/pier/ http://abetterburlington.ca/blog/2010/03/15/pier/#comments Tue, 16 Mar 2010 01:08:46 +0000 Marianne Meed Ward http://abetterburlington.ca/?p=1171 The pier in Burlington's downtown waterfront has been plagued by delays and cost overruns. The question everyone is asking: what’s going on? We’ve been led to believe the contractor, Harm Schilthuis, is to blame. This is a local company with 57 years in business, which has successfully completed many other projects in Burlington, including the Discovery Centre and Aldershot Arena. Why would they stop work on a job if they didn’t have a reason?

Over the past few weeks, I’ve used my journalism background to investigate. There’s more to this story than we’ve been told. Furthermore, there’s an option on the table from the contractor to finish the pier – as early as this fall if work begins immediately. We know the longer this project is delayed, the more it will cost, and we’ll spend money on litigation, not finishing the pier.

We need Burlington City Council to make a decision quickly - and tell taxpayers how much this is really going to cost. You can help by sending an email to mariannemeedward@bell.net to add your name to the list of residents asking for transparency on the options available to finish the pier, and the final price.

Details of my investigation are here, including interviews, research of public documents and material obtained under Freedom of Information. You can also leave a comment at the end of the post.

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