By Pepper Parr
June 19th, 2024
BURLINGTON, ON
We received the following from Councillor Shawna Stolte:
I would appreciate it if you could correct your article regarding my attendance at the Appleby/Fairview Alinea meeting earlier this week.
I was in attendance for the second half of the meeting and had many good conversations with area residents.
The room the meeting was held in was small and I would have recognized both Shawna Stolte and her Father. However, if she maintains she was there I will take her word for it.
The public pre-consult meeting on what is being called Appleby Go West held earlier this week turned out to be a lot of unhappy people stunned at the size of the development.
Alinea Land Corporate statement.
The Planning consultants were there to explain the development and gather public reaction.
People had a lot of questions – few, if any, came away with a clear understanding of just what the site would do to the community they live in.
The staff from Korsiak were on hand to explain what each of the more than a dozen poster boards meant. My conversations with Korsiak staff left me with the view that they were on hand to explain and leave with initial reactions to the proposed development. It was hard to find even one person who liked what they were looking at.
Burlington has taken on a commitment to add 29,00 households by 2031. This project would get them a big chunk of the commitment. However Burlington is at the 3% of the commitment level. Federal and provincial funds began to flow to the city once they reach certain levels.
There were a lot of people asking a lot of question. There was nothing on whether this was a condominium development or a rental development. There were no floor plans.
There is a web site for the development that has some additional material that we have included in this story.
It’s massive. Is Burlington ready for something this big?
Mayor Meed Ward was on hand along with Councillors Bentivegna, Nissan and Sharman. Kearns and Galbraith had no good reason for attending – we did not see Stolte, however others have said she was there with her Father.
The Fearman pork processing plant is in the immediate area; it doesn’t appear on this illustration.
Don’t blame the developers for what is happening in Burlington. Developers’ job is to develop and yes make money.
It is up to the municipalities to protect the areas through the official plan. Something Burlington has not done for years.
Two members of the current council sat on council for 8 years prior to the last election. Some not all of the previous council members led people to believe that they could stop the intensification that we are now seeing. They knew this could not happen.
By the time the current council pushed to move the Downtown Urban Growth Centre and to un-designate the John Street bus terminal as an MTS it was too late.
In 2017 the sitting council had the opportunity to move these two areas and chose not to. They had 1 year to do this.
Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me.
I do not recall a plebiscite being held to determine if we the citizens wanted our city to be turned into this type of urban jungle.I think the vast majority would vote
these plans down in a plebiscite. Let’s stick with a democracy rather than bribes from senior levels of government.
Much of the downtown development was already approved by Rick Goldring and the previous council. These things take years to come to fruition..
The bus depot or hub gave license to much of what you are seeing
What I cannot understand is the vacant office space throughout many downtown areas that are not being put to good use…we need more creativity in urban settings.
Our “new” council was elected to stop over-development downtown. They totally failed on that and now they are going to turn the whole city into another Regent Park.
How they call this good development when they plan to wipe out the retail plaza on the South West corner…with all its restaurants and retail commercial services. The basics of good strong communities are having a mix of retail and residential…with eyes on the street to prevent crime and isolation. This is a ridiculous “developers dream” gone crazy. The objective is to make the developers a ton of money as quickly as possible…then move on to their next victim city.
Agree with every word. Burlington seems to be a great city for those developers’ dreams to come true. It’s being reported that Toronto’s condo market, now that they’ve crammed too many in, has turned into a “ghost town.” From a recent article in the Toronto Star:
“Some realtors and politicians say the flatlining of Toronto’s condo market is proof the provincial government’s attempt to fix the housing crisis has backfired because it has catered to developers, investors and speculators instead of ordinary people who need somewhere affordable to live.”
And here in Burlington we just plow ahead with eyes closed and ears plugged?