By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON. December 29, 2012
It’s that quiet time of year when people make the social rounds and look back at how their year has gone. For those in retail, the rush is over, all the credit card processing has been done and they have a pretty good idea how decent a year it has been.
The politicians have made their Christmas rounds and the visits with different groups. Time during the few days left in the year to think about what got done and what one wants to do in the New Year.
Last meeting of the Waterfront Access and Protection Advisory Committee (WAPAC) with, from the left Bob Wingfield talking to Gary Scobie while Jeff Martin talks with Ward 2 Councillor Marianne Meed Ward who has formed her own, independent waterfront committee.
Ward 2 Councillor Marianne Meed Ward made an early start on her plans for 2013 when she attempted to have the balance of the funds in the Waterfront Access and Protection Advisory Committee (WAPAC) account transferred to the new waterfront advisory committee she has formed.
The WAPAC comes to a quiet end in a day or so after holding their final meeting earlier in the month where they gave chair Nick Leblovic a hearty round of applause and congratulated themselves on what they had managed to get done – and if the city didn’t appreciate all they had done – well that was just bad manners on the part of the city.
During the final meeting members discussed how they were going to morph into a new organization that would keep an eye on waterfront developments and meet as a group working out of Meed Ward’s office at city hall.
In their final report to city council, which I think will get noted as received and filed and that will be the end of that experience, WAPAC said: The Committee supports the future work of the New Committee in providing ongoing citizen input and advice on issues relating to the Burlington Waterfront. The Committee recommends that the Council and City staff recognize the New Committee as the natural successor to the Committee and that they give appropriate recognition and support to the New Committee and any future advice and recommendations coming from the New Committee.
Whenever city hall creates an Advisory committee it gives each of them an annual budget of $5000. The WAPAC people spent very little of the financial allotment each year. The city allows each Advisory committee to spend up to $200 on a Christmas event; some use the privilege, others don’t.
Nick Leblovic, chairing his last WAPAC meeting got a robust round of applause from his committee members – a first for this committee that was often at serious odds with its chair. After the city shut down the committee it seemed to pull together and work as a team that complained bitterly about city council not seeing the excellent work they had done. And they did do some excellent work. If the Pump House on the Beachway ever gets turned into a coffee shop/pub it will be because the idea came out of WAPAC.
As Chair, Leblovic was fiscally responsible and just didn’t use the funds unless he had a good reason. He did approve an allocation of $500 as an honorarium for former Toronto Mayor David Crombie when he spoke to the committee. Getting Crombie for a couple of hours for $500 was a real bargain. Had the committee followed through on his idea to hold a design competition – it would have been the bargain of the century for this city. Leblovic did approve a spread of sweet cakes and coffee for their last meeting
So there was WAPAC, about to bring their existence to an end, with close to $5000 in the bank so to speak. Meed Ward apparently felt that if she was going to form a new waterfront advisory committee then she could use the funds the committee about to be sunset had not used.
Apparently her fellow council members didn’t see it that way. We don’t recall hearing this discussed at the council committee level but it did get suggested and it got sunk very quickly.
There will be a new advisory committee; one that will not have any standing at city council. The plans were to incorporate as a non-profit but that proved to be too expensive.
Prior to WAPAC being formed there was a committee that once had 4000 members called Save our Waterfront (SOW) that Meed Ward used very effectively in her successful run at public office when she defeated Councillor Peter Thoem. Meed Ward remained chair of SOW during the campaign and then resigned once she was in office.
No one has explained why SOW was not just revived and used to promote the reasonable development of the waterfront. Might be because there is an executive of SOW already in place that might not share Meed Ward’s current political objectives.
When WAPAC was created by then Mayor Jackson, SOW crowed on their website, which is no longer very functional, that: “Members and supporters of Burlington Save Our Waterfront achieved a major victory for community engagement Monday, as city council unanimously passed the Burlington Waterfront Access and Protection Advisory Committee. As soon as we get information on how you can apply to serve on this committee, we’ll post it.”
Brian Jones on the left talks with fellow WAPAC member Les Armstrong, centre and Ward 2 Councillor Rick Craven.
That was in February 2010. Now, at the end of December 2012 that committee has been shut down by the city with nothing official to replace it other than this end run of Meed Ward’s.
So far, many, but apparently not all the members of the WAPAC that is about to be sunset (it’s not official until December 31st), have become part of the new organization that has met on two occasions. While this new committee is to be a public committee we don’t recall seeing any public mention of the meetings and we’ve not seen any mention of those meetings in the Meed Ward newsletter either.
Meed Ward clearly has plans for this committee. At the time it was formed she said she would serve as chair but would not be a voting member. The next meeting of the “new” waterfront committee is scheduled for January 7th in room 305 at city hall. That date was given to us as tentative.
With Meed Ward in place as chair of this new committee, it will be a much different operation. Quite how it will work with city council isn’t clear. Based on the rules in place – the best they are going to get in terms of face time with council is when they delegate. Will Council choose to assign tasks to the committee the way they have with Heritage Burlington? Not likely – this new waterfront committee is the creation of a council member who has chosen to do this on her own and in her own way. It could serve as a watching brief on waterfront development but any effort to go west of Maple and into the Beachway Park debate that is coming forward means Meed Ward will cross into Ward 1 – which is not something Councillor Rick Craven is going to tolerate. No love lost between those two.
Something to keep an eye on. The one significant difference with what Meed Ward is doing with this committee is holding the meetings in the evening when the public can attend. Will that make a difference?
Waterfront is not all that Meed Ward focuses on.
While looking out for the waterfront for the people of Burlington, Meed Ward has also kept up her practice of keeping her residents informed of other developments.
The following is an email she sent to her list of contacts. The information is related to the project to be built by the Molinaro’s on the site immediately south of the Burlington GO station and immediately east of Wal-Mart on Fairview. The content itself isn’t of much interest but what is of interest is that Meed Ward has gone into this level of detail with this developer on this project. Scrolling through it will make the point. Reading all of it – well, go ahead, knock yourself out.
From the Desk of Marianne Meed Ward:
Friends,
I wanted to provide an update on the Molinaro Group development on the Fairview site, beside the Burlington GO Station.
Last week, planners for the Molinaro Group submitted a site plan to the city, incorporating over a dozen ideas from the design workshop with residents in October. The site plan application implements the Ontario Municipal Board decision with respect to this property, and has been designed to comply with all of the regulations in the Zoning By-law approved by the Board.
In addition, they submitted a number of studies in support of the application. Those are detailed below.
I have obtained permission from the Molinaro Group to post these studies online so residents can view them. Once the information is up, I will circulate the link to residents. You can also make an appointment with the planning department to come in to City Hall and view the hard copies on file.
Once the application receives conditional approval an approach will be made back to the Ontario Municipal Board for the issuance of the final Board Order. This will allow the Molinaro Group to move ahead to finalize its site plan approval and move forward with an application for a Building Permit. As outlined at the November public meeting, the Molinaro Group hopes to achieve conditional approval of the site plan by April 1, 2013.
If you have any questions or comments, please don’t hesitate to contact me.
Sincerely, Marianne
The submission package includes the following: 1. Five (5) complete sets of drawings each including:
a. Prepared by Graziani+Corazza Architects Inc.
(i) A set of Site Plan drawings: Cover, A.101, A.101a, A.101b, dated December 10, 2012
(ii) One (1) set of Floor Plans: A.201, A.301-A.306, dated December 10, 2012
(iii) A set of Detailed Phasing Plans: A.311, A.312, dated December 10, 20
(iv) One (1) set of Architectural Elevation drawings: A.401-A.406, dated December 10, 2012
(v) One (1) set of Coloured Elevation Drawing: A.406, A.407, Angular Plane Study: A.501, Perspective Drawing: A.601, dated December 10, 2012
(vi) An Urban Design Brief including a Sun/Shadow Study, dated October 2012.
b. Prepared by S. Llewellyn & Associates Limited, dated November 2012
(i) A Servicing Plan: S-1
(ii) A Grading Plan: SG-1
(iii) An Erosion and Sediment Control Plan: E-1
c. Prepared by Seferian Design Group:
(i) A Landscape Development Plan L-1, dated November 19, 2012;
(ii) A Landscape Development Plan L-2, dated November 19, 2012;
(iii) A Courtyard Landscape Plan L-3, dated November 19, 2012;
(iv) Landscape Details L-4, dated November 19, 2012;
(v) A Vegetation Summary, dated September 11, 2012;
2. Four (4) partial sets of drawings including:
a. Prepared by Graziani+Corazza Architects Inc.
(i) A set of Site Plan drawings: A.101, A.101a, A.101b, dated December 10, 2012
b. Prepared by S. Llewellyn & Associates Limited, dated November 2012,
(i) A Servicing Plan: S-1
(ii) A Grading Plan: S-6
(iii) An Erosion and Sediment Control Plan: E-1
c. Prepared by Seferian Design Group
(i) A Landscape Development Plan L-1, dated November 19, 2012;
(ii) A Landscape Development Plan L-2, dated November 19, 2012;
(iii) A Courtyard Landscape Plan L-3, dated November 19, 2012;
(iv) Landscape Details L-4, dated November 19, 2012;
(iv) A Vegetation Summary, dated September 11, 2012;
3. One (1) additional copy of each of the following prepared by Seferian Design Group, dated November 19, 2012:
a. Landscape Development Plan L-1
b. Landscape Development Plan L-2
c. Courtyard Landscape Plan L-3
d. Landscape Details L-4
4. Two (2) copies of Property Survey prepared by A.T. McLaren, dated May 31, 2012;
5. Two (2) copies of Noise and Vibration Impact Study prepared by HGC Engineering, dated December 6, 2012; and
6. A copy of an Acknowledgement of Filing of Record of Site Condition (RSC) from the Ministry of the Environment, dated August 22, 2005.
That is a lot of information that we pass along to make the point that Meed Ward now clearly has a close working relationship with the developer. There is at least one member of council who holds the view that Meed Ward is a little too close to this particular developer and refers us to a video Meed Ward has up on YouTube in which Meed Ward talks about how she feels developers should be handled.
Meed Ward will argue that she has brought this developer to the table where they have worked with the community to bring about significant changes to the scale and scope of a development. That is certainly true of her relationship with Molinaro. In the past she has battled with them mightily over the Brock and Elgin development as well as the Strata development on Maple Avenue, but there doesn’t seem to be the same vigour in her discussions with Molinaro on the Fairview development. A change for sure – for the better? The council member certainly has the developer at the table – are they on different sides of that table ?
The eight lots on Ghent Street that are going to have 58 townhouses built on properties that have a creek running at the south end of the properties are deep with more than 120 trees on the property. The scope and scale of this proposed development is very out of sync with the rest of the street. The debate on this one comes back to council committee in February – but if what we’ve heard at the last session where this was debated – it looks as if the developer is going to get away with what they want to do. The city does have some clout left – let’s see if they use it and let’s see what Meed Ward has to say at the next meeting.
While campaigning for the ward 2 seat in 2010 Meed Ward was adamant in saying to her campaign committee that she would not accept any funds from developers: will that position hold for the 2014 election?
The Brant Haven Homes Fairview project on Ghent is one that doesn’t have Meed Ward working with the developer. This project is so out of scope and scale for the community it is going to be dropped into that one would expect some of the Meed Ward well-aimed rage against this type of project that we saw when she was running for council.
Perhaps we will see that ‘fighting for the community’ when this matter returns to city council in February.
