 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON. May 17, 2013. According to a usually reliable source, there is “a big story developing in rural north Burlington and it will be going to council this Tuesday. “Burlington Airpark has been in existence for about 50 years and has lots of planes / hangers there. It was a relatively benign part of the community.
“In 2007 ownership was purchased by Vince Rossi and the objectives of the business changed significantly. A significant amount of fill began to be deposited on the site and resident concerns began to register with local Councillors.
“During 2012, local Councillor Blair Lancaster facilitated two meet and greet festivities inviting residents to meet the ownership, enjoy a corn roast and enter a draw to get some free flights. She personally told me “there was no real reason for community concern as the owners had no money to expand the operation and that the current fill was simply to support improving existing operations”.
 Fill has been going into this part of the Air Park for many months. Residents say the traffic has reached the 1000 trucks of fill a day level. “Fast forward to today. Approximately 1000, that’s right 1000 trucks arrive every day dumping loads of fill. The traffic on Appleby has become dangerous as there is no turning lane into the site and the road itself is treacherous due to debris and mud on the road especially after a rainfall. The owner receives a fee for every load as any developer wishing to get rid of debris has to send it somewhere and pay fees. Do the math…..I’m speculating but at even $ 50 per load you’re looking at close to $ 50,000 per day. Nice business to be in.
 The trucks were certainly coming from all directions. These pictures taken at 2:40 pm, Friday May 17,when a total of 9 trucks came and went.  A truck would roll in, dump its load, get a piece of paper from someone in a hard hat and leave the area. Then the next truck rolled into place. “The loads arrive from all directions. I’ve watched them coming from a variety of directions. Does anyone know the source of the fill? Does anyone know the content and whether it is toxic free? Apparently there are documented dumps at hours after midnight. It`s not unreasonable to assume that those loads can`t be dumped anywhere that is inspected, so what`s in them. And the ultimate insult.
“On May 03 the City of Burlington issued an order demanding a stop to filling until some of these questions could be answered. But the filling has continued despite the order as the owner states that only the Federal Transport Department has authority over an Airpark. I don’t know those legal details but I find it hard to believe that thousands of trucks of fill can be deposited anywhere without examination, knowledge of source and without determination of effects on watercourses etc.
 Bulldozers would level the earth dumped, and it wasn’t always earth, sometimes shale and small stones and then a grading roller would level out the bumps. This is no small undertaking – the equipment has been working over a large area for many months. This ain’t no cabbage patch. “This is going to be a HUGE issue in the rural north. Some, but not the majority, of what I have stated above is based on rumour, conjecture and reports to me from others that I cannot verify. I can verify the remarks of Councillor Lancaster last summer that seem so incorrect. She was either very fooled by the owners of the airpark or will require another explanation for her actions.”
There you have it. It will be interesting to see how this breaks at the Council meeting on Tuesday.
Here is what Councillors will be dealing with:
 Appleby Line is seen on the left. There is a lot of fill being dumped into the property – residents want to know why and the city says it has to stop – it’s illegal. Let’s see how this one works out. Something is certainly going on. An application has been submitted for a consent to sever for property known municipally as 5431 Appleby Line. This property is located directly north of the existing airport lands, and has frontage on both Appleby Line and Bell School Line, with a total area of approximately 35.25 ha. The consent application was received by the City on January 22, 2013 and was circulated to the public, City staff and external agencies in accordance with the Planning Act and regulations, and City procedures. 5431 Appleby Line is not currently owned by the airport, and the application was submitted by a representative of the airport, on behalf of the property owner. Currently, the application proposes to sever an approximately 12.95 ha portion of land from the easterly portion of the site, so that it can be combined with the airport lands to the south. The current airport owner has stated that the airport wishes to lengthen the existing north -south runway by approximately 1000 feet (305 m), which would be almost the entire width of the property to be severed. No specific details of a runway or airport expansion have been provided with the application, other than to state that the proposed use of the severed lands is “Airport”. No other changes are currently proposed for the retained lands (i.e. remainder of 5431 Appleby Line).
The current consent application is subject to the full range of provisions under the Planning Act, as well as current provincial and municipal planning policies, including:
Provincial Policy Statement
Greenbelt Plan
Region of Halton Official Plan
City of Burlington Official Plan
Conservation Halton Regulations and Policies
City of Burlington Zoning By-law
Currently, the application is on hold in response to comments submitted by Conservation Halton. In those comments, a deferral was requested so that
Conservation Halton staff could visit the site and examine a watercourse and wetland feature to determine the significance and possible regulation of these features. It was also indicated that the applicant may need to prepare various studies to confirm on -ground conditions and delineate the features, regulated areas and any required buffers.Should the application proceed, it will do so in accordance with the Planning Act requirements and provisions for land division. Staff have been advised by the Clerk of the Land Division Committee that a public meeting will be held to decide on the applications as at least one letter of objection has been received from a member of the public. Notification of the meeting would be provided in accordance with provisions of the Planning Act, which require a circulation radius of 60 m from the property boundary.
In addition, a notification sign would need to be erected on the site at least 14 days prior to the hearing date. The meeting would be a public meeting under the Planning Act and could be attended by any member of the public. In addition, any decision made by the Land Division Committee would be subject to appeal provisions of the Planning Act, which state that any person or public body can appeal the decision of the Committee within 20 days of the giving of the notice of decision.
 At least 100 small aircraft are stored in hangers at the Air Park. In the evenings they can be seen landing on the field, one after another. Kind of nice to watch. At present, Planning staff have not provided formal comments on the applications to the Land Division Committee. Staff’s position on the applications will be provided to the Committee through these comments, to be considered by the Committee in conjunction with comments from other agencies (i.e. Region of Halton, Conservation Halton, etc.),the applicant, and members of the public.
The Ward Councillor contacted the Engineering and Planning departments for assistance in responding to ongoing concerns expressed by residents regarding the
deposit of fill on the airport site. Based on advice received from the Legal department, City staff advised the airport owner that the City’s site alteration is applicable and by -law must be complied with. This information was communicated to residents at a meeting held on May 1, 2013.
As a result, on May 3, 2013 the Engineering Department issued an “Order to Comply”,related to the City’s Site Alteration By-law 6-2003, to the Airport owner Mr. Vince Rossi. The serving of the Order to Comply was done in person in a meeting with Mr. Rossi. The Order to Comply included instructions that the current dumping and filling operations were required to stop and that the owner would be required to apply for and obtain a Site Alteration Permit in order to continue the dumping and filling operation.
 It used to be a small, sleepy little airport – then ownership changed hands – and something is going on. The current owners argue they are regulated by the federal government; the city argues that have some control and the residents think their Council member has had some wool pulled over her eyes. The owner was contacted again by phone on Monday, May 6, 2013 and the Order to Comply was reconfirmed and that the dumping and filling operations were to be stopped immediately. Also that the Order to Comply would require the owner to apply for and obtain a Site Alteration Permit in accordance with the Site Alteration By-law in order to continue the filling.
 Escarpment residents seem to feel their Council member has misled them. Did she? The owner has since advised the City that they do not agree that the City has jurisdiction on their operations and thus have instructed their contractor to continue thedumping and filling operations. The Order to Comply required compliance to be achieved (in this case meaning a permit to be obtained) within 10 days (in accordance with our by-law). The owner indicated that he would not apply for a permit. The 10 day period to comply expired on May 13th, and on this date a Notice of Violation was served to the owner. This Notice is the next step in the “Order to Comply” process.
It set out the potential penalty (up to $50,000 for a first offence) and required immediate attention to avoid the laying of charges. The Airport owner has communicated that he is not interested in acquiring a Site Alteration Permit, however he has expressed that they would be cooperative and meet with the City “without prejudice” to discuss the typical conditions required under a Site Alteration Permit. The owner indicated there are approximately 2 months of filling operations remaining at the current fill location.
A meeting with the Airport representatives was held on Wednesday, May 15, 2013 @ 1:30pm at Burlington City Hall. This meeting was held “without prejudice” to the Burlington Executive Airport’s right to assert that it does not require a site alteration permit, and also “without prejudice” to the City’s right to assert that the Burlington
Executive Airport does require a site alteration permit and may be charged for the contravention.
The Airport representatives will convey the typical conditions, as discussed at the meeting, and required under a Site Alteration Permit to the owner for consideration.
It will be an interesting council meeting. The Air Park web site shows their latest newsletter dated April 2011 – not all that communicative are they?
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON. May 16, 2013. City Council has been known to whip through their televised city council meetings in as little as 20 minutes. Ward 4 Councillor Jack Dennison will be able to take part in the first half hour of the Council meeting Tuesday, May 21st – (Council meetings start at 6:30 pm) after that he will be next door in Room 247 speaking to his application before the Committee of Adjustment, to be allowed to sever the property he owns and lives in on Lakeshore Road.
 Councillor Jack Dennison at a community meeting in Roseland that was collecting views on the character of the community. The application has had a bumpy ride in the community. Dennison’s neighbours in the community are opposed to the severance and have been successful in opposing applications from others at the Ontario Municipal Board level.
The Roseland Community Association with a membership at the 125 level in a community with something in the order of 500 homes appears to have a lot of clout and is well-organized. They were well enough organized to refuse membership to Dennison, the Ward Councillor
It should be quite a show. Perhaps Council will choose to adjourn for a period of time so that everyone can take in the Committee of Adjustment hearing. Maybe Committee of Adjustment will move into Council Chambers where their proceedings can be televised live. That just might up the Cogeco ratings a bit.
 Dennison’s property on Lakeshore Road is to be the focus for an application to sever the land into two lots There are different views in the community on this one. Some feel Dennison has the same rights as everyone else in the community while others feel he is held to a higher standard. My colleague, Joan Little who writes a regular column for the Spectator and has served as both a municipal council member and a member of the Regional government and still serves on the one of the Niagara Commissions had this to say about the situation Dennison is in:
Where is the line between being a Councillor and a citizen? Sometime it’s blurry, but the
rights of a citizen are enjoyed by Councillors, except when they pose a conflict of interest.
There is already strong neighbourhood concern about a severance, and variances, applied for by Councillor Jack Dennison. It isn’t a conflict technically, but questionable from an optics perspective. I can’t imagine that he intends to run again in 2014 if he’s alienating an old established (voting) neighbourhood. But then, he was roundly criticized in 2006 for being two years behind in his business taxes, but ran successfully.
City planning staff have to recommend approval or refusal – the same staff Dennison works with daily. And members of the committee of adjustment are appointed by council. Would you like to rule on an application for one of the people who appoints you? One member, Peter Thoem, is a former council colleague. While Thoem and Dennison weren’t close buddies, it’s still awkward for Thoem, as for them all. And what if there is an appeal?
Dennison would be smart to avoid these discomforts for all by putting his application on hold while he’s on council. At best, if he runs again – when he ran the first time, about twenty years ago it was for one term, he said – he’ll face stiff opposition from a key part of his ward, and at worst, could lose.
Dennison has always done what he does his own way. He is aware of the risks and he is also aware that there is at least one very credible candidate ready to run and an also ran who might decide to give it a go again.
 By Ray Rivers
BURLINGTON, ON. May 17, 2013. Justice M. Green put it very well when he said, of the federal governments Safe Streets Act that it represented “…an ideology of unabashed Puritanism marketed through fear-mongering and invidious exploitation of communal differences.”
Justice Green was writing about one of the Harper government’s signature legislative pieces, (Globe and Mail – May 2, 2013). Indeed, if puritanism was the driving passion, then why not just bring back the pillory stocks, the dunking stool and the whipping post. 17th century puritans used to nail their prisoners’ ears to the stocks – so they would have to face their victims. And, the multitude of crimes in those days included treason, sedition, arson, blasphemy, witchcraft, perjury, wife-beating, cheating, forgery, coin clipping, dice cogging, slandering, conjuring, fortune-telling, and drunkenness.
 Putting people in pillory stocks was a common practice in the 1800’s. We have progressed since then; haven’t we? It took four centuries to narrow down the list of crimes and, more recently, two generations of socially progressive efforts, to whittle down the number of criminals in Canadian prisons. And the reality is that crimes, criminals and costs have further fallen over the last two decades. So Mr. Harper’s new law – Bill C-10, ‘The Safe Streets and Communities Act’ can only turn the clock back.
This legislation has the ultimate purpose of expanding the prison population and increasing the number of costly prisons required. Why? A good question. Since, ironically, the changes being instituted are happening while crime rates are falling and streets are generally safer in Canada. It is also ironic that the very government which claims to be promoting safer streets is the same one which shut down the long gun registry and destroyed almost all of its weapons records. It is also the government which has made our country more of a potential target for international terrorism through it’s unbalanced foreign policies.
If US-style laws and US prison systems are the models in Mr. Harper’s mind, then privatized for-profit prisons cannot be far behind. And if profit-oriented US prison providers, like ‘GEO’, are to be engaged, we should expect that higher US-style crime rates will also follow. The US, with the highest incarceration rates in the world is a poor model for us to emulate, by any reasonable person’s assessment.
These American for-profit organizations tend to feed on the underprivileged and the poor, while making greater profit from the increasing number of inmates facing longer sentences. Looking objectively at the prison system in Canada, it is hard to miss the imbalance which already exists – how certain minorities are over-represented. For example, less than 13% of Saskatchewan residents are aboriginal and yet aboriginals make up over 80% of the prison inmates in that province. This is something the so-called ‘Safe Streets and Communities Act’ will do absolutely nothing to improve – it will in fact exacerbate the problem.
‘The Safe Streets and Communities Act’ will be the topic of a Town Hall Meeting I am moderating at McMaster Innovation Park (175 Longwood Rd. S.) in Hamilton, 7 PM, May 22. The event is free and open to the public; it would be nice to see you there.
 Ray Rivers Ray Rivers writes weekly on both federal and provincial politics, applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat after which he decided to write and has become a political animator. Rivers was a candidate for provincial office in Burlington where he ran against Cam Jackson.
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON May 15, 2013. John Mello is the kind of guy who stands around a lot. He is usually thinking five or six steps ahead of the people he is involved with. He’s a railroad guy – didn’t actually work on a railroad – he just likes trains. Not the model railway trains guys build in the basements and then wear a funny hat and walk around with an oil can in their hands. Mello talks about BIG trains, preferably steam engines.
 Sitting on some “cribbing” with a sign badly in need of several coats of paint, the Freeman Station gets ready for its big move. That ability to talk about big trains comes from his 44 years of experience in the railway business where he started as a “train order operator”. Long before cell phones – back in the days when it was a telegraph operator sending messages in Morse code engineers would be given their instructions written out on small pieces of paper called flimsies that were attached to a hoop and passed up to the engineer as the train slowed down. Mello goes back “that far” – lots of history in the man.
 The Freeman Five – with John Mellow in the center listening to city council make a decision. This isn’t a group Council was going to say no to easily. Mello is one of the group that is refurbishing the Freeman Station. It has been a long haul, a very long haul and they are nowhere near where they want to be but there are glimmers of hope and small, even if faltering steps, taken that move the ball up the field.
While there are pounds of paper, documents, permits and who knows what else, Mello leaves all that messy stuff – and it is messy, to others. He has his eye on the bigger picture.
The next step is to get the station off the really shaky set of blocks it is sitting on and onto sturdy steel beams so that it can be at least moved to its new site – which is less than 100 yards away.
The structure sits on what they call “cribbing” – been there since 2005 and Mello says” it’s still pretty solid”. Mello explains with the ease of a truck driver who can move one of those eighteen wheelers through downtown traffic just how it is all going to happen.
 This beam, one of four that will be used, is being shoved under the station. Once it is in place it will be jacked up and take the weight of the station – 100 tons. Then dolly wheels will be attached to the beams and it will be slowly moved from where it has sat since 2005 and to its new home – 100 yards away. There it will be refurbished and restored and then it will be ready for transfer where it truly belongs – on Lakeshore Road next to the old railway line. In the fullness of time all that will happen. The steel beams are being slid underneath the building where they are levelled and shifted to make sure they are right underneath beams in the building that can carry the weight of the building. Then the beams are jacked up high enough for the person overseeing the restoration of the building can get underneath and do some of the work that has to be done before the building is actually moved.
When everything is ready for the actual move a couple of sets of “dolly’s” – wheels that are together are attached to the beams and the building gets rolled forward and through the fire station parking lot on Fairview and then back into its resting place on the Ashland property where the serious restoration work will begin.
“They’re going to drive forward from over there” said Mello pointing to the station and then “pull the truck right up to the curb here and slowly back it in and then lower it to the ground” explains Mello.
And he knows exactly where that here is going to be. “The end of the station will be here” he says as he point to a spot in an open field with hydro towers and a patch of sumac trees that will have to come out. The trees are very young – easily replaced with something more substantial. The other end of the station will be close to that tree over there” he adds.
 John Mello points out where one end of the Freeman Station will rest. The other end will be at about where the tall tree is in the background. Sod turning will take place May 23rd. “A roadway will come in through here and curve around to the front of the building where there will be parking for a couple of cars”, adds Mello.
When will all this happen? In the fullness of time is the best Mello can say – he’s not the type to be rushed.
He does hope that the public turns out to watch the actual move. The structure weighs 100 tons – “they made them good in those days” explains Mello. “They had wood we don’t have today.
Mello is looking over the horizon at the bigger picture. The lot of land the Friends of Freeman have is quite large – there will be quite a bit of landscaping to be done and that too will be done in the fullness of time. Maybe there is some railway track and a couple of engines in the station’s future? Maybe an original steam engine and a diesel as well. Mello worked for GO transit for a number of years and he’s the kind of guy who makes friends he can call on.
Fundraising, an ongoing task for the Friends, is currently focused on selling the equivalent of railway ties that will hold imaginary track. One railway tie moves the station six inches. They’ve sold a couple of hundred of the things so far. For $20 you can move the station six inches.
Sod turning on the site is to take place May 23rd, in the forenoon. All the people who managed to put up or secure funds for the moving and refurbishing the station will be out along with the politicians. It’s not much more than a photo-op – all part of the process when you work with city hall.
 It was Councillors Blair Lancaster, on the right and Marianne Meed Ward that kept the Freeman station idea alive while citizens like Freeman Station president James Smith, second from left and John Mellow in the middle, pulled together a citizens group that will restore and refurbish the structure. That Thursday will be a very full day for the friends of Freeman Station – in the afternoon they gather to celebrate the life of Jane Irwin, one of the biggest advocates for saving the station. The sod turning ceremony, a real high for the people who got the station to this point, which is a long way from the day the city ran an advertisement asking if anyone wanted to take the thing off our hands. There were no takers.
 Train order operators used hoops like this to pass messages to trains as they passed slowly through a station. John Mello was one of the people who wrote out the instructions on what were then called “flimsies”. “We used carbon paper in those days – does anyone even know what that stuff is today” wonders Mello. Councillors Marianne Meed Ward and Blair Lancaster were the two members of council who were not prepared to let the station fade from the pages of the city’s history. They kept the issue before council while citizens formed a group and got themselves organized.
When the day is done on the 23rd people will return to their homes with fond memories of Jane Irwin and the knowledge that turning the sod for new Freeman station home was a good thing to get done.
John Mello will slip down to the basement of his Burlington home and look through his railway memorabilia collection and let his mind slip back to when he reached up to engineers with that hoop holding the instructions telling them where they were to go and what they would face in terms of oncoming rail traffic. That’s the way they did it in those days.
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON. ON. May 14, 2013. What do you make of this?
In a media release put out by the city, Mayor Rick Goldring said “The Brant Street Pier is nearly completed, and will be a waterfront icon at the foot of Brant Street for families to enjoy for generations to come.” He then added: “There is still some outstanding business regarding legal action related to the pier. The city will be as open as possible in sharing that information.”
 View from the pier looking east. That patch of land between the two building is where the Riviera Motel used to stand. It is the site where an 8 storey Delta Hotel will be built, plus a seven story condominium and a 22 storey condominium. Small site for that many buildings. The railing shown in the picture are just place holders. Are those two sentences related? Is the opening of the pier to the public being held up in any way by the “legal” problems?
At a recent council committee meeting Councillor Jack Dennison wanted city hall staff types to let the public out on the pier just as soon as possible and didn’t want the public kept off the pier until the “dignitaries” got to do their thing and have their pictures taken.
 Diver in the water taking out the caissons that were embedded in the lake bottom to keep the construction trestle in place. The trestle will be out by the end of the week. The project team thought the pier could be ready for the public as early as June 3 – that date seems to be slipping. The FINAL Project Update made mention of granting the contractor “Substantial Performance which meant the pier would be transferred from the contractor to the city and the city could then decide when it was ready to let the public out onto the pier.
There are people out on the pier now – late at night “punks” go out onto the pier with their beer and make fools of themselves. The city will want to create some form of security for the site. There will be barriers that prevent cars from going out but they don’t appear to be wide enough to keep bicycles and motorcycles off the site.
It will probably take six months before the city realizes that a security camera is going to be necessary.
Actual construction has been proceeding very well. The rails that will keep people from falling over the edge have yet to get put in place but that is in hand. Most of the balustrades that will hold the rails are in place. The team that is going to install the steel wire rope are in town – they were brought in from Vancouver. The rails are getting galvanized and painted – then they can go up.
 These three “amigos” kept the construction of the pier on time and resolved each of the many problems that cropped up. The stairs on the left lead to the node. Craig Stevens, Project Manager for the city on the left and Brad Cassidy the on-site manager for the construction company on the right. Eric Carriere stands in the middle; we never quite knew what Eric did – he was just always there. The concrete for the stairs that lead to the node will get poured this week.
Weather is hampering things a bit but there hasn’t been anything that was unmanageable on the construction side. The problems are all on the legal side.
A number of weeks ago City Manager Jeff Fielding announced that he was hiring a specialized communications team to help with managing the flow of information to the public on some legal matters. We’ve known this was coming for some time.
While the city has been telling the public that construction of the pier has been on time and on budget – which for the most part has been true, they haven’t been saying very much about the legal problems that have dogged the city since the original contractor walked off the job and lawsuits started being served on anyone who had a finger in that pie.
This story is far from over. There are all kinds of things going on with the several law suits – the city would rather you didn’t know about those – they want to dazzle you with fireworks and tell you all about the wonderful view – and it is a great view. Just not worth the $14 million + number the city uses when they talk about costs. Think in terms of closer to $20 million.
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON. May 10, 2013. The Beachway Master Plan – one of those projects that has been going on forever, finally got to Burlington’s city council. It didn’t get a round of applause but it did get a thorough trouncing with more questions from Council than the three people presenting the report were able to answer.
Many of the questions were tabled giving staff time to dig out the answers.
 The area studied in the Beachway report is on the left. A prime focus is the residential properties show in red – there are 30 homes in the area Reality took a bit of a hit during the lengthy meeting at which the public and city council went through a report that was biased at best and lacked any imagination whatsoever. It seemed to focus on getting the residents out of the parkland and, as Councillor Meed Ward put it “create space for parking cars”.
It was a long report, a complex report; one that required more than the five or six days the residents of the Beachway Park community had to read it and digest the contents.
It wasn’t clear if the Region, which produced the report, had made an early draft available to Burlington for comment.
Wednesday evening was a meeting to receive the report from the Region and to give the public an opportunity to comment. In the past the Beachway residents have been very vocal, close to disruptive at times, with good reason- the report talked about their homes and there are people at the Region who want to put them out on the street. There was a previous public meeting, a workshop that was looking for ideas and views on what might be done with the Beachway.
There are some in that community who are prepared to sell their property to the Region but they want a decent price – which is something the Region claims it has not been able to do. More on that below.
The Beachway falls in Councillor Rick Craven’s ward and he hand delivered copies to the 30 homes in the community.
 Residents on the Beachway have spent thousands of dollars to upgrade their properties – this is where they live and where they want to stay. One of the better examples of improved properties is this house on Lakeshore Road Wednesday evening they were ably represented by Glen Gillespie who gave council a passionate view of the community, the parkland and what could be done. He entertained them and to some degree informed them as well, but it isn’t the city that is driving this agenda – and the community does not appear to have been able to get through to the Regional people.
At the end of the meeting Council made it clear to the Regional people that they had a lot of questions and didn’t see this as being anywhere near a done deal. Problem is the city doesn’t have all that much clout on this one and there isn’t a clear vision from the city as to what it wants to do – at least not yet.
There is no clear leadership from this Council on the issue. Craven seems to lack any imagination on the file and is more concerned about encroachment of public property by the residents – he has a point on that one – than he has about the bigger picture which is what does Burlington want to see done with the parkland?
Craven has a habit of asking “incisive questions” in an almost prosecutorial manner that usually results in a ‘no’ from the person being questioned and then sits back looking as if he has made a major point. Wednesday evening he asked each of the Beachway residents if they were aware of the provincial policy related to properties on the Beachway. Did you ask your lawyer or your real estate agents about any provincial policy, Craven asked. Get real Councillor – real estate agents tell you about the granite counter tops, the “ensuite” bathrooms and the hardwood floors.
Acting General Manager Chris Glenn directed the meeting. After two hours of presentations, delegations and some questions Glenn broke the discussion into four areas and did his best to channel the flow of conversation along those paths.
 While the focus of the Beachway report was on flooding, the dynamic beach and the residential housing there are three other very large users of the area. Joseph Brant Hospital will face Lakeshore Road when it completes its re-build, the Ministry of transportation has a large equipment yard on the west side of Lakeshore and the Waste water treatment plant, currently undergoing a massive upgrade is also in the area. Land use – what use was the land that is owned by the Conservation Authority, leased to the city and comes under policy created at the Region, going to be put to?
 Much is made of the flooding hazard – and there have been very significant floods in the past. The focus of the Beachway Review report has been on what flooding will do to the residential homes – much less said about the impact flooding will have on the waste water treatment plant and the hospital – both of which are in the flood plain. Flooding: what is the flooding issue? There are a lot of misconceptions in the minds of many; some outright fear mongering on the part of Regional staff; data that is true one week but not true the next and a bit of a “not telling the whole story” on the part of the bureaucrats. The residents deserve better and Burlington has to press the Region and the Conservation Authority quite a bit harder to get the truth out on the table about the flooding threat.
Servicing the community and the park in general. The Region states that it is parkland and therefore cannot be serviced but there is a Pavilion that has water and waste service; a Pump House the city would love to lease out to someone, that has water and waste service and then there is a waste water treatment plant right smack in the middle of the community. The residents feel, quite legitimately, that they are being had.
 A layout showing the location of the private homes in the Beachway Park. The Region appears to want to want to buy the properties – the residents say that if the Region is going to purchase they want a fair price. Some think the Region wants the property for future parking when use of the park expands.  Examples of some of the homes in the Beachway that residents want to keep. The last subject areas was “acquisition” – how is the Region going to acquire the homes if that is what this all comes down to, then the practice they have followed the past five years has been a total failure. Of the eight properties that came up for sale – the Region managed to get just the one. All the others sold privately – one for double what the Region offered.
The report, it actually has the word “comprehensive” in its title – chose to be selective in what it put its spotlight on. There were a number of critical decisions made in previous reports that go back to the 70’s, that got brushed over. The writers of the report chose to pick parts of previous document that supported their viewpoint.
There is much more delving into to be done on the file. However, there is a clock ticking – the Region has put a schedule in place that has the report going to the Planning and Public works committee in October.
There were four delegations before Council; three from people who had homes in the Beachway and a third from the Burlington Waterfront Committee, the eye on the waterfront created by Councillor Marianne Meed Ward when the Waterfront Access Protection and Advisory Committee was sunset by city Council.
The three residents were crystal clear on what they wanted – either give us a fair price for our homes or clear up the zoning mess and let us remain where we want to be.
The Waterfront group came out very strongly for keeping the community on the Beachway.
Based on the “pie in the sky” view the Region has put forward and the fear mongering they did Burlington is going to have to get its act together and form a plan that it wants to advance.
Spencer Smith Park, which is the eastern part of our Waterfront, is nicely developed and works for everyone. Time now to decide what the city would like to see done with the western end. Time may be the one thing the city and the residents don’t have.
There was a time when the Beachway part of Burlington was a small but robust community with its own stores and police service. That time is part of the city’s history – which got precious little mention in the report received by city council last Wednesday.
The roll out schedule for this is:
Presentation to the Regional Waterfront Parks Advisory Committee: June 26 and August 21, 2013
Presentation to Conservation Halton Board on June 27, 2013
Back to the Burlington Community Services Committee Sept 11, 2013
Region of Halton Planning and Public works committee October 3, 2013,
The October meeting is where the direction to be taken will be determined and the actual creation of the Master Plan will begin.
 By Ray Rivers
BURLINGTON, ON. May 9th, 2013. You know the feeling. You have just ordered fish and chips and the waiter sets down a juicy hamburger for the guy at the next table. You recall the price was the same and wish you’d ordered differently – then your fish arrives and you want to ask the waiter to change it for the burger. That’s Andrea Horwath. She demanded poorly from Kathleen Wynne, in the provincial budget, and now she’d like to order again.
Take the 15% cut in insurance rates. I didn’t think that could happen. Aren’t the rates set on the basis of claims, as they’ve always told us? Are we going to have 15% fewer accidents this year? Possible, but I doubt it. So that means we’ve been paying at least 15% more a year than we should have. And look at your insurance bill. Why are we paying for accident health coverage in a province with universal OHIP? Talk about being over-insured.
New Zealanders have true no-fault auto insurance. They understand nothing is risk-free. So if you are on the highway and have an accident, the biggest insurance pool in the country, the government, takes care of you – but you can’t sue a third-party for personal injuries. I bought a used car there and my yearly insurance bill was $99.00. Why can’t we do that here?
The NDP platform on car insurance, when Bob Rae became the first Dipper Premier, was to nationalize it. But he chickened out – wouldn’t do it then. Has the NDP dropped the idea entirely, or did Andrea think it was too much to ask, and wishes she had now? I mean BC, Quebec and Manitoba – all have variations of public auto insurance for their people – and they pay lower premiums. Why are we fattening the big insurance companies? Keeping that money in our pockets would be like a tax cut. A good way to stimulate the economy.
But the best we can do is fifteen percent, this time. Horwath made her play and now she’s not so sure. She’s hiding in her office, waiting to hear from… who? You’d think she would have done that before she made her ask on the budget. Now it is just about stalling, checking if the chips, which came with her fish, are salty enough before she slips one into her mouth. But they are getting cold as she hesitates, pretending she’s not really all that hungry.
Horwath is in a pickle. The Liberals need her far more badly than she ever thought, and Andrea now wishes she’d asked for more – because she probably would have got it. But she didn’t – so it’s time to lift her knife and fork and dig into that plate she ordered. Act like the adult you want people to think you are, if you expect them to make you Premier some day. Take the deal you demanded and make it work – then maybe, next time, be a little more careful about what you order up.
Ray Rivers writes weekly on both federal and provincial politics, applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat after which he decided to write and has become a political animator. Rivers was a candidate for provincial office in Burlington where he ran against Cam Jackson.
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON. May 8, 2013 If the city grants Graham Infrastructure “Substantial Performance” people will be able to walk out onto the pier – just like that.
Graham is the company that built the pier – actually they tore down the first version of the pier and then started all over again – but that’s another story. Everyone now wants to move on and hold the opening ceremonies with balloons and fireworks and speeches and pretend that all the problems were not our problems. We will all become Jamaicans for a few hours and tell ourselves there are “No problems”
This “substantial performance is one of two conditions that have to be met before the pier can be opened to the public.
During debate at a council committee when city staff was giving council their FINAL pier update Councillor Dennison wanted to know just when the public was going to walk out on that concrete deck. Staff had said that the Burlington Teen Tour Band would be the first “public” to use the pier which they thought was fitting and would certainly gladden the hearts of many in this city.
 There was almost a cheer when city staff advised council they were making their FINAL project update on the Brant Street Pier. Dennison poked away a bit and referred to the FINAL Pier Update and noted that once the city has granted Substantial Performance the pier can be used.
Substantial Performance means that in the eyes of the city the work on the pier is complete and the contractor turns it over to the city. During construction the pier is in the hands of the contractor.
With “substantial performance” the contractor gets a significant payment – so you know they want to see this done. Liability for the pier becomes the city’s problem and a deficiency list gets drawn up.
Every project has a deficiency list – some take years t get done. They are usually always very small and it is the city that keeps after the contractor to ensure they are fixed.
All this leads up to – when will the pier be open to the public? We know it will be open on the 14th – every dignitary in the Region will be out there. It will be fun to watch former Mayor’s Cam Jackson and Rob McIsaac share the platform – not much love lost between those two.
McIsaac struggled to get the pier built and when the crane topped during construction Jackson wanted to blow the whole thing up. The current administration moved heaven and earth to find a contractor to complete the job and sent millions more than anyone expected to see the job done.
The “mistake on the lake” will finally shed its lousy public image.
There are two big public events: June 14th from 1:00 to 4:00 pm which will be the plaque unveiling, recognition of the dignitaries and thanking them for giving us back our own money to build the pier. This is when the Burlington Teen Tour Band will march smartly out to the end of the pier and then in a grand fashion march from the end forward to the front where the public will have gathered.
After all the speeches and the photo opportunities everyone retires to the Sound of Music VIP tent for a reception.
 The beacon atop the node – cross braces have yet to go in and all the LED lights have yet to be put in place. Looks kind of nice as it is. The day after – Saturday June 15th is the Community Opening. This event will run from noon to 3:00 pm during which there will be “animation activities” for the public. Details are still be worked out by two different city departments. The “big shot” event is being handled by the city’s communications department and the Community Opening is being run by the city’s Special Events people.
They put on the Children’s Festival – a two-day event that is hugely popular and know how to make something work. It will be interesting to see how well they do – and interesting as well to see how the two different departments do their jobs.
 Looks cold and lonely out there? In a couple of weeks the railings will be in place and the public will strut out to the end of the pier and marvel at it all – and the cost as well. But the really interesting thing is: WHEN WILL THE PUBLIC BE ABLE O WALK OUT ON THAT PIER? Dennison isn’t on for waiting until the dignitaries are on hand. If it safe and complete – then let the public out onto the thing is the view Dennison took at the last council committee meeting.
Will he be as insistent at Council later this month and will he have the support of his fellow council members? Dennison could use a win on this one. He got close to black- balled by his community over his plans to apply for a severance of his Lakeshore Road property and he took a shellacking over his view that Lakeshore Road should have separate bicycle lanes.
If he manages to get the public out on the pier during the first week of June – will all be forgiven?
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON May 7, 2013 The natives in St. Luke’s Precinct are getting restless – they don’t like the look of a development that is going to chew up a whole block of Caroline from Hager to Burlington Streets.
Barry Imber, a Hager resident explains: “Myself and a bunch of downtown neighbours are amassing to say no to a new housing development that’s proposed for Caroline
 The St. Luke’s Precinct is bordered on four sides roughly between Brant Street and Maple Avenue at the sides and Central High School to Lakeshore Road top to bottom. Street between Burlington Ave. and Hager Ave. The developer wants to tear down a number of homes and replace with higher density town homes which local Councillor Marianne Meed-Ward insists are semi-detached structures.
The neighbourhood has been dealing with this for some time – early meetings took place sometime in 2012.
Meed Ward has arranged for a meeting at city hall – on a Saturday – in the late Spring no less – that tells how restless the natives are. Takes place at City Hall — 10am – Room 305 with developer Maurice Desrochers in attendance. Locals understand that the developer wishes to show new drawings. The neighbours wish to speak to him about the impact of his proposal on the way they live downtown.
 Caroline looking East from Hager: community wants to retain the single family home zoning fr the precinct. The developer is seeking different zoning for the site: Imber says the problem is, as we all know, change one zone and the dominos fall and you stand to lose the zoning for our unique little core area.
The developer is believed to have changed architects – leaving John Williams of Burlington and taking his business down the road to a Toronto Architectural firm. The developer is also reported to have
Changed the drawings to get a more period historical look — between late 1800’s to early 1900’s
The city is reported to have impressed the developer that the goal of the St. Luke’s Precinct is to preserve the Single Family Home zoning as established character — not simply an aesthetic.
The St. Luke’s Precinct is bordered on four sides roughly between Brant Street and Maple Avenue at the sides and Central High School to Lakeshore Road top to bottom.
Social media lets anyone with a keyboard and internet access the opportunity to put together a blog and get their story out. There are loads of smart people in the precinct who have their site up and created a space for the developer to get his side of the story out – which is what Desrochers did with this comment:
“I appreciate your concern. You are totally misinformed and misinforming your neighbours. This is a site specific zoning change and does not affect the zoning in the rest of the neighbourhood, nor does it affect the neighbourhood in a negative way.
 Residents believe the developer has focused solely on the positive nature of the aesthetic – they are concerned about density and the intrusion of anything other than single family homes. You have not even seen what the new proposal is. Its leading edge and a great example of good positive change .I trust that you will be impressed when you see the new proposal. Even some of the new single homes in the core are not a good example of tying in with the neighbourhood. I look forward to seeing you on the 11th.
The community has come right back and responded:
Your effort to connect is much appreciated as is making yourself available to discuss the project with residents on Saturday May 11th at the city.
In response to your note we understand that the city grants zone changes site specific. However, we all know that they consider the zoning of an area or neighbourhood by the type of zoning around it. This raises a number of concerns:
1. “The city worked with the province’s mandate of intensification to conclude that the St. Luke’s Precinct was a unique and cohesively zoned area that should be protected from changes that could effect character — concluding that the Precinct should keep it’s contiguous zoning. This means they recognize the significance of site specific zoning as it effects the broader area. Therefore, a change of zone in one lot will effect all lots and tear apart the precinct’s status.
2. “Area residents have seen how site specific zone changes in their neighbourhoods have come back to haunt them when developments have applied and were granted site specific zoning and character changes. Recent examples can be cited. The reality is that a single zone change is significant as it heavily influences the future decision-making of council when they consider impact of change on each site by site occasion.
“For these reasons we believe there is no misrepresentation. We are being clear that the zoning change will effect the entire Precinct. Anyone who suggests otherwise is being naive or hiding the reality of the precedent that is set by site specific changes.
“In the end your new proposal, if still requiring a zone change to a higher density away from single family dwellings, is the first disastrous destabilizing step for the neighbourhood that will be irreversible. It will invite future developers to speculate by buying groups of homes for dense developments and leave us with no defence as we will have lost our precinct’s unique cohesive zoning as currently recognized by the city.
“Lastly you address aesthetic. In your initial meeting with residents you focused solely on the positive nature of your aesthetic and believe it is a fit. I’m certain this next proposal will be aesthetically well-considered too.
“The challenge is that though you believe your aesthetic to be superior to others and that there should be an ideal — citing that there is infill that doesn’t meet your standards — the reality is that this neighbourhood consists of many looks and home sizes; a diverse aesthetic that has evolved over time. This is a natural process that is central to the beauty of the area and a direct result of the single family home zoning.
“The single family home zoning influences the process by maintaining a graceful influx of home buyers that purchase because they love the Precinct and appreciate the nature of the place. Then some renovate, some replace — but all one home at a time to an outcome that though eclectic, is importantly slow and to scale with the neighbourhood. A scale both in the size of the homes but more importantly the scale of disruption. One home on one street being renovated or rebuilt is limited in its disruption — in all senses. One home at a time upsets a minimal in terms of traffic, emotions, neighbourhood people’s relationships and families. One home at a time is not divisive to the people.
“A development of a number of homes — a whole street block — that hopes to change the zoning tears a hole in a neighbourhood. It is destabilizing. It changes character. It divides people. It disrupts daily lives and flow and demands all people accommodate and change for the needs of the development.
“Your proposed development, and any similar future development that needs zone changes, will do more than change the look of the street. It will divide the neighbourhood and force everyone to change the way they live, and the way they relate to each other. It will erase what generations have loved about the downtown core’s neighbourhoods.
“This is why a growing number of neighbours have concluded that this type of development is destructive and misguided.”
 Desrochers has been in the business of buying up historical properties and rental them out as executive accommodation for short periods of time and in doing so has kept some very important buildings in use. Has his decision to move into development going to damage the reputation he had. Above is a fine example of a structure Desrochers has on his properties list. Desrochers operates Burlington Furnished Rentals, which owns a number of very distinctive looking structures which it rents out as short-term executive suites. Among these rental residences are approximately 6 homes on adjacent detached single family lots along the north side of Caroline which are the focus of their redevelopment. The group has presented a plan to tear down the homes and build multi-level townhouses and increase the dwelling density to 8 or more units on this land.
Is this application going to be seen as just a necessary part of downtown intensification or will the concept of a distinct look to a Precinct be something that prevails?
The community will get some sense as to where the city’s planning department is coming from when there report is completed and sent along to council.
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON. May 3, 2013 We are not hearing very much from the folks over at the Burlington Performing Arts Centre. They advertised for people interested in serving on the Board – the closing date for that was March 15th. The Board has not said how many seats they need to fill.
We have heard of at least one very qualified individual who has served the city with distinction in the past. Our understanding is that the initial interview has yet to take place but when it does the applicant intends to interview the Board as much as be interviewed for a Board seat.
 In the world of show business they are called “dark night” – those occasions when there is nothing going on in the building. The Performing Arts Centre has too many of these. Sometime later this month the Brenda Heatherington, the Executive Director who has given notice to her Board that she will leave her position in July, will announce the fall line-up – which we understand is pretty strong.
No word from the Board on how they intend to search for her replacement. There is some buzz in the community that it should be someone from within the community, which could be a mistake.
The position to be filled needs considerable clarification before it is advertised.  Does BPAC want an artistic director? Does it want an administrator who has a sense of what the community wants in the way of entertainment? Doe it want someone who puts on the type of programming that is profitable or does it want someone who is going to grow the appetite and interest level of the community for performing arts?
Burlington has next to no experience in growing the appetite for performing arts. Heatherington brought a strong reputation for being able to build an audience but “appears” to have lacked the business acumen the Board felt was needed. Finding someone who can develop audiences and find the kind of entertaining talent to do that and get them to this city at a reasonable cost and then also have the business smarts to keep the revenue line where everyone would like it to be is no small task. There are very few of those available in this country. Should we find one – that person will probably be able to walk on water as well.
There are some tough days ahead for the Performing Arts Centre as it builds a board of directors that can make the decisions that have to be made and learn more about public responsibility and transparency.
Getting a beefed up Board in place is the first critical step and then creating a search team to find the new Executive Director follows. In the meantime someone has to run the place on a day-to-day basis. We are going to see another whopper of a deficit next year.
Burlingtonians can be understanding and tolerant but they insist on being informed. Hopefully there will be at least one champion on the revitalized board that will insist on telling the people paying for the place what is going on.
Your city council has two of its members on the Board. Mayor Goldring and Councillor Craven have been close to mute when it comes to informing the other council members in public as to what is going on. They are failing to do their jobs .
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON. May 2, 2013. The Premier of the province Kathleen Wynne got her Minister of Finance to produce a budget that might keep the leader of the NDP happy enough to not vote against it later this week but that really isn’t the problem we are going to have with this government.
When Kathleen Wynne told a Legislative committee that she didn’t know the cost of closing the gas plant in Oakville was $310 million she lost me. For her to have sat at the Cabinet table where the decision to close the plant was made and tell us now that she believed the cost was just $40 million tells me the same games are still being played.
 We had trouble believing Kathleen Wynne when she was Minister of Transportation and in town to convince us the government would never pout a road through the Escarpment. Even harder to believe that she didn’t know the cost of closing the Oakville gas plant project was going to cost just $40 million when the true cost was $310 million. Wynne is going to wear that rubber tire around her neck until it eventually brings her down and that is going to be close to tragic for the province.
I don’t believe Andrea Horwath and her New Democrats can govern. And to have Tim Hudak as Premier of the province takes us back to the Mike Harris era – we are still struggling to get out from under the damage he did.
Hudak carries the same Harris blood line; one that is limited, simplistic and basically mean-spirited. Hudak does not seem to be able to see anything majestic in the human condition. . Horwath hasn’t grown to the point where she can serve as Premier – and if she were elected – where would her Cabinet come from? Wynne just doesn’t know how or want to tell the truth.
The budget will probably pass and then get reduced to a mess in committee that will slow us down for years to come.
The mistake the Ontario Liberals made was choosing Wynne and not Sandra Pupatello.
We would be in the middle of an election now had Pupatello been chosen as leader. Pupatello would have cleaned Tim Hudak’s clock and we would have a majority government.
Premier Wynne is correct when she says the people of Ontario don’t want an election. Having an election with Wynne as leader certainly doesn’t guarantee her a win. It won’t put the New Democrats in office and it is doubtful that the Progressive Conservatives would win a majority.
It is not our view that Ontario wants what Tim Hudak wants for us. What a mess
 By Ray Rivers
BURLINGTON, ON May 2, 2013. Give the people what they want. Dalton McGuinty transformed Ontario’s health care system from mediocre to one of the best in the country. He was the education Premier who brought peace and productivity to the class room. He banned cosmetic pesticides, driving with a hand-held cell phone and smoking while children are in your car. He brought in the HOV lanes, the Greenbelt, and helped keep the auto industry alive during the 2008 recession. But one of his biggest achievements was the Green Energy Act.
Generating energy with coal is dirty, speeds up climate change and impairs our health. So the Premier set up the Ontario Power Authority to make a plan – to phase-out coal but make sure the lights didn’t go out. Solar and wind are the path to the future but they only work when the sun shines and the wind blows – so you need a backup and that is natural gas. And gas, the utilities have been saying for years, is clean.
 One of two gas plant the provincial government chose not to complete – cost to quit – close to half a billion dollars But don’t tell that to the voters in Oakville and Mississauga. When they heard about the plans for new gas plants, they weren’t going to let Dalton put one in their back yard. So on the eve of the last election the Liberal government, hoping to get its third majority, killed the partially constructed gas plants in those communities.
It turns out the cost of that decision is now known to be over a half billion dollars – compensation for the private entities building the plants – and new power plants will still have to be built somewhere.
The provincial budget came down this week, but it will have to compete for newspaper space with the gas plant fiasco. The pundits expect the NDP will support this budget and continue to support the Liberals for at least a while – till they are ready to pull the plug.
It is said that voters have short memories, but will the teachers support the government which declared war on them? Will the ORNGE, E-health and the Caledonia crises fade in the voters‘ minds? And on the budget, will the public register its concern that Ontario has been in deficit for the last decade and its debt doubled over that time? And, yes, don’t forget the gas plants.
Despite all the good that Premier McGuinty did for Ontario, his legacy will likely be tarnished by this one avoidable blunder. Who would have advised him to pander to a handful of vocal constituents and to reverse himself on a sound energy plan? That was an expensive lesson for all of us, and Dalton paid a huge price, falling on his sword and giving up his leadership. This is also Political Science 101: Be careful with the advice you get from the kids surrounding you in the heat of an election campaign The honey they are pouring into your ears may well turn out to be hemlock.
Next week I will be exploring the new Ontario budget. If the NDP does indeed support the budget on first reading, the question is whether they will see it through committee and onto final reading. Andrea must be asking herself why she would want to climb into bed with a Liberal government so shaken by something as destructive as the gas plant fiasco? There are interesting times ahead.
 Ray Rivers will write weekly on both federal and provincial politics, applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat after which he decided to write and has become a political animator. Rivers was a candidate in Burlington where he ran against Cam Jackson.
 By Staff
BURLINGTON, ON. May 2, 2013. Friday May, 3, starting at 9:30 a.m. King Road will be closed from north of Enfield Road to 1135 King Rd. (IKEA Parcel Pick Up). The road will be closed until Tuesday, May 7, 2013 at 3:30 p.m. The closure is required so that track levelling work can be completed by CN.
 Rail leveling work as part of the grade separation project will shut down King Road from 9:00 am on May 3 to 3:30 pm on May 6th There will be no pedestrian access (across the CN Rail) during the closure. Motorists and pedestrians should use Brant Street or Waterdown Road as a detour during the closure.
During the construction of the King Road Grade Separation and this closure businesses located along King Road will remain open to serve their patrons.
 By James Smith
BURLINGTON, ON. May 2, 2013. This past weekend yet another young man, 27, died on the railway tracks near Dixie Road in Mississauga. Another family is now linked with Burlington’s Denise Davy and her family by grief over the loss of a loved one on the Lakeshore rail corridor. More than just sad, this news is devastating because when someone dies like this, a family is left not only with the ache in their heart over the loss, but also left with so many unanswered questions. How and why did this happen? Is it misadventure, suicide or is there something else at work? What are we missing in this picture that motivates people so they feel they have to cut across tracks in the first place?
I’ve never met Ms Davy, but I’ve been impressed with her commitment to attempting to get action on preventing other deaths on the tracks in Burlington. Ms Davy has successfully brought this issue to the front of mind, not only of Burlington City council, a success in its own right; Ms Davy has moved council to direct staff to act.
 A couple of really inadequate signs alongside a path that leads up to the railway tracks – crossing is a snap until one realizes there is a train that you didn’t see or hear when you started crossing. As I write this, I’m sitting on a GO Train making my way into Toronto and I can see how very easy it is for one to make it onto the tracks. Pulling into Bronte station, I saw two men walking away from the tracks. (Did they just cross them?) They likely didn’t give the train and the tracks a second thought. Just something to get around. One does not need to be an expert to see what danger lurk on the Lakeshore corridor. Just look out from the seat of a GO train as I’ve just done to see the trails and paths, the tree forts, BMX jumps and graffiti. Pretty quickly one can get the idea of where people regularly walk, play, lurk and take shortcuts. With GO moving to half hour service in June the peril on the tracks is about to become far greater. To mitigate the danger, I notice more brush being cleared and new fences on the rail corridor throughout Mississauga. Will this project carry on to cover Burlington and the rest of the GO network? I hope so – and I hope it happens soon.
Fences are only part of the answer, the spot where the latest death occurred happened on a section of track already with new fences installed. To improve rail track safety Burlington and other cities need not so much better city planning around railways, but better transportation vision. Being hived off into four parts by railways and highways Burlington has created a neat two kilometer grid that isolates pockets of development as little land-locked islands ironically surrounded by transportation corridors. How do people get in and out of these islands? By car, or for the foolhardy, taking a chance crossing the tracks on foot. This is a result of the dominant planning regimes of the mid-20th century where land use was neatly divided up into its own little planning ghettos.
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON. May 1, 2013. Burlington is holding the second “neighbourhood character” study, which is part of the Official Plan Review. The first study was done with the people of Indian Point where there are some differences as to what can and what shouldn’t be permitted in terms of lot severances and the kind of housing that can be built on a piece of property.
The ‘what kind of housing’ gets built is one of the reasons these “neighbourhood character” studies are done. People who live in a neighbourhood chose to live there and take offence to anyone who wants to come in and build a house that they feel is “inappropriate.
Who gets to decide what’s appropriate? The person who owns the property, the neighbours, the planning department?
 Roseland is made up of large two and a half storey homes on great lots that were built before the depression.
 The community also has large and small bungalows that were built after the depression and on into the 40’s. Who decides what a neighbourhood’ s character actually is? The people who live there or course – but you know that within the residents there will be differences in view point.
A few days before Roseland goes through its own ‘character” study the Roseland Community Organization held an event and did a SWOT exercise and looked at the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to their community,
Each of the 40 some odd people at the meeting wrote down their thoughts under each term on Post-It notes and put them up on a board where everyone could read them. They are set out below for you to review and think about how your community would rank and be reflected under a SWOT analysis.
These are the results, unfiltered.
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Strengths
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Weaknesses
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Trees
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Trees – age
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Neighbours who care
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Continued development on Rossmore north
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Trees and landscaping
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Homes being built are too homogenous
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Tall trees
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New houses look like a subdivision
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Safe streets where kids can play
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New houses
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Quiet street
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Neigbours do not know each other as before
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Proximity to Lake
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Roseland Club different
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Trees
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House flipping
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Family culture
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Overly large house on lots
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Traditional architecture
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Power outages
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Grand property sizes
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Old hydro poles
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Lots of green spaces
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Loss of old trees
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Roseland Community Organization
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Old trees that are weak or sick causing damage
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Mature trees
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Not enough support from community
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Open spaces
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Water table, flooding
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Beauty due to variation in styles, character, trees, lot sizes and boulevards
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Aging trees
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Friendly
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Some apathy to selected lots and absentee landlords
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Not gated – open visitors, walkers, bike riders
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Too attractive to developers
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Friendly neighbours
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Starting a feeding frenzy for developers to move through an area – their activities pushing neighbours out, allowing more homes too big
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Safety
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Unclear development guidelines
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A good investment for a home owner
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No or little pre consultation
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Trees
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Decaying trees
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Large lots with setbacks allow large tree
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No guidelines to Committee of Adjustment – have too much leeway to interpret the by-laws
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A forest in the City with a neigbourhood in the woods
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Weakness in the City in terms of protection of ambience
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A real neighbourhood – a sense of community, a history as a community
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No protection trees on private property
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RCO
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New homes totally out of scale, devoid of design to fit neigbourhood
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Neighbours
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Street lighting
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Overall Ambience, especially trees
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RCA membership too low
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Spaciousness of lots and space between the houses
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Construction madness – it goes on and on in some areas – weak or no enforcement, the developers skirt the law on the street blockage
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Varied architecture
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Inappropriate severing
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Role of Roseland in history of Burlington as a prestige neighbourood
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Traffic as motorists avoid Lakeshore traffic
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A place for visitors from far and wide to walk, walk their dog, to drive and ride through
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Existing by-laws too weak or not enforced
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Keystone properties that set the character of the area
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Garages in front lawns – suburban style
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Diversity and scale of architecture – houses fit their lots
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Developers put enormous homes on small lots , so that smaller neighbourhood homes are dwarfed
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Neighbourliness
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Too many developers interested, killing the goose that lays the golden egg
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Good Neighbours
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The culture in this seems to be to roll over, giving them variances they want
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Roseland Club
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Intensification mandates
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Parks
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Existing by-laws
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Great place to raise a family
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Pass through traffic
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Wide boulevard streets
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Roseland park
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Sense of community
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Excellent lot to dwelling proportions
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Attractive homes of character
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Lot width and space between houses
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Places for kids to play safely
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Wonderful people and neighbours
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Unique home designs – not a subdivision
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Trees
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Roseland Park
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Wide streets
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Opportunities
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Threats
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Community events
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The stakes are so high, it is worth it for a developer and his consultants to always try, and to go to the OMB – relentless
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Acknowledge the history of Roseland development from 1925
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Due to large lots, the threat of severance always hangs there
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More control of development
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Roseland being stereo-typed and not listened too
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Stronger protection in the Official Plan
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Uncontrolled development, severances
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Better and stronger direction to the Committee of Adjustment
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Over-development
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Careful selection of Committee of Adjustment members to be sensitive to communities
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Lot severances
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Replace aging infrastructure
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Infill
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A tree maintenance and plating project – a public private venture
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Old hydro poles
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Clarity on appropriate development
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Uncontrolled development
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Need by-laws to protect lot sizes, to make by-laws hold, and not be undercut
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Desire or market demand to over build- greed
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Replanting
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City planning – intensification
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RCO provides an opportunity to maintain the unique quality of the neighbourhood
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Developers profiting from the ambience of the neigbourhood they are destroying
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Think of ways to bring everyone together again – use the Club
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Only planting dwarf trees as replacements
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Ability to be vocal on problems – the community has much capacity to react
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Having water table changed with super size basement
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We need to use political clout, stay organized
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Monster homes, gorilla additions
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Increase commitment to maintain qualities of Roseland
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Insensitive infill
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Tree maintenance
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Loss of neighbourhood loyalty
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Official plan study
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Over-sized Homes on rebuild lots
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Tree by-law
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Loss of character homes
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Push City to pass tree by-law
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New builds that lack elegance, imagination and variation
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Keep “variances” minor
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 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON. May 1, 2013. Ward 4 Councillor Jack Dennison arrived, uninvited, to the semi-Annual meeting of the Roseland Community Organization last Thursday. He was not a member.
Dennison applied for membership one half hour after the Press Release was sent to media; he had made no effort to join the organization before that time. RCO has been around for a year now. The group was organized to appeal a Committee of Adjustment decision to the Ontario Municipal Board.
 Dennison’s behaviour at a Roseland Community meeting – to which he was not invited was seen as “aggressive”. “Dennison’s membership application was declined for reasons that should be apparent”, said a member of the RCO`s Board.
That same member said Dennison was there to hand out flyers to our Members. I needed to ask him to remove himself from his position beside the sign in table at the door. “His efforts”, added the Board member, “did not have the desired result.”
This Board member said: “I came early anticipating he would show up and he did not disappoint. About twenty minutes prior to the start of the meeting, I saw Mr. Dennison and his girlfriend walking through the parking lot toward the door. I was unaware that they had actually followed me in until I went to bring out a chair for the sign in table. I did ask him to leave and he excused himself to the main lobby of the Church. His girlfriend did remain behind sitting in a chair about 15 feet from our meeting door. Our meeting was 15 minutes late as he was engaging members at the door with his literature.”
“His attendance was considered to be aggressive. It is always desirable to have personal boundaries and be respectful. I did not interfere (as I drove by) with his street canvassing on this issue. His attendance did not have the result he was looking for. You can well imagine the response from Members.”
“It is clearly his last term or he would not be acting in defiance of a neighbourhood who has supported him in the past. I look forward to the overdue, delayed Roseland Study and trust that there is no mechanism other than his being a resident, to shape future planning policy for Roseland.”
“Official Plan reviews are rare events and the requested Roseland study is a first. The neighbourhood does not deserve to have to deal with any legacy effects from his own attitude toward severance.”
Roseland will be the location for the second neighbourhood character study that takes place at the Roseland Park Country Club, 3079 Princess Blvd.E – event starts at 6:30 – and you don’t have to be a member to attend this event.
 By Staff
BURLINGTON, ON. April 30th, 2013 The Region partnered with Conservation Halton and local Halton Scouts, to raise environmental awareness and enhance the landscaping of the Halton Waste Management Site (HWMS) by participating in an annual tree planting event. Approximately 100 Halton Scouts planted 250 trees at the landfill site located at 5400 Regional Road 25 in Milton.
 Seven year old Scout Toby Lawrence gets his spade into the ground as he plants one of the 250 trees put in at the Regional Waste Management site. “With the ability to absorb as much as 50 pounds of carbon dioxide each year, the trees planted will have a direct impact on protecting the environment and our community,” said Regional Chair, Gary Carr. “Many thanks to Conservation Halton for supplying the trees and educating the Scouts about preserving our natural environment.”
Conservation Halton provided the trees, the Scouts provided the energy and Ken Phillips, Conservation Halton CAO provided a few words when he said: “Halton-area Scouts, many of their leaders, family members and volunteers also participated in the tree-planting event.
“Conservation Halton is pleased to be part of this successful partnership with the Burlington Scouts and Halton Region, which has resulted in the planting of 1750 trees since 2000,” said Phillips. “It’s very rewarding to see a sense of stewardship being instilled in Halton’s youth through this tree planting.”
Since 2000, over 1750 native trees have been planted at the HWMS by Halton-area Scouts, which is an example of the sound environmental practices applied at Site operations. Other practices include collecting rainwater from building roofs for reuse on site for tasks such as garden watering and washing equipment and utilizing over 35,000 passenger car tires in the asphalt used to pave the Site roads.
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON. April 30, 2013. The good people over on the Beachway Park got a strong dose of reality yesterday when Ward 1 Councillor Rick Craven delivered copies of the Burlington Beach Regional Waterfront Park Comprehensive Background Report (BBRWPCBR) which we will just call the Beachway Background.
It runs some 250 pages plus – the index runs to six pages so you get the sense that there is all kinds of information – which there is but there isn’t a clear recommendation in the Executive Summary. The issue is – what to do with the 30 homes that are located within what is a park.
 A part of the city that was once a vibrant community with a railway line running through the middle of it is today a park that is for the most part underused and badly in need of a makeover. A park that is populated with property with property owned or managed by federal, provincial, regional and municipal agencies. In the report there is considerable detail on how the 30 homes that are left have changed hands.
The city held a Workshop to get input from citizens – it was well attended but there wasn’t much in the way of a consensus at that event.
The report needs detailed study – which we will give it in the days ahead.
There was once a very healthy community along the edge of the lake – that disappeared when the leases residents had from the railway lapsed and the region took over.
The issue comes up at a Community Services Committee meeting May 8th – expect that one to be boisterous. The residents of the Beachway Park have always been noisy.
There is a very good argument for keeping the housing in the Park – that works exceptionally well on the Toronto Islands where there is a healthy community that co-exists with the visitors that use the three ferry’s to get across the lakefront to the Islands.
There is an opportunity here for the city to come up with something really great – but the leadership needed doesn’t seem to exist at city hall – the residents have a tough fight on their hands. A first read of the Beachway Report suggest there isn’t a lot of room for them to work within. If the residents are going to succeed there is going to have to be a significant change of attitude on the part of the resident; their ‘chippyness’ does not serve them well.
More when we have read the report from cover to cover. It is available on-line at the city’s website. However, when you print out the report the type is far too small for a decent read. Reading 250 pages plus on-line is a challenge
The policy review confirmed that the area is intended to be in its entirety public open space. Statements like that sort of sets the tone doesn’t it?
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON. April 30, 2013. Progress on getting something done with those locations where there is no barrier at all making it very easy for anyone to skip across four railway tracks. Problem is that in the first three months of this year three people were not able to skip across quite fast enough and they were killed by a train whose path they could not get out of.
Denise Davy brought the problem to a Council committee earlier in the month and brought enough information and data with her then to convince Council to do something. They issued a Staff Direction with seven parts to it that called for staff to:
Direct the Director of Transportation Services to consult the Minister of State (Transport) and request that: The Railway Association of Canada and Transport Canada investigate the issues of safety and access to rail lines throughout Burlington.Report publicly the investigation and its findings; and
Direct the Director of Transportation Services to consult with Go Transit and Metrolinx on participating in the investigation through the Ministry of Transportation; and
Direct the Director of Transportation Services to consult Police Services, Health and Public Works Departments in the Region of Halton to participate in the investigation; and
Direct the General Manager of Development and Infrastructure to involve City of Burlington staff to assist with the above; and
Direct the Director of Roads and Parks Maintenance to review publicly held lands that abut railway properties and take the appropriate corrective
action; and
Direct the City Clerk to notify the Region of Halton and its lower -tier municipalities (Town of Oakville, Town of Milton, Town of Halton Hills) of the
staff direction; and
Direct the City Clerk to notify Jane McKenna, MPP-Burlington, Mike Wallace, MP-Burlington and Lisa Raitt, MP – Halton of the staff direction.
That’s a pretty impressive Staff Direction – the 18th that has been issued this year if you count those sorts of things.
 With GO train traffic to increase to 500 a month passing through Burlington by the end of June, Denise Davy feels the city doesn’t have much time to get some kind of barriers in place at those locations where people tend to scoot across the railway tracks as a short cut. So what next? Well there will be a meeting at city hall and then the different players in the game will be pulled together and another meeting will take place. The public might see something come before council before the summer break in August.
Denise Davy has gotten the easy part done – now to get the wagon moving. Polite badgering and reminding them all of the Mayor’s words when he said “If there had been three people killed on Fairview Street in the past three months we would have been all over this.
Time to do just that – get all over this and hope that there is not another trespass death before some action is taken.
Davy is an experienced journalist and knows how to work a source – now she has to work six of them and constantly ask; what’s been done.
It won’t be easy.
Denise Davy will have tucked herself into bed Monday night knowing that she did well by the son she had who was tragically killed in an accident on a set of railway tracks.
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON. April 29, 2013. A drug arrest leads to a firearm seizure.
The two District Strategic Support Team concluded a three-week investigation into a suspected drug trafficker operating in Oakville. On April 26th, three males were observed engaging in a drug transaction in the parking lot of an Oakville apartment building.
Two of the males were subsequently arrested and found to be in possession of approximately 5.5 ounces of cocaine, 69 oxycodone tablets, 4 grams of heroin and over $1,000 in Canadian currency. The third male was arrested shortly thereafter outside of his residence.
 They are safe, they are dry not all that expensive either. Great place to store stuff you don’t need or don’t want other people to get at. Most of these storage places have video surveillance – which the police will now go over with a fine tooth comb. That’s when things got even more interesting for the police who obtained two Controlled Drugs and Substances Act search warrants; one warrant was executed at a residence in Oakville where a small quantity of cocaine was seized. The second warrant was executed at a storage unit in Burlington and investigators seized the following items:
Ruger .357 caliber handgun with six rounds of ammunition
Approximately 2.5 kilograms of cocaine
7 pounds of cannabis marihuana
11.5 ounces of heroin
310 oxycodone tablets
15 grams of methamphetamine (crystal meth)
The estimated street value of the seized drugs is $180,000. Additionally, approximately $45,000 in Canadian currency was seized. Thy would have been wiser to have put that cash in a sock and buried it somewhere.
Charged in relation to the investigation are:
Adam PINKUS (22 years old) of Oakville
Possession of a Controlled Substance (cocaine)
Kyle VANDERPLOEG (29 years old) of Oakville
Trafficking a Controlled Substance (cocaine), three counts of Possession for the Purpose of Trafficking (cocaine, oxycodone, heroin), two counts of Breach of Probation
 Highrise storage lockers are safe, dry and easy to acces, Problem crops up when the police get the key. Both PINKUS and VANDERPLOEG are scheduled to appear in Milton Court on June 4th in relation to their charges.
Aseef MUHIT (22 years old) of Oakville
Trafficking a Controlled Substance (cocaine), five counts of Possession for the Purpose of Trafficking (cocaine, marihuana, heroin, oxycodone, methamphetamine).
MUHIT is also charged with a total of nine firearms related offences, and two counts of Breach Probation. He was held in custody pending a bail hearing.
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