By Lucy Belvedere
April 8th, 2019
BURLINGTON, ON
How has the community been engaged in the redevelopment of the Lakeside Village Plaza ?
Our first inkling of the redevelopment of the Plaza came at the Community Visioning Workshop held November 24th, 2015. A summary of key fears listed from this event repeatedly included: fear of too much density and height, numerous concerns for intensified traffic congestion and lack of safety, and that it will take too long to redevelop, to name just a few.
We only learned of the actual proposal in the summer of 2018 with open house sessions in the afternoon and evening—July 18th and August 8th. It was appalling because what was presented appeared to totally ignore residents’ fears expressed in 2015.
The July Open House session provided limited information since no formal presentation was made and proved to be disappointing with angry, worried residents milling about trying to get answers, but in truth we were all stunned with what we were facing.
At the August Open House some new charts were created for us. One summarized comments from July and are worth noting here. Under land uses it listed support for revitalization, for new tenants, for a range of housing and rental units. However, the rest on the chart was not as positive and echoed the same fears from the initial workshop with criticizing the proposal’s height and density and generally being overdeveloped. Concerns with traffic impacts, congestion and insufficient parking were listed.
Apprehensions about lack of public green spaces with trees, and connection to the parks were recorded. Under design and construction appeared that a better design for seniors be considered and worries about construction and phasing were noted. It’s safe to say that all residents’ first fears were simply stressed once again.
The August Open House also produced a new timeline: that community input would be assessed and a community meeting would be held in January with a statutory meeting held in March. This was encouraging and gave us hope that our voices from the open house events would be heard. Sadly, our hopes evaporated in January when we were unexpectedly notified by the City of the February 12th Statutory Meeting. The proposal remained the same at that time.
Inclement weather cancelled that meeting. Now it is set for Tuesday, April 9th.
Has a revised proposal been presented to Council? If there are any revisions, they are unknown to residents the day before the Statutory Meeting. Our delegations for the Statutory Meeting have been prepared based on the original proposal.
What happened? I quote from page 29 and 30 of the developers proposal under the heading of Public Consultation: “…We anticipate that a local community meeting will be held following the application submission…to present a master plan and engage the community for comments and input…We will summarize all public input through the community engagement process and identify how community input has been addressed with updates and changes…The consultation strategy described herein will ensure that members of the public are given an opportunity to review, understand and comment on the proposal.” Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? Obviously, that didn’t happen!
It seems that developers’ proposals always sound fantastic on paper, but they don’t put it into practice in reality. Residents have been locked out with this very limited, almost meaningless engagement process. The developer’s planners spent 3 years engaging with the city planning staff, making presentations to Council and convincing all involved at City Hall that it was the most fantastic, enlightened plan for this property. The developer’s planners were so effective in this regard that they were able to shape the new Official Plan policies for the Neighbourhood Centre designation to perfectly suit and allow their proposal amendments. The numerous amendments they request are mind-boggling with many bylaw modifications needed. The proposal mixes policies from the present Official Plan in effect regarding zoning, but presents plans that apply to the Neighbourhood Centre policies in the new Official Plan now under review. It is very confusing. The original proposal for this relatively small site—3.84 hectares represents over-development on steroids!
Where do the neighbourhood residents’ concerns fit into the picture? Why have we not had an official community meeting where we have the opportunity to have the proposal presented and the opportunity to ask questions? How disheartening! What surprise awaits us at the Statutory meeting? Will there be a revised proposal to show that residents input is taken into consideration? We shall see.
Related new stories:
Part one of a two part series on the Lakeside Village Plaza development.
Part two of a two part series on the Lakeside Village Plaza development.
Lucy, I chime in with Gary in support, and want to thank you for your many comments and really, columns, over the last couple of years on this project and others as well.
I learned things to support my own fights and I am sure many others did too.
I will be cheering you on from afar too.
Lucy, your column will resonate with many citizens from all wards of Burlington. All the pretty pictures and the fancy words like “animate”, “activate”, “inform” and “optimize” used by today’s developers cannot fool all the people all of the time.
With a development-friendly majority on our former Council and likewise within our Planning Department leadership at the time, the deck was stacked against public engagement and reasonable development.
We will be left with the monoliths at Martha and Lakeshore and the eventual twin towers across from City Hall to remind us forever of those days. Hopefully we have learned from those mistakes. After all, we did make a near complete replacement of our Council and changes are being made in how the Planning Department is being run and educated.
I wish you well tonight in the Public Meeting and will be cheering you on from afar. The over-filling of any site is to be fought by the residents who understand the real losses, not the gains, that these types of development bring. Keep up the good fight. This time at least I think you have a Council that will not just listen, but will actually hear.