Public to get first look at city plan for Beachway park - will there be any homes on the plans?

By Pepper Parr

April 6, 2015

BURLINGTON, ON

It will not be a quiet meeting.

City planners will be showing the public what they think a Beachway Park should look like on Tuesday evening at the Art Gallery of Burlington – 6:30 pm

The showing of the plans that will make the Beachway much more of a park than it is now is the result of a decision to create a park and buy up the 25+ homes in the community on a willing seller – willing buyer basis.

A Regional Comprehensive Report identified two clusters of homes in the Beachway Park – some want everyone of them bull-dozed into the ground and make available for parking spaces.

The problem with that approach is that there is just the one buyer and many sellers that are not in the least willing. Most of those who own property in the Beachway don’t want to sell – they see the location as a great place to live and would like to see additional housing built on the lots that are currently vacant.

There are several owners that hold property and have been described as speculators by the ward council member.

Burlington has some remarkably talented landscape planners who are sensitive to geography and the needs of a public. They are well trained and good at what they do. The City View Park on Dundas at Kerns Road is the most recent example of very good work.

What landscape planners can’t deal with is the politics of the development of a park – but the planners have been dumped right into one of the hottest political issues in the city.

Sold to the Region for well in excess of $600,000 – with the right to rent for two years. One of the owners was a Regional employee – no pressure though.

While the Region and its agents quietly work away on the existing owners – dangling tempting offers in front of them: the most recent sale was for a handsome price and the opportunity to rent for two years, the city planners have to figure out how to create a park with those 25 homes.

The Region recently sent a “package” to each of the homeowners and followed up with phone calls to make appointments to talk about a homeowners “options”.

One of the couple that owned a house recently sold was a Regional employee – you can imagine how those conversations went.

Will the homes be there forever? Probably not.

How does a landscape planner create a park without knowing how many of the 30 homes are going to be in place. Many of the homeowners do not want to sell to anyone. Regional government has planned individual meetings with all the property owners.

How then does a landscape planner design around the homes and respect the privacy of the homeowners? And what does the plan that has no homes on it look like – because there has to be such a plan in a file somewhere?

The land that is not privately owned is owned by the Region and managed by the city. When the Region met in 2013 they decided they would not expropriate but would buy up homes when they became available.

That has now changed and the Region has an active campaign of calling on people to have a discussion.

There are those at city hall who want the Region to offer much higher prices if necessary to get possession of the homes or expropriate them.

The people in the Beachway also want to protect and maintain the value of their property. Their justified fear is that they will get out manouvered by the Region who will buy up the homes one at a time and then expropriate the last few.

An attractive.ell maintained home in the Beachway – what will raising the road as much as a metre do to this property? 

While hanging in and resisting the offers the residents stand to hang together and lose much of the value of their homes. There are few individuals who will buy a home in that community now – there isn’t a bank or a private mortgage lender who will give a mortgage.

Every other part of Burlington is experiencing property value increases of 5% to 6% annually. Anyone in the Beachway who might have to renew a mortgage is in a very tight spot.

There is a level of unfairness taking place – people are being exploited by their government. The residents aren’t getting much in the way of sympathy from city council and next to nothing from there council member.

This experience is stressing relationships within homes; much anguish and many tears in a number of kitchens in Beachway households.

Much the same happened when the railway line was abandoned and the leased land that homes were built on were ended and all of the houses on the lakeside of the railway tracks were torn down.

There was a time when there were several hundreds homes on the lakeside of a railway line that ran along the edge of the lake. That community was bulldozed – the cottage shown was torn down in 1994.

Change does take place – communities evolve – sometimes peacefully and to the benefit of everyone. That does not appear to be happening this time.

During a recent transit meeting at the Library ward 1 Councillor Rick Craven was approached by a resident who wanted to give him a piece of his mind on the Beachway situation. You are not properly informed said the Council member. Were one to sift through the Councillors Newsletters it is difficult to find a detailed explanation as to just what is happening and how he is supporting his residents who are having their lives turned upside – down.

While the residents of the Beachway wait to see what the city has planned the city engineering department released its plans for a rebuild of Lakeshore Road from the intersection of Maple Avenue and the North Service Road to Lakeshore Road Court.

The road, which is in terrible shape, due in no small measure to the construction of a vastly upgraded water sewage treatment plant, also suffers from serious flooding from time to time.

The first step to re-developing the Beachway community has been released to the public – Lakeshore Road will be rebuilt from the Maple Avenue, North Service Road intersection to its termination at Lakeshore Court in the west next to the canal.

The road will be raised as much as a metre in many places; especially around the part that passes in front of the Joseph Brant Museum and what will be the front of the new hospital that is expected to be ready for the public sometime in 2018.

The reconstruction will be partial – in that it will not go beyond the sewage treatment plant until there is clarification as to just what is going to happen to the houses that are at the western end of Lakeshore Road.

The Tuesday meeting will be the first step in getting that clarification – unless of course the decision has already been made.