By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON November 2, 2012 Crunch by crunch the walls come down. First the top floors and then down into the lower levels and eventually it will be just a flat empty site; a local icon will be no more. The Riviera Motel will be gone.
Level by level the Riviera is taken apart by construction equipment. Gone is the view from the units on the lakeside and many many untold stories as well. One wonders how many Mr. and Mrs Smith’s registered there.
The Riviera went from one of the nicer places to stay when you were in town with three levels overlooking the lake – the sunsets would have been magnificent from those small balconies.
Time passed the place by – it was bought in 1985 and while it remained open for business, the business that it did get got a little on the seedy side. The Region began to rent space in it for families that needed housing.
Building inspectors condemned the site and it was finally shut down and boarded up. Then the building was set on fire by what police believed were vandals.
What is now fairly open space will begin to fill, first with a seven storey hotel that will be a little higher than the Waterfront Hotel that is on the far right.
Once the land is fully cleared the site will be readied for the first of three structures that will go on the property. GET
The three structures will be built in stages with the first being a seven storey hotel, basically the same height as the Waterfront Hotel to the west.
Many people in Burlington don’t know that the site is zoned for a structure that will be 22 storeys high. That height was approved back in 1985 and isn’t going to be changed. The wonder is that there isn’t a 22 storey structure on the property now. There are at least four, eight to ten storey condominiums, several built by the Molinaro Group, on the north side of Lakeshore Road now. The resale market for those units is brisk.
This condominium, on the north side of Lakeshore, is directly across the street from the Mayrose Tyco development that will have two seven storey structures and one 22 storey building – the view for the condo on the north side will never be the same.
While 22 storeys is something Burlington will have to get used to – those condo units will attract buyers because there is never going to be anything that will block their view across the lake. The view from those upper floors will be quite something. The value of the units on the north side of Lakeshore will take a bit of a hit – the view will get blocked by the new structures – not something the real estate agents selling units tell people about.
The developers are asking for an adjustment to the zoning by-law – they want permission to build an additional storey for a building that is now zoned for seven storeys. The Committee of Adjustment meetings are public – will anyone show up to object?
With the top floor partially gone – the Riviera Motel will soon disappear completely. Construction on the much more upscale Delta Hotel will begin sometime in the New Year. will it be completed before the official opening of the pier?
While the demolition of the Riviera proceeds so does the application by the developers to have one more storey added to the permissible height. The first structure will be a hotel to be operated by Delta Hotels is asking the Committee of Adjustment to permit the building of an eighth floor that will allow one full floor for administrative offices. That’s a nice way of putting the grab for additional space.
Is the lake shore ready for structures that are higher than the city is used to? The WAPAC (Waterfront Access and Protection Advisory Committee )that has been served the same fate as the Riviera Motel – the motel will be gone by the end of November, the advisory committee will be gone by the end of the year. While still active, the advisory committee has had nothing to say on the application at the Committee of Adjustment for an eighth storey by the developer.
That Advisory Committee hasn’t had much to say about the Mayrose Tyco project; it just accepted the fact that the approvals for the heights; two seven storey buildings and one 22 storey building were a done deal.
When former Toronto Mayor David Crombie made a presentation to the advisory committee in its early days he pointed out that while the committee may not have much real clout it did have the power of the bully pulpit which it could use very effectively if it chose to. It never really did say much.
Will Councillor Meed Ward create a committee on the waterfront that will have real clout? will Council choose to listen to the committee? Is this a rejuvenated Save our Waterfront committee?
Once the Advisory Committee is dead officially December 31st, Ward 2 Councillor Marianne Meed Ward is expected to call to order the unofficial committee project she has created that will work out of her office. She has said that the committee will meet in the evenings, that she will chair the meetings but that she will not have a vote. Meed Ward has said that all the members of the former advisory committee have said they will become members of the Meed Ward committee.
At one point Mayor Goldring said he would also set up a committee to oversee waterfront matters but so far nothing has come to pass at that level.
This proliferation of committees reminds one of the now apparently defunct SOW operation. Save Our Waterfront was used by Meed Ward very effectively to propel her election campaign in 2010. Once elected Meed Ward left the committee; it hasn’t managed to do much since.
2013 might be a year during which we see Meed Ward’s committee begin to do the job the committee set up by former Mayor Cam Jackson was not able to do. One wonders how the Meed Ward committee will use the clout it hopes to have. It will surely have a strong membership – the Save our Waterfront committee had a reported 4000 members from across the city.
It will hold its meetings in the evenings and invite the public to delegate. The official Waterfront Access and Protection Advisory Committee did not meet in the evenings and the record doesn’t show any public delegations every appearing before it.
Should the Meed Ward waterfront committee actually come up with recommendations that city council adopts and if the Meed Ward committee has the same membership as the official committee – can one conclude that the problem with the official committee was one of leadership? Just asking.
