By Gary Scobie
November 11th, 2024
BURLINGTON, ON
It was a site that had incredible potential – but the city let it get away.
Eventually the “football” will have three near 30 storey buildings in a row across from three similar height buildings on the north side of Lakeshore Road heading to the west and Brant Street.
These buildings will face the Bridgewater towers across the road to be someday joined by whatever towers get built where the Waterfront Hotel is today, right up to Spencer Smith Park.
It will form a magnificent wind tunnel which is not necessarily a tourist attraction.
This is what we are going to end up with. The three buildings on the North side of Lakeshore Road are under construction. Work on the space inside the football will begin when the market conditions are right.
This is the vision of the Province as translated in Burlington by our Council and developers. I don’t think this was what we voted for provincially and locally the last few times around. But then so few of us vote as to make our concerns have any impact.
We squander our democratic rights. Those who don’t participate really have no right to complain about the outcome in my opinion.
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Gary Scobie has served on city advisory committees. He has been an advocate for responsible development in the downtown core and was one of the first to point out that the transit station on John Street did not qualify as an MTSA. By the time what Scobie knew got through to council members the Nautique had been approved – that was the beginning of the change for downtown Burlington – and it is not over yet.
Why is it that comments usually leave out the names of the Mayors and Councilors that are responsible for these civic crimes?
These developments are becoming so bad these days that the guilty need to be named. Who are they?
When it is warranted, I’m going to start calling them out.
Gary is absolutely correct. The wind tunnel on Lakeshore and Pearl going towards Brant Street already exists. We get a huge amount of snow on our balconies and unbelievable winds since The Bridge Water Condo and the Perle hotel were built.
I don’t lay the blame for this at the feet of the developer. What is happening now on “the football” falls to current and past councils. It was suggested many years ago that this area needed to be protected and our councillors and the mayors did nothing.
We can’t put the blame onto the OLT-they are simply following the rules. Municipalities are well aware of these rules. This is where our anger and frustration needs to be directed.
As stated these developers were fortunate enough to realize the lax approach of many Burlington councils to be able to develop land that should have been protected.
COB and the developers could save a lot of time and money by skipping the traffic, wind and shadow studies that have no connection to the accumulated effect of the these towers.
I’m sure many of those complaining voted for the Liberals who put in the “Greenbelt” and “Places to Grow” which forced intensification vs. sprawl. That is what this is – Intensification.