Shortest survey in the history of the city

By Pepper Parr

February 26^th, 2022

BURLINGTON, ON

The resumption of the paused Waterfront Hotel site study began on the 15^th.

On balance is was a good first step – even though it was hobbled by the fact that there is an active development application before the city’s Planning department while the city studies what should be done long term with the property.

One of the things the public learned was that the city has the right to take a certain amount of land as park land dedication. Burlington, in the past, had accepted cash in lieu of land so often that the development community felt that it was the common practice.

The two red X marks are parkland the city might take from the developer. The Planning Act permits a municipality to acquire a portion of the property as parkland.

It is evident the city will be asking for what it is entitled to in the way of parkland dedication.

At this point the land the city appears to be going after is a 20 metre strip of land on the west side of the hotel running from the property boundary on Lakeshore Road and the southern boundary.

During the meeting city staff announced they had put together a survey that they wanted people to answer.

The Gazette look at the survey questions and found it very limited. There were two questions, along the lines of: ‘What do you think’ and ‘what is your postal code’.

We thought we might have gotten it wrong and we asked city staff the following:

I am doing a piece on the survey that came out of the most recent Waterfront Study meeting – finding that all they appear to want is your view on the site development and your postal code

Is that the extent of the survey?

The response was brief: