By Pepper Parr
June 8th, 2025
BURLINGTON, ON
There will be another delegation from the planners working for a developer on a project that is planned for the football – that space between Lakeshore Road on the north, Old Lakeshore on the south and Marsha on the east – a part of the city where a dream died.
When Meed Ward first ran for public office in 2010 Save the Waterfront was her pitch. The city loved it – and they beleived she could do it. They believed it so much that they eventually elected her Mayor.
What was a grassroots community organization became the main plank in the Meed Ward 2020 election.
Meed Ward was prepared to live with 8 to 15-storey buildings. The developers and the planners wanted and got more in the way of height.
On Monday Council will see a rendering of what the football is going to be filled with.
Former Toronto Mayor David Crombie speaks at a Waterfront Advisory meeting and tells them to look for some oddballs to sit on your design committee”. Mayor Goldring says he doesn’t know any oddballs to put on the committee he has formed to Define the Dream.
At some point, someone is going to have to explain how the dream got away. Former Toronto Mayor David Crombie spoke the the Waterfront Advisory Committee and suggested an approach they could take. Crombie led the battle for a Waterfront Trail that managed to overcome a lot of development people who opposed the idea.
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I think the gist of what Tom Muir is saying is basically we’re screwed. And I think I have to agree with him.
So can we all please stop whining about the tall towers, what they’re doing to our city etc etc. Get over it. It’s happening.
Now let’s try and make the best of it. Let’s try and find ways to recapture some of our city.
How can we do that?
L. Scott Johnson has highlighted the constant traffic congestion in the downtown core as a continuing issue that can only get worse as more condos come on stream.
Getting to grips with the traffic congestion is something within our control. Within the control of the City. Within the control of the Region.
The Gazette recently published two articles about this issue. Links to them are below. The two articles together with the many reader comments offer up suggestions to reduce or eliminate the downtown core snarl.
It’s time for City Council to make this a priority matter for public consultation and discussion.
Ward 2 Councilor, Lisa Kearns when put on the spot about this said she is waiting to hear staff’s position. That is not good enough. Councilor Kearns and staff continue to concentrate on the issue of improving communication to the public when there are issues on the bridge. They fail to look past that and to look at the daily regular congestion and to offer solutions to eliminate it.
Residents are unable to delegate to Council on this matter if it is not an item on the meeting agenda, which it never is. In order to make a delegation to counsel regarding an item not on the agenda, the delegator must receive sponsorship by their ward counselor (not very likely).
Please I ask you all to contact your ward counselor to lobby them to get this matter to a public debate. Do this please, particularly if you are in Ward 2 (Councilor Lisa Kearns).
https://burlingtongazette.ca/citizen-complains-and-something-actually-happens/
https://burlingtongazette.ca/city-traffic-operations-spells-out-the-problem-the-solution-go-after-ministry-of-transportation/
Contacting my Ward 1 Councilor, Kelvin Galbraith, is a very good idea, but for me it has not been allowed by him for more than 2 years, and the mayor agreed with him. She says the City doesn’t have the money to look into the matter.
It would be waste of time anyways, because he really does not want to hear from me. He is an MTSA developer interest conflicted Councilor anyways. Correspondence with the Integrity Commissioner says he has a business agreement letter of intent, or intention, to assemble adjoining property with Emshih Development, so he has a indirect pecuniary interest, or conflict of interest, in any such joint development he might have with Emshih.
This is why he stopped communicating with me in the first place and the Mayor let him do it without a word. He does not like my looking at these things and he does not want to talk to or answer transparency or accountability questions.
The Mayor also seems quite comfortable with this situation. She is a “Strong Mayor” after all.
I just wonder what kind of democracy I live in when I have to do without a Councilor for more than 2 years, and it’s all okay and unmentionable by the Mayor, and really all of Council. What is going to happen next election – can I vote?
The only thing that matters, and has for a long time, is money, repeated political favours, and subsidies. It’s because there is so much possible profit on the table, high development rights value inflation, and the OLT system, designed to be biased, so it’s very hard to lose, even if you do.
Lose at City? developer has OLT appeal by-right. Even when a developer gets approvals, or City takes too long to make a decision, developers still have the right to use the larger inflated value of the development rights of the last 5 -10 years say, to reapply for a new application, where they ask for more. So nothing gets built, and the profit seeking starts again upward.
Developers always want what they want or more. And they are very persistent, there are many of them, and they are rich. And the Ford government are their friends and are insisting on new housing, new development charges subsidies, very large roads, tunnels, and new rule sets that are 4 or 5 Bill number changes in a row, but none worked.
All of this money is going to be paid by taxpayers at provincial, regional and municipal levels. No body will likely be representing Burlington.
So bring on a new Provincial housing plan for the OLT , and developer planners to study, get together, and plan another profit maximizing built form large enough to satisfy developers, the planner planners and lawyers, and their insistence that they are correct that this is needed to satisfy the latest Provincial Plan, and it is “good planning” so the OLT approves.
It’s standard practice for more delegations from developer planners to show up presenting their latest scheme to maximize the profits for their developer employers, as the primary purpose of the whole Appeal is to get the OLT on side.
Residents really have no say. If they don’t pay significant entry fees to obtain official Party status as Expert Witness in planning, legal and other expertise, you will not have have a chance. Participants do not talk, they can only write something, which is always trumped by the “Experts” in the eyes of the OLT.
In my experience, it’s a constant greedy, money grubbing, taxpayer debt hole, with rampant impacts on traffic, crowding, amenity, shoreline, environment, and all the other known factors.
On a net basis, it’s a net-negative proposition. Taxpayers lose. The Plan will again not work – it is death.
Every day we look more and more like the Toronto Waterfront.
The traffic is already too bad in that area and now you’re going to add all these condos it’s a horrific mistake
Sadly Burlington is suffering from acute developer cancer whose goal is to destroy what was once a lovely and charming lakeside city by ugly mega-towers of condos with insufficient parking for the future residents let alone their visitors. Coupled with the lack of public transit, the downtown will be complete gridlock, as was experienced a few weeks ago. It took 1 hour and 20 minutes to drive from Guelph Line to the QEW Niagara bound.
Any chance of Saving The Waterfront died long ago.Watch for “Mini Manhattan “ by the lake.