By Pepper Parr
April 13, 2015
BURLINGTON, ON
The Region is picking them off one by one – in this most recent case they got two at the same time.
109 and 115 Willow Street were bought from the Estate of Clarence Junior Craddock and Adeline Y.M. Craddock for a princely sum.
Willow Street in the Beachway.
Regional Staff was authorized to conclude the acquisition of lands municipally known as 115 Willow Street and 109 Willow Street in the City of Burlington for what was described as Regional purposes. The properties are part of the assembly of all the lands within the Beachway.
The sale of these two units makes a total of three that have been acquired by the Region.
This will come as a shock to many Burlington tax payers is the cost which is to come out of the capital project budget for Burlington Waterfront – Land Acquisition. The numbers in the report are far from clear – it asks that the funding be increased by $640,000 from $624,250 to $1,264,250 and that this additional funding required be financed from the Green Fund Reserve.
Burlington’s ward 2 Councillor Marianne Meed Ward asked that the vote at the full be recorded and the results are as follows:
Yeas: Carr, Adams, Bonnette, Burton, Craven, Duddeck, Elgar, Fogal, Gittings, Goldring, Knoll, Krantz, Lancaster, O’Meara, Sharman, Somerville (16).
Nays: Best, Cluett, Dennison, Meed Ward, Taylor (5).
The voted to approve the acquisition and the funding carried.
The report was so deeply buried in the Regional minutes that one had to be a hound dog to find them – then numbers appear to say that the price paid for the two homes was $1,264,250
Regional staff were not available for clarification
These two structures are not much more than old summer cottages at the end of a lane way that abuts the QEW.
If these figures are true, the total cost just to buy all 30 homes at an average cost of $600,000 each will be $18 million, twice the amount budgeted by the region. Does the region have that kind of money? Are regional taxpayers aware of this use of their taxes? And are they in favour of this use?
End cost to build a viewing pier in Burlington – $14 million
End cost to end a community in Burlington – $18 million
Either one worth it?
Yeas: Carr, Adams, Bonnette, Burton, Craven, Duddeck, Elgar, Fogal, Gittings, Goldring, Knoll, Krantz, Lancaster, O’Meara, Sharman, Somerville (16).
Guess the above are trying to make the cost of the pier minor compared to the beachway….but hey, we in Burlington have deep pockets. – just think how beautiful it’s going to look in a magazine.