Flood Cheque, Hearing Delayed and Free Rides

Receipt for River Run Flood

Damage to the River Run Centre after a flood this past Victoria Day long weekend, including repair to the stage and lost revenue, is estimated to come out to about $300,000. Won’t insurance cover that, you’re probably asking. Well yes, the insurance will cover much of that 300 grand price tag, but there’s still the small matter of the $50,000 deductible and the $10,000 temporary set up of lights and stage that allowed the Centre to continue its pre-booked program for the two weeks during the clean-up. On the bright side though, the next time the River Run has a false fire alarm it won’t require the clean-up from the flood damage of 8,000 gallons of water. "We're replacing the water wall system with a fire curtain," general manager Colleen Clack told the Guelph Mercury. "That will come out of the $2.2-million infrastructure money we received.''
 

Hearing Delayed

The Ontario Municipal Board hearing in regards to the disputed Lafarge lands in the city’s west end has been postponed a week due to “member availability.” The hearing was scheduled for July 27th, but has instead been moved to a week later for August 4th. Because I’m sure we’ve all forgotten, let’s reminisce a little about what the deal is with that triangular tract of land just off the Hanlon Parkway. Last January, the neighbourhood group Howitt Park Neighbourhood Residents' Association opposed a plan brought forward to council three years ago which would see heavy commercial develop on the site. Through mediation, the HPNRA, the City of Guelph and Silvercreek (Guelph) Developments Ltd reached a deal which would see the commercial space reduced by half with more residential areas worked into the compromised plan. The so-called fifth dentist in this matter is Armel, who don’t like any commercial space in the area because they’re worried about losing traffic on their own developing shopping centre at Imperial and Paisley. The hearing will take place in the council chambers at 1 Carden Street.
 

No More Free Rides

The University of Guelph and the City of the same are looking at upgrading student bus passes to something more high tech after a 26-year-old student was caught using a counterfeit bus pass a few weeks back. "It's not a huge problem, but it's a problem. We get some each year,'' says interim manager of transit services Rudy Stehle. "But we don't really know how many are out there. There may be more than we even know of.'' It’s particularly a problem during the summer months when the Central Student Association gives out only a limited number of bus pass stickers going mostly to students taking summer courses. The problem of fakes, says Guelph Transit, has become particularly pronounced in the last few years. So much so that a $50 fine was instituted last school year in an attempt to stymie the number of fakes being made. Stehle told the Guelph Mercury that there is money currently in the budget to eventually change the passes to something more like a smart card, akin to the TTC Metro passes in Toronto. "Next year, we're going to take the first steps (toward change),'' Stehle said. “But as soon as you come up with something new, someone comes up with a method to fool it.''

The Word on Lafarge is Still, “Shhhhhh.”

A small, but highly informed group of local advocates gathered at the Guelph Bible Chapel last Thursday for a meeting of the Howitt Park Neighbourhood Residents' Association. The purpose of the meeting was to let the group’s membership know that they’re still in mediation with the City, Armel and Silvercreek Development, and that they still can’t tell them anything substantive about the fate of the triangular patch of brownfield bordered between the Hanlon, Paisley Road and Waterloo Street. Still with an Ontario Municipal Board Hearing slated for early January, the executive felt they had to say something to the membership, said HPNGA exec member Ron Foley.

To recap, here’s how we got to this point. For years now, there’s been a question about what can be done with the track of land known affectionately as “the Lafarge site” for the cement factory that once stood on that spot. The factory was closed in the mid-90s and subsequently torn down, since that time the land’s been used for biking, jogging, dog-walking and numerous other functions by neighbourhood residents. Recently Armel and 6&7 Developments, the peeps behind the Wal-Mart on Woodlawn, wanted to build a 400,000 square foot retail park on the land. There was some disagreement on that point.

On June 3^rd at a city council meeting, the city unanimously denied the application to rezone the area, which would have paved (pun intended) the way for the beginning of construction on shopping centre. With council’s disproval, it seemed to be full-steam ahead to the OMB, a process that’s always costly and would be nearly repetitive after the Residents for Sustainability’s decade long fight against Wal-Mart. But in the days following, Silvercreek Developments, the City and HPNRA hammered out a “wish list,” a detailed account of what each group would like to see. The next step was mediation, a process that’s moved forward in good faith since late-September and continued through to last Friday, December 12.

While mediation is taking place, a media blackout’s been in affect, so news as to how the talks have been progressing, whether that news is good or bad, has been unavailable. Foley says that members should know by this week what the outcome of the last two months of negotiations have been and more importantly, whether its onward and upward to the OMB hearing on January 12. In the meantime, HPNRA felt they owed their members something, and despite the difficulty in getting people out to a community meeting in the midst of the Christmas rush, they decided to bring the update, such as it was, to the group.

On the books for HPNRA now is the recruitment of new members and fundraising. The current roster of 107 was joined by some new inductees at the meeting, but the neighbourhood group is reaching out to include members from the entire city to join them in the fight against the proposed development. As for fundraising, the costs the group is currently incurring is the retaining of a lawyer from the firm Smith/Valeriote and a couple of urban planners from the Davidson Group. If the mediation fails and the OMB hearing proceeds, both these costs will increase because, according to Foley, the OMB will take you more seriously with the infrastructure backing you up. Only one thing is for certain though, and it has to do with the most controversial part of the development: the underpass connecting the south and north sides of Silvercreek Parkway. The money for the underpass is listed D.C., or “Development Charge” in November’s draft of the 2009 budget. Going along with this is pre-existing concerns in the area over traffic and the desire for calming measures to be implemented.

Undoubtedly, there will have been developments since the time I wrote this piece and when this issue of Echo was published. For any updates that may have broke, head over to the old blog at http://guelphbyelectionbeat.blogspot.com/ for all the details.

Winegard Walks, Lafarge Talks & City Haggles

Winegard speaks out on Harper

By the time you read this, either Stéphane Dion has seized power in a bloodless coup that undermines our democracy or Stephen Harper did the right, Canadian thing and ask the Governor General to put Parliament on hold till cooler heads prevail. Hopefully, whatever’s going down it’s not another election, but I can tell you one thing: Mr. Harper hasn’t made any friends after current events with at least one high profile Guelph Conservative. In an article for the Guelph Mercury, former Guelph Conservative MP (1984 – 1993) Bill Winegard told the paper that a coalition government is “a slap on the wrist” for Prime Minister Stephen Harper “and in my opinion one he deserves.”

Winegard, who’s still active in the local wing of the party, went on to say that the situation stems from people’s belief that Harper was going to put aside partisan politics for the good of the nation, out response to the global economic crisis. This did not happen though when Jim Flaherty gave his financial update to the House two weeks ago. “I think it's a most unfortunate situation, but regretfully Mr. Harper brought it on himself,” Winegard said. “People wanted assurances they would be protected financially … and what they got was a rather fighting document, which didn't address any of those things and instead addressed only party politics.”

Lafarge talks remain secret

Things might be moving forward on the Lafarge front, although to what extent we have no idea because there’s at present a media blackout on the top level negotiations between a number of players. Apparently talks resumed between the city, 6&7 Developments, Armel Corp., the Howitt Park Neighbourhood Group and the Lafarge developer last week in an attempt to resolve the development stand still through mediation. The hope is to have a deal in place before the Ontario Municipal Board hearing on January 12; if mediation fails, the OMB is the next hope to resolve the matter.

In case you can’t remember, the debate is as to whether or not a 400,000 square foot retail part will be built on the land at Silvercreek Parkway South. The city and the HPNG are against the current plan, but the debate is fairly open as to what sort of things could possibly be built there instead. The media blackout will continue through the mediation, although the HPNG will be holding a meeting tonight at Guelph Bible Chapel, 216 Silvercreek South, to discuss the outcome of mediation talks. Everyone is invited to come.

Council haggles over budget

After last Monday’s council meeting, the budget, as presented in its current form, calls for a 5.3 per cent tax increase for the 2009 fiscal year, but that might not be the end of it. The 5.3 per cent increase translates to about an extra $12 per month for the average taxpayer, but that might not be the end of it. Ward 2 Councillor Ian Findlay put forward a motion to direct city staff at seeing if that increased tax burden could be reduced to 3.75 per cent, in order to respond to his constituents’ concerns. The motion was passed unanimously, and options will be presented at the December 15 council meeting where the budget will hopefully be voted upon. Chief administrative officer Hans Loewig, while promising to look at options, stressed that given the turbulent economic waters, it’s important for council to pass a budget before the end of the year.

Amongst the items already modified from previous budget discussions is the deferment of the purchase of land for the new library and Baker Street redevelopment project until 2010 and the air quality monitoring project from the Hanlon will be spread over nine years rather than two. Basically, new and future services projects will be targeted for money saving initiatives. The city’s also looking at increased user fess, delaying capital projects and using reserve funds in order to make ends meet. The Guelph City Council - 2009 Operating & Capital Budgets Deliberation & Approval meeting takes place on Monday, December 15 at 7 pm in the main council chamber in City Hall.