An old adage goes…
..Keep your friends close but keep your enemies closer!
Although I don’t really hate the Town of Lasalle or its residents, I do dislike the idea of sprawling suburban communities and Big Boxer development even more! With that said, I am willing to support the Town of Lasalle in their OMB application to stop the Big Box development on Windsor’s far west side, which has been discussed here almost ad nauseum and wish them all the best in their application to the OMB.
From today’s Windsor Star
Big box faces OMB delay
BY DAVE BATTAGELLO, THE WINDSOR STAR
Link to article: http://tiny.cc/OkSDP
An Ontario Municipal Board hearing to decide whether a local developer can proceed with construction of a massive big box development next to Windsor Raceway and protected Ojibway Park lands has been postponed until January.
The Town of LaSalle, some nearby residents and a group known as Friends of Ojibway have asked the OMB to stop the creation of a 420,000-square-foot commercial plaza at Sprucewood Avenue and Matchette Road by Coco Development Group.
The proposed retail centre would be anchored by four big box stores on the edge of the city’s border with LaSalle and across the road from the protected tallgrass prairie preserve.
City council approved a zoning change in the fall of 2007. Council supported the plan because of the more than 1,000 retail jobs that could be created.
Town administrators, council members and others in LaSalle say the retail development doesn’t fit with the town’s planning principles and also will create traffic problems that will spill over to the town’s streets.
The OMB hearing, which is expected to last six to eight weeks, was to have started on Monday, but has been delayed so a separate hearing can be conducted later this month.
Lawyers representing Coco are seeking to have dismissed claims by LaSalle that current retail demands are being met and the development is not needed. They are also asking that provincial policy statements of 1997 be followed as opposed to LaSalle’s request for those of 2005 to be followed once the full OMB hearing is conducted early next year, according to Nancy Pancheshan, president of friends of Ojibway.
The later provincial policies are more in alliance with the health of communities and natural heritage, she said.
The motion hearing will take place July 29 and 30 in council chambers on the third floor of city hall starting at 10:30 a.m.
What scares me, is that the Ontario government is going against its own smart growth policies in this secret deal it made with Barrie, Ontario:
Province pushes secret deal for Simcoe
Without waiting for a Simcoe County growth plan to be completed, the province is appearing before the Ontario Municipal Board today to finalize a secret deal with developers and municipal officials for a massive employment zone along Highway 400 in Bradford West Gwillimbury. It comes just four days after the province announced its strategy for growth in the region that includes a study of a second major employment zone on another stretch of the highway, further north in Innisfil.
It puts the province in the curious position of pushing for the approval of the Bradford deal with Metrus, Geranium and other landholders, done secretly without any studies or consultation, while apparently seeking public input for the other.
Critics of the deal, including Environmental Defence, Ontario Federation of Agriculture, Bond Head Bradford West Gwillimbury Residents for Responsible Development, Campaign Lake Simcoe and the NDP, say the process should be adjourned until a complete vision for regional growth emerges.
“It is your obligation to demonstrate to the public, farmers, municipalities and other developers that we all have a meaningful say in planning growth in Simcoe,” wrote Rick Smith, executive director of Environmental Defence, in a letter to deputy premier and infrastructure minister George Smitherman.
Smith and others say the Bradford settlement is a classic example of piecemeal, backroom planning that bows to land speculators. They fear it marks the beginning of unchecked sprawl from the Holland Marsh to Barrie.
Who do we or can we trust in all this, it seems that no one at the higher levels of government are really walking the talk on urban sprawl.
Tags: Barrie, big box, development, Lasalle, Ontario, Simoce, sprawl, urban planning, Windsor, zoning. Environmental Defence
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The longer it is delayed the better. Regardless of the “impact” from either the big box development or the proposed housing units nothing should have been built there at all.
Want to help core areas of this city succeed? Stop spending money in these big box badlands or your neighbourhood could be next to fail!
PS. I noticed a newer sign was put up at Walker and Ducharme (Walker Gates sudivision) that is looking to add yet another bix box style plaza on that corner. Good grief! If it wasn’t so sad it might actually be funny, somewhat.
Hopefully the delays will allow the economics of the situation become more apparant to everyone. The new term in the states for the increasingly vacant space is “ghost boxes”.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31748428/ns/business-real_estate//
Anyone know the latest commercial vacancy rates in Windsor? I’m sure any newer data will show us being more over retailed than ever. Didn’t Windsor already hold the record for highest commercial vacancy rate in the Country?
Now is the time to intensify growth, end urban sprawl
The author Erich Jacoby-Hawkins takes a balance reasoning approach below, when he points out the manufacturing is changing in Ontario, thus so is retail. Do we in Windsor have to go and develop the annexed lands or the airport lands when that are huge vacant lands within our limits now, has the city looked at the availability of land and empty factories before rushing head on into developing more green fields that would leave the city a hollowed core.
Posted By ERICH JACOBY-HAWKINS http://tiny.cc/BaWWC
In a two-sided spat like the one between Barrie and Innisfil/ Simcoe County about growth, we assume one side is right and the other wrong, and once one wins, the issue is settled. But sometimes it’s not so simple — sometimes both sides are wrong, no matter who “wins.”
Barrie’s stated need for southern expansion is for new industry, so-called “employment land”, to offset existing residential development. Certainly Barrie must rebalance employment and assessment. Quite simply, we need more jobs in Barrie. But will the Bill 196 border change meet that need?
The face of Ontario’s economy is changing. The era of huge sprawling new manufacturing complexes is over. Industry in Ontario is in retreat — moving south or overseas, or just shutting down.
Barrie has seen employer after employer leave; industrial-zoned land sits idle or is flipped to commercial use. Rising oil prices will eventually bring industry back to Ontario, but on a smaller scale to serve local rather than global markets. Newer industry is cleaner and quieter than before, so need not be banished to the far fringes of the city.
Most of it will fit smaller land parcels like those already available, and may prefer locations close to existing employee homes and amenities. In that light, Barrie already has the land for the industrial needs of a future localizing economy. This would precisely suit the intensification promoted by the city and Ontario’s Places to Grow.
Even stranger, the eastern block of annexation is clearly intended for more residential development, undermining the whole exercise of re-balancing. Barrie’s perceived shortage of residential land is of one type: single-family detached housing.
Existing vacant, idle, or under-used land within Barrie’s current borders offers huge potential for a variety of denser uses like apartments (high-or low-rise), condos, townhouses, and especially residential- over-commercial. Barrie is chock-a-block with one-story strip malls or plazas that could very easily be upgraded with affordable housing above stores or offices.
This may not meet our current building patterns or zoning, but those are man-made rules, less harmful to change than the facts on the ground: the fields and forests to be destroyed to build yet more south-end subdivisions.
With spirited effort, we could accommodate necessary industrial and residential growth within our existing borders. Or, if Barrie hasn’t room enough for new residents, why are we breaking new ground to the south instead of filling in the blank spaces in Midhurst, just to Barrie’s north?
That’s a settlement area already integrated into greater Barrie. With its adopted secondary plan, it would avoid the planning delays involved with the southern moratorium lands.
If we intend new residents to work in Barrie, instead, of commute to the GTA, wouldn’t it make more sense for them to live to the north than the south? That would also relieve pressure on the Lake Simcoe watershed, as the Lake Simcoe Protection Plan urges. The Conservation Authority’s own report bluntly states that this expansion is premature, as it is sure to increase, rather than reduce, harm to the Lake.
So, if Barrie is wrong, does that mean that Innisfil and Simcoe County are right? Actually, no. Their plan, euphemistically calling for “a community of communities”, is a recipe for more unsustainable growth — rural sprawl.
The county plan sprinkles population growth to just about every town or village, yet none of these are likely to become denser as a result; in fact, quite the opposite. Most or all of that “planned” growth is aimed at communities with no transit, some without even municipal sewage treatment.
The province is fully justified to reject this plan and re-distribute the majority of planned growth to Barrie, Orillia, and the larger towns of Alliston, Bradford and Collingwood in its Strategic Vision for Growth.
Having been assigned that growth, I challenge those “target” cities and towns to do everything in their powers to fit it into current settlement areas. In fact, they should look at seeking additional powers from the province to remove unnecessary barriers to healthy and sustainable density and intensification.
We must learn to live sustain-ably and stop sprawling; there is no better time to begin than today. Re-think annexation.
Erich Jacoby-Hawkins is a teacher, father, volunteer, and politician. You can read this and other columns at http://www.Erichthe-Green.ca
Geez, if this didn’t make sense 2 years ago when we were fighting it, why in the world would it make sense now? Heard on CBC that even the most optimistic employment figures are saying 5 years until June 2008 employment levels, and even then Windsor was hurting.
Silly Coco Developments — Big Boxes are so 1990s.
You guys are funny.
You do realize that any development on the Raceway lands qualifies as infill?
Yes, I know, there is a natural area to the north and east. But, to the south is a golf course and residential neighbourhoods. To the west is the Windsor Raceway and an industrial park. To the southeast is another residential neighbourhood. Past the Ojbiway Complex, to the east is the Malden Town Centre.
This is no urban-rural fringe. This is no example of sprawl.
While you are applauding LaSalle for this unnecessary delay, you may want to think about why LaSalle was willing to sell the land that its municipal offices sit on to a certain real estate company that deals with the world’s largest retailer. Yup, so much for promoting a pedestrian-friendly mixed-use town centre.