We regret to report that at the Community Council Meeting on June 10th, our Councillor Walker made a motion to approve the Planner’s Final Report, with only minor amendments. His motion passed unanimously, without debate. As soon as City Council has rubber-stamped the report, the Developer will be free to proceed to construct that 37-floor, high density monstrosity that will tower over our neighbourhood and bring even more congestion onto our streets. Soon, the quiet residential nature of our neighbourhood will be only a memory.
We understand that our Councillor does not intend to run for office again.
After the Developer’s architect made his presentation, about six residents addressed Council.
We were disappointed to hear the Deer Park Residents’ Group (DPRG) president lead off, speaking generally in favour of the project, with only minor reservations, mostly to do with setbacks at street level on Yonge Street. Not surprisingly, these were incorporated in the Councillor’s amendments. It was difficult to tell whether the president was expressing her personal views, or those ostensibly reached through consultation with DPRG members. As you are aware, the DPRG Executive did not call a residents’ meeting to get residents’ opinions, in spite of this being the largest project ever proposed for our Deer Park neighbourhood, nor had it told the membership what was to be the content of the president’s deputation.
Four of the residents stated emphatically that the project’s height and density were excessive. Clear evidence was presented to show how skewed was the density, as proposed by the Developer and accepted without question by the Planner. There was no discussion among Council members about any of the deputations, written or verbal. In fact, Council spent much more time on an earlier agenda item, debating about the renewal of a hot dog vendor’s license.
For the record, Ted Mercer’s deputation can be accessed at
www.eternalchaos.com/alvinblog/SubmissiontoCommunityCouncil.pdf
and John Shepherd’s at
www.eternalchaos.com/alvinblog/30AlvinSummary.pdf,
with his speaking notes at
www.eternalchaos.com/alvinblog/WittingtonDeputtaion1.pdf.
The spreadsheet showing our height and density survey, which was ignored completely, can be accessed at
www.eternalchaos.com/alvinblog/30AlvinDensityStudy.pdf.
The saying goes – “Nothing tried, nothing gained”. But we regret to report that our deputations were an absolute waste of time. We were not even able to get the Council to require that the future builder be restricted to the use of the Yonge Street entrance to the site for his dump trucks and ready-mix concrete trucks.
We don’t expect to see much activity on this blog until construction issues start to become an irritant or more.
Ted Mercer
John Shepherd
