This will probably make me wildly unpopular.
However, here’s the thing…
While it’s great to see Admiral Collingwood Place moving ahead, with a very classy and elegant design, the question is: how far does town council have to fall over themselves in their enthusiasm to get this project done?
I realize this council was mandated to get the development underway, the hapless decision-making of the previous council resulting in a water-filled hole that I was about ready to take over as a winter training facility for paddling.
But ‘mandate’ does not equate to ‘giving away the farm’, because this is what this council seems prepared to do.
Take, for instance, Tuesday night’s grand opening of the model suite across the street. I’m sure you’ve seen the photos of a gleeful Mayor Sandra Cooper cutting the ribbon around the model of the building with developer Steve Assaff; by the way, that was the second ‘ribbon-cutting’ she’s been at for the site in the last six months — and we still have (yet another) groundbreaking to go, along with ribbon cuttings when the first resident moves in, the first commercial tenant, the opening of the top-floor recreation centre… well, you get the picture.
Only one problem: the property is neither zoned, nor has site development approval, for that building. Yet municipal council members have no problem flitting around at cocktail events for model suite openings, cutting ribbons, etc., etc. for a project that hasn’t even been put to the public for comment.
It’s almost as though impartiality has gone out the window — not just out the window, but stabbed 37 times, shoved through the glass, then stomped on after it hit the pavement below. And then handed a loitering ticket for good measure.
And impartiality is at the heart of good municipal decision-making.
Why go through the charade of holding a public meeting for input if it appears council’s decision is already made? Is there even a point of the project going through a heritage impact assessment? Because now I can only assume the design, the density, the height for this project is a fait d’accompli.
And then there’s this business with pulling the land out of the heritage district.
OK, I’ve had my issues with the district. While I support the idea of heritage preservation and protection (just look at the Tremont, and now what Rick Lex and his team are doing next door to the E-B… which, by the way, will soon be our new home), I don’t like the concept of dictating design. Build buildings that complement the district, yes. But to slavishly adhere to a strict set of design principles for new construction has the potential to stifle creativity and results in buildings like the soulless monolith the town erected across the road from the newspaper office.
That’s not to say I don’t like the design Assaff has presented to council. His architect seems to have been able to work within the guidelines to produce a building that has an understated, subdued charm to it, that in spite of what the critics may think, will be unlikely to overwhelm the surrounding neighbourhood.
And, it’s certainly better than the so-called ‘compromise’ design, which resembled a Soviet-era prison dorm more than an upper-end residential and commercial development in a Victorian-era heritage district.
But pulling the property out of the district is a betrayal. It’s like my kid inputting cheat codes into one of his games so he gets unlimited ammunition or invincibility.
It’s been suggested allowing a six-storey building to be built within the heritage district will set a precedent for the rest of the district (for which development, under the heritage district plan, is supposed to adhere to a height of three stories).
Nonsense. Each site is different, and municipal councils have the right to make decisions on a case-by-case basis, determining the circumstances of a site in saying what can and can’t be built — or how high. What’s right for the Admiral Collingwood site is not necessarily right for anywhere else in the downtown, or anywhere else in the community for that matter.
In my mind, the argument of precedent is a red herring…
Right now, the heritage district is not such a popular idea, thanks to the previous council who thought nothing of jamming it down our throats. There’s a resistance to the district, and if council gives the OK to no longer include this significant parcel, it will be like the thread people start to pull at.
Pull out this property, and things start to unravel.
But right now, the public doesn’t care, in part because they’re tired of the foolishness that occurred during the previous council. “Just build the damn thing,” they say. Damn the process, too, because they heard too much about that as well.
Well, that’s wrong. We’re talking about some fundamental underpinnings of our local democracy. The people who are raising issues, I’m concerned, will be shouted down at Monday’s public meeting, sidelined as voices in the wilderness. Which will be wrong, as well — and ignorant.
I’m not saying the project, as Assaff has presented, should not go ahead. It has the potential to revitalize the downtown core, well beyond the extreme makeover undertaken a couple of years ago, bringing residents and jobs. The design is wonderful. And Steve Assaff is a solid, stand-up developer.
He got a raw deal under the previous council — not because of the project, but because of who he is. And now in an effort to compensate him for that, council has swung the pendulum the other way, rather than bring it right to the middle.
The council under former mayor Terry Geddes had the right idea: get the project moving, but also ensure that the municipality didn’t merely roll over. That’s why, quite rightly, council and the developer arrived at an agreement under Section 37 of the Planning Act, that certain ‘benefits’ (i.e., that $667,000) be provided to the municipality in exchange for density and height that went beyond the scope of the zoning bylaw.
At the very least, this council should feign to cast a critical eye, and not allow itself to be caught up in the hoopla.
