My mind keeps turning over what I heard at Tuesday's meeting on the Official Plan. The Mayor previously informed a resident that this plan would dedicate 50% of the town to green space
In the edited version of the Master Recreation Plan, Councillor MacEachern changed the consultant's recommendation to meet the need for sports fields to "a land acquisition strategy" The intention being we will not buy what we need. We will take it.
On Tuesday, CAO Neil Garbe indicated there was still time to make changes to the plan because discussions on land dedication were still ongoing. In other words, there is no agreement with landowners about the area shown in the plan as green space. The plan is fake.
Under the Planning Act, the municipality is entitled to receive dedication of 5% for parks. Landowners are not required to give more.Nor are they likely to do so without warranty of any kind.
The Mayor's oft-repeated sentiment: "Everybody can't get everything they want." is probably just as true for the Mormac twins as for the phalanx of developers who own land in the 2C area in this far-from finished Official Plan being handed over to the Ontario Municipal Board with authorisation to staff to retain external legal services to defend the indefensible.
After more than thirty meetings, stretching out five hours a piece, torrents of words, a document costing $700ks ,which has little validity in terms of agreement with the people who own the land, and will likely now cost an equal amount in legal fees, take months of staff time , O.M.B. time and landowners time and resources, which at some point will be reflected in the cost of homes constructed.
Make no mistake, the cost of the process must be met.There is only one consumer.
Future homebuyers are the ones being taken to the cleaners.
Future residents and taxpayers of Aurora.
To add insult to injury, with development charges, land transfer taxes, harmonized sales taxes,
value of land not developed, cost of planners and lawyers to process, the final injustice is market value assessment attached to the property and municipal taxes paid on taxes for ever and a day as long as the house shall stand.
What we have here my friends is mind boggling ignorance,arrogance and stupidity.
Saturday 2 October 2010
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2 comments:
Mind boggling ignorance, arrogance and stupidity indeed.
Is the squandering of hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayers' money on ill-conceived poorly considered schemes not justifiably malfeasance?
And is malfeasance not a borderline criminal act?
Why do Aurorans accept this meekly, without objection?
Today is the day to ask the tough questions at the Candidate's meeting, and get the answers out to the public in time for the truth to affect the vote.
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