AURORA 2017

I took a little tour on Monday. 32 Wells Street was the start. The new build is up. It's  humungus . A tower  towers in one corner and the structure extends back twice as far as the neighbouring home. 

Stew Burnett  Park has a tennis bubble and a neat and pretty club house built in front. The 

parking  lot is a mucky unfinished mess  but full. The facility serves the tennis community for miles beyond our border. Why  not...it Is private enterprise.  But did Aurora taxpayers get shafted  for the club house and parking lot ? 

Mavrinac Park is huge and obviously unintended . On a major traffic artery with sewers, water service,

street  lighting, snow plowing, sidewalk plowing, police, fire and bylaw services and everything except homes to pay for all the services. A liability rather than an asset. 

In contrast to Well Street's new and deliberately-created congestion, the vast open space of Mavrinac Park is conspicuous in its emptiness.

We visited the playground for the disabled to see what $357,000. worth of special equipment looks like. Of all the spaces around the park ,three were disabled. No-one was using the facility.It was unimpressive. I understand  it's mostly used by neighbourhood children without special needs. I doubt the park is of any interest now it has been milked for all its worth. 

Our tour carried on to Wellington /Yonge intersection. 

We stopped at the lights and who should be crossing purposefully to the bus stop on the north 

Corner but my grandson Adam. He raised his hand in acknowledgement and made clear his independent bus trip home to Newmarket was his priority. 

He stepped up on the curb and my eye, following him, suddenly  fell on the dollar store, crouched in the shadow of the condo building under construction. So close it looked attached and built out to the sidewalk. 

For a second, I lost my bearings. Yonge Street shrunk.The most problematic intersection in town has been made permanently worse. 

A small town, perfectly organized for all of its 160 year existence ,is suddenly a disorganized higgledy-piggledy mess.