"Cowardice asks the question...is it safe? Expediency asks the question...is it politic? Vanity asks the question...is it popular? But conscience asks the question...is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because it is right." ~Dr. Martin Luther King

Monday 14 October 2013

A Little Information is a Dangerous Thing

E-mails are coming  in fast and furious , urging council to keep the vacant site on Mavrinac vacant,

The neighbors want a park on the site. It showed on the plan as a school site when they bought their homes.

Traffic is growing and they don't want any more houses.

Councillor Gallo's letter ,circulated throughout the neighborhood , gives scant information.

The site is owned by the developer, obligated to set it aside until  the schoolboard could decide .on the basis of school population ,whether it would be needed. 

Four sites were set aside for schools.  Three have been taken up. None for a park The Town took $2million instead. 

One of the sites is for a public high school. 

The value of the site reflects the number of lots that can  be created or the number of units if a town house application is made. 

The neighbors were not informed  about that. They  may not be in the mood to hear it . That would be part of the calculation when the letter was circulated before details could be released. 

The $2 million dollars the town took from the developer reflected the value of raw land, the  value when the developer was obliged to provide  land  for a park. 

More later.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

This wasn't quite how I thought you would be spending your holiday. You're going to need staff !

Anonymous said...

What part of ' the site is owned by the developer ' is it that is so difficult for them to understand ? There must be some fairly intelligent people living there.

Anonymous said...


This is all becoming rather tiresome.

Can you throw in some sex?

Anonymous said...

This whole exercise makes no sense.

Anonymous said...

I have looked at the Agenda wondering how far the meeting would manage to stumble. I see you have 4 motions, but given past history & the possibility of delegation explosions, really do not expect to hear them dealt with tonight. Cynical, eh ?

Anonymous said...

It is fascinating how an orchestrated howl from one segment of taxpayers can induce a Special meeting of Council for ' information '. It happens over and over again. Yet Council could not manage the time to put more work into the budget and reducing everyone's taxes. Priorities sure get screwed up.
First you get the taxes down. Then you can fight about the left-overs.

Anonymous said...

Sending that letter with its reference to the closed session was like throwing meat at a bunch of lions. Very deliberate and guaranteed to cause a ruckus.

Anonymous said...

Curious.... what did the Town do with the $2 million that is took from the developer in lieu of the park?

I assume it gets tucked away in case a park is required later> (tongue firmly in cheek).

Anonymous said...

7:42 It's getting spent in "Culture".

Anonymous said...

14:56 must have missed Mr Elliott's explanation during last night's GC meeting.

Anonymous said...

These residents should never have gotten involved in the current scheming ploys. If they were worried about too many more houses coming into their neighbourhood [ which will be encouraged by the Region as in-filling ] they should have waited for the developer's plans & then tried to get them reduced in scale. At that stage they might have had an impact. Now, if they fail to get their park, they are not going to have earned any good will with the owner of that land.

Anonymous said...

14:56
One thing for sure. That money is gone. This Council just lets it drip away through their fingers. Basically Aurora is not generating necessary income, is in fact losing business revenue while continuing to support nonsense. Can't reduce your taxes but everything else gets ok'ed.

Anonymous said...

Not just ' culture '. The other buzz-word is ' history '.
The Mayor begins his sentence with " Aurora is all about.........:, then fills in the appropriate word for the rationale.