"Developers are “creative” – replied our city planner. If they can stabilize the shoreline to Conservation Halton’s satisfaction, anything’s possible."

When city council quietly changed the Official Plan in 2007 to allow towers as high as 15 storeys along our waterfront in the Old Lakeshore Road area, it highlighted a city-wide lack of meaningful public input on major decisions.

Our shoreline in the Old Lakeshore Road area of our downtown waterfront is not protected from development, as we’ve been led to believe, nor are the heritage buildings along the shore safe from demolition.

The Save Our Waterfront movement has been raising concerns about our weakened shoreline protection for a year now – ever since current city council removed the 20m setback from our own bylaws, inside of which no development is supposed take place. The rationale for removing the setbacks: Conservation Halton governs shoreline protection; they’ve got our back. This was a double regulation. Or so we were told.

Fast forward to last week, when the director of planning told the Burlington Waterfront Access and Protection Advisory committee it’s possible a 3-4 storey building could go on the vacant waterfront lot beside Emma’s Back Porch – even though almost the entire lot is within the setback supposedly governed by Conservation Halton (and no longer governed by our own bylaws).

The penny finally dropped for the downtown councillor, who has been saying this land is undevelopable and has waved off Save Our Waterfront’s concerns as misinformed fear-mongering.

“I thought you couldn’t develop because of setbacks,” he asked at the meeting.

Developers are “creative” – replied our city planner. If they can stabilize the shoreline to Conservation Halton’s satisfaction, anything’s possible. And the heritage buildings? They could all be torn down and replaced with a building of the same size and footprint – news to us, since we’ve been told only repairs and renovations are allowed.

or call 905-335-1899 or mariannemeedward@bell.net

Many residents have contacted me expressing concerns about Walmart’s plans to put an 80ft, 20kW wind turbine at its Fairview Street location. Though many of us support renewable clean energy, this is the wrong project in the wrong place.

Walmart’s own documents identify the area as a “low wind” region. Very little power will be generated by a wind turbine. If renewable energy is the goal, Walmart could learn from IKEA, which has installed solar panels on the roofs of their stores in North York, Vaughan and Etobicoke. Solar panels on Walmart’s substantial roof would generate far more power than wind in a low wind area.

This project seems to be more about publicity than power – a giant “sign” for Walmart that would violate city sign bylaws if done any other way.

Can we stop it?

Ontario’s Green Energy Act doesn’t require municipal approval for renewable energy projects, but a building permit is required. I asked Bruce Krushelnicki, Burlington’s director of building and planning, whether the city could refuse to issue a building permit. The answer – only if the project doesn’t conform to “applicable law,” such as minimum setbacks.

Wind turbines over 50kW require a minimum setback of 500m from residential areas, and have noise limits. The homes on Edinburgh, Maplewood, Robinson and the west end of Argon are all within 500m. However, the proposed Walmart turbine is only 20kW – a Class 2 turbine – and there are no mandatory setbacks, or even noise limits. Now we start to understand Walmart’s interest in a smaller turbine - it can bypass the usual applicable law process.

However, a Class 2 turbine is large enough to trigger a formal Renewable Energy Approval process at the provincial level, with opportunity for public input and appeal.

That’s where we come in.

Former Burlington mayor Rob MacIsaac has weighed in on the pier project, criticizing current council's decision to pursue litigation, and saying vigilance and negotiation could have completed the pier long before now.

In an opinion piece in Saturday's Hamilton Spectator MacIsaac wrote, "Anyone who has managed a large capital project knows that unforeseen things always happen. The true test of ability in capital projects is to keep them moving despite the problems that arise. That requires constant vigilance and some give-and-take between all those involved. It takes no skill whatsoever to allow a big project to devolve into litigation. It is absolutely tragic that this project has become stalled and doubtless the present situation could have been avoided."

I agree. Though the pier was started under MacIsaac's term, problems arose on this term of council - theirs was the responsibility to complete the project. They didn't, and now it falls to the next council to finish the job.

"The public finds out too late in the process to effect change, or after minds are already made up."

When city council quietly changed the Official Plan in 2007 to allow towers as high as 15 storeys along our waterfront in the Old Lakeshore Road area, it highlighted a city-wide lack of meaningful public input on major decisions.

On this project, only residents within 120m were notified, even though our waterfront is a city-wide issue. A small public notice in the local newspaper was written in technical, hard to understand language. Residents were asked to comment on drawings that were smaller in scale and size than what was approved. At subsequent public meetings, residents were told the changes were “a done deal.”

This happens on many projects throughout the downtown and across our city.

Spending is the top issue in this election, and it affects other issues, including development and transparency. Taxes have gone up three times the rate of inflation in the last 4 years decade, and are projected to increase 5% annually going forward. This council presided over the largest single tax increase in recent memory – a whopping 9% in 2008.

But you wouldn’t know it reading city press releases: council is not transparent and hides these increases by blending them with the lower regional and education portion of your tax bill. Much of this spending goes to nice-to-have legacy projects like the pier, now two years late and $1 million over budget.

Worse, the city is taking on debt to pay for these projects: 30% of capital spending is financed through debt, and $2 million of your tax dollars go to interest payments every year.

The shortage of parking downtown, combined with a 2-hour limit on parking meters, is hurting our downtown businesses - a recent survey by the downtown business association found businesses are losing clients over this.

And yet, City Hall does not require major new commercial operators to provide parking (a 40-yr-old bylaw exemption!). Further, council routinely gives reductions on residential parking, which spills into streets. And it’s a sore point with many residents I talk to that city employees – including councillors - park free at municipal lots.

The decision is one more lurch in a long line of head scratchers that started in 2008 when a dispute arose over whether faulty design or construction caused problems with the first pour of the concrete deck.

Virtually nothing happened on the project till January - of an election year - when the contractor Harm Schilthuis & Sons, offered to redesign the pier and finish it as early as this fall. Faced with going to taxpayers nine months before an election to admit that this project - seen as a waste of money by many residents - was going to cost even more, the city chose to "cut off negotiations to pursue legal remedies."

But the city waited till July to formally launch a lawsuit.

Then, weeks after that, the city stood down from the lawsuit, to resume negotiations with the contractor.

And days after that, the city thumbed their nose at those negotiations, and has decided to find out if anyone else can do the job better.

This knee jerk decision-making in search of a strategy seems more about protecting political fortunes than taxpayer interests. We are told council's goal is to protect taxpayers - and yet the best strategy for doing that has not been followed: finding a timely resolution to the dispute. Re-tenderiing promises more costs and delays, even if someone is found to complete the project for less than the contractor's offer.

Marianne presents 229-name petition to City Council asking for transparency on pier

When negotiations to complete Burlington’s pier fell apart between the city and the contractor over a design dispute, the city called the contractor’s performance bond last January. In early July, lawyers for the city, the contractor, the bonding company, and the design engineer met to discuss the bonding company’s investigation into the dispute. One of the key points of discussion: whether a design dispute is covered under the terms of the bond. If the bond can’t be used, what are the costs and options to finish the pier?

To get to the heart of the dispute and possible solutions, I sat down for separate on-the-record interviews with Scott Stewart, the city’s general manager of community services; Tom Eichenbaum, the city’s director of engineering; Henry Schilthuis, president of Harm Schilthuis & Sons (pier contractor); and Doug Corby of Masters Insurance (an agent of Zurich, the contractor's bonding company).