Wednesday, July 22, 2015

WHEN IT ALL STARTED

In a recent opinion piece by Kris DubĂ©, the former editor of the Fort Erie Times, now working for the on-line Niagara Bullet, he talked about the "healing" taking place regarding Bay Beach as a result of the Bay Beach Study now being undertaken to plan the future of the publicly owned Bay Beach Properties. What the people will be treated to is a nice wish list that local residents helped create. Sure, the locals are happy: the early plans have all the factors that people have wanted since the property was bought in 2001. Too bad that there were two attempts to change the very nature of the property away from a public-friendly parkland and parking spaces to commercial/residential property. (It must be stated that the property, under the previous owners did contain residential units. However, those units were razed shortly after the property was purchased by the town.) 

In 2002, an attempt was made to sell off the north sections of the property that contained parking lots in order to fund a section of the Friendship Trail. That proposal was met with fierce opposition and it was eventually dropped as the Crystal Beach Neighbourhood Plan was being formulated. In 2005, council voted to accept the award-winning plan which stated that the whole property, save one tiny piece, be retained as public. A height limit of three stories for new builds was also included in the plan.

Well, a friend recently unearthed an interoffice memo from 2008 which contained the whole real agenda of the then town planner Rino Mostacci and the then town CAO Harry Schlange. 

WARNING: These two now hold similar posts at the Region after both bounced around in other communities, presumably waiting for the mess they helped create to settle down.

So, behold the beginning of the Molinaro Years:





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