PelhamToday received the following letter to the editor in response to a previous letter cautioning against blanket criticism of elected officials and civil servants:
When the Region’s Public Health Chief Medical Officer imposed a boiled water advisory along Wainfleet’s Lake Erie shoreline and initiated a plan to extend municipal wastewater and water services, she stated the breakdown of septic systems was due largely, to “30 years of bad planning with too many oversized residences on undersized lots”. (Note: All with septic systems.)
At that time provincial and regional policy stated that Wainfleet was a “rural area with no urban areas” and the municipality’s planning policies were based on single family residences on a minimum lot size of 0.4 hectare or 2.4 acres. Provincial policy stated additionally that any land bought for development in rural areas may be permitted to build up to a maximum of three single family residences.
The Region’s recently updated Official Plan still designates Wainfleet as a “Zero Growth, rural municipality, with minimal economic growth” to 2051.
All the above remain facts, although no Wainfleet planner has ever taken any notice of them.
And soon after the beginning of the “Big Pipe” controversy and discussions, Lakewood came into the picture, and was used by both Public Health staff and planners to pretend Lakewood made good planning sense purely and simply because the developer agreed immediately that when municipal wastewater and water services were installed the condominium would immediately connect to those services.
This even though provincial policy at the time stated that the development of multi-unit homes on shared communal septic systems was prohibited.
Does anyone believe that the Condominium Act of 1993 was written with lands in a rural area listed as Hazard Lands in mind?
It gets even better!
Fast forward to I think 2017, when the present Wainfleet planner along with a consultant planner supported the developer at a public meeting in recommending that the Lakewood Development should be approved, by council, subject to 61 conditions being met first.
Note: The Township planner argued for the developer whilst ignoring the residents and taxpayers who employed her and paid her salary.
Lakewood was approved by a 3 to 2 vote, hardly a ringing endorsement.
A week after that public meeting the planner issued a statement that appeared in local media. She stated, “If this proposal (Lakewood)was submitted today, it could not be approved because it does not meet policy.” In other words, over 10 years later it was still bad planning, but planning staff still recommended it should be approved.
And finally, the demise of the “Big Pipe” plan.
A Wainfleet Council was elected who had all campaigned on ending Big Pipe once and for all, based primarily on its huge and growing costs, not just to regional and township taxpayers but also to each individual property owner, who had no choice but to decommission their septic systems, most of which were functioning as they should, and connect to both municipal water and wastewater systems.
Four of these folks were first time Mayor and councillors and their first action on council was to vote against Big Pipe, and that included the one re-elected, making it a unanimous vote. The then-planner did not support their actions. But neither the Region nor its Chief Medical Officer of Health ever publicly criticized that unanimous vote.
And as an aside, as that boil water advisory remains, it is quite likely that every single development recommended by Township planners and approved by councils over the past nearly 20 years, within the BWA area, have been, by definition, bad planning decisions.
As to planning approvals in both Welland and NOTL in recent weeks, it is not difficult to find facts that demonstrate, quite easily and factually, that they are bad planning.
The project in Welland for the development of 23-story condos on a site that was previously only individual homes, all bought by developers in recent years, some allowed to become derelict, whilst planners work with the developer to produce a plan that “fits” the neighborhood? I believe the maximum height in Welland’s Official Plan is just 8 stories? So, does the author of the subject letter believe that the “fact” that this development will tower 200 percent taller than anything before is really a minor variance? It is certainly not good planning.
As for the NOTL decision, I am not Canadian-born, but proud to have become a Canadian citizen.
I am not immersed in Canada’s past 200 or so years of history, but I do know that NOTL should be at least a bit special, already recognized by its heritage status. Why don’t you?
If you cannot see a problem with a huge modern hotel development, including high rise towers, in the middle of the Old Town that’s currently primarily comprised of single residences, then all the facts in the world will not change you.
Andrew Watts
Wainfleet
