{"id":26691,"date":"2021-06-27T22:08:12","date_gmt":"2021-06-28T02:08:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/?p=26691"},"modified":"2021-06-28T07:38:25","modified_gmt":"2021-06-28T11:38:25","slug":"theyre-paving-paradise-to-put-up-a-parking-lot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/theyre-paving-paradise-to-put-up-a-parking-lot\/","title":{"rendered":"They’re Paving Paradise to Put Up a Parking Lot"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

<\/g><\/svg><\/i> \"Loading\"<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

\"BadBy now you’re aware that our council has approved a plan to destroy a large open, public space in Harbourview Park, and replace healthy grass and trees with an asphalt parking lot so that people will drive instead of bicycling or walking to use the $1.55 million splash pad that will also be built there. <\/p>\n

This is the same council that is hiring a “climate change specialist” for $80,000 a year.<\/a> You think that this “climate change specialist” would advise them to take a pedestrian-and-family friendly, environmentally-positive greenspace covered with renewable carbon-eating plant life and turn it into a vehicle-intensive heat sink? Me either.<\/p>\n

You can see how much our council cares about climate change, and how likely they are to pay attention to any future advice.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Will this parking lot use permeable pavers and an enhanced water runoff treatment system to catch and clean all the polluted water that every parking lot produces? I doubt it. It will just be another environmentally negative eyesore adding to our council’s legacy of failures and bad ideas.<\/p>\n

That parking lot will likely fill with vehicles belonging to people using the fast-food joints and strip malls on First Street, and become littered with the garbage from them. How much will it cost taxpayers to keep it clean?<\/p>\n

Oh, don’t it always seem to go,
\nYou don’t know what you got ’til it’s gone…
\nThey paved paradise put up a parking lot.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In winter that open space is often used by cross-country skiers, and snowshoe enthusiasts. A parking lot will kill those uses, too. So much for council’s alleged concern about healthy recreation.<\/p>\n

Wait, you say. Isn’t that park built on a dump<\/strong>? Surely council is aware that the park was opened as a landfill site for industrial waste from Kaufman’s Furniture, LOF Glass, Harding Carpet, and other local companies in the 1950s. It was used as a dump for more than a decade and it was closed when it became too full to accept more.<\/p>\n

Splash pads are designed for children. Do we want our children to play where a former garbage dump that was never properly closed lies under the soil? A dump that (as I’ve been told) was never properly capped to ensure leachate doesn\u2019t go into our harbour?<\/p>\n

In the 1990s, EnviroPark was intended to be built within Harbourview Park, but when the groundbreaking ceremony turned up debris like broken glass and tires, the site was quickly moved to a vacant lot across from Sunset Point. <\/p>\n

That former landfill site is why no children\u2019s playground equipment was ever installed at Harbourview Park. You can still sometimes see trash poking through the soil on the hill to the north of the Arboretum.<\/p>\n

Has anyone in town hall ordered an environmental assessment on the soil there to be sure it doesn’t contain toxic (or at least dangerous) waste? Have they included costs to remove contaminated soil down to the bedrock, and replace it with clean material? Methinks not. <\/p>\n

And what will be the impact of all these cars and people on the local wildlife that lives in and around Harbourview Park? Not a positive one, I’ll bet. The additional air and noise pollution from the increased volume of vehicles will be bad enough.<\/p>\n

According to a piece in the Connection<\/a>, <\/p>\n

The splash pad will be known as Awen\u2019 Water Play and will be located at Harbourview Park near the Awen\u2019 Gathering Circle…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A First-Nations-themed water park built during an alleged water crisis in Collingwood that required council to pass a job-and-revenue-killing bylaw<\/a> to stop all new construction, and cause endless problems for neighbouring municipalities who get our water, for perhaps as long as four years?<\/p>\n

And built at a time when many First Nations still don’t have drinkable water on their own lands? How tone-deaf do you have to be to approve this project? Wouldn’t it have been a lot more useful to donate that $1.55 million to a First Nations community to help them build their own water treatment plant?<\/p>\n

(One wonders why the paper never asked about the former dump or whether building a water playground during an alleged water crisis was particularly good optics…)<\/p>\n

The Connection also notes,<\/p>\n

When Collingwood started its waterfront master plan, the No. 1 request from the public was a splash pad.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

My understanding is that the public wanted the splash pad at Sunset Point Park and that some 90-plus percent of respondents to the town’s survey about Sunset Point’s future use asked for it there, NOT at Harbourview Park, where it will also destroy a popular soccer pitch, dog walking spot, gathering and picnic area. So how did council end up moving it from where the people wanted it to the place where it can do the most damage to the natural space? I mean, aside from the fact this council pays absolutely no attention to the public when it makes its decisions…<\/p>\n

What happened to the ice skating path that was planned for Harbourview Park? Oh, I guess that part of the master plan got tossed, without, of course, consulting the public on it, either.<\/p>\n

Collingwood deserves better.<\/p>\n

UPDATE:<\/strong> See the comments, below this post for updates and links to Ontario government websites about construction near landfill sites.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

<\/div>\n

<\/g><\/svg><\/i> \"Loading\"<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

By now you’re aware that our council has approved a plan to destroy a large open, public space in Harbourview Park, and replace healthy grass and trees with an asphalt parking lot so that people will drive instead of bicycling or walking to use the $1.55 million splash pad that will also be built there.  This is the same council that is hiring a “climate change specialist” for $80,000 a year. You think that this “climate change specialist” would advise them to take a pedestrian-and-family friendly, environmentally-positive greenspace covered with renewable carbon-eating plant life and turn it into a vehicle-intensive \u2026…… click below for more \u2193<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,537,426,787,1007,1474,717],"tags":[1557,1560,618,140,1559,1556,1558],"class_list":["post-26691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-collingwood","category-council","category-development-growth","category-disrespect-and-bad-behaviour","category-financial-follies","category-ineptitude-and-bungling","category-utilities-electricity-and-water","tag-air-pollution","tag-bad-decisions","tag-collingwood","tag-council","tag-first-nations","tag-harbourview-park","tag-water-park"],"a3_pvc":{"activated":true,"total_views":977,"today_views":0},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26691"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26691\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26709,"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26691\/revisions\/26709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}