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WHI TBY FREE PRESS, WEDNESDAY9 DECEMBER 39 1986e~ PAGE 5 "I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." - Thomas Jefferson Advise and Dissent A puuie ieeiung wnien wii greauy iniuence tme future cnaracter o uns iTown is to be held next Wednesday evening, December 10 at 7:30 at the Town Hall. The meeting is one of aseries in connection with the development of the Downtown Secondary Plan. The plan will define in detail the zoning, land uses and traffic patterns of the downtown area and will be incorporated into the Town's official plan. This is not the first time for a downtown plan - a similar effort il years ago ended when council simply shelved the issue. The secondary plan covers most of the old core area of Whitby and if approved as it stands will drastically alter the character of this community forever. If you live in, work in or care for the core area in any way, you should attend this meeting. Even if you are a newer resident living in one of the subdivisions, your decision to live in Whitby was probably partly related to the character of the core area - you should also attend this meeting. The plan as it stands is badly conceived - even the study area limits shown in the advertisement for the first two meetings was wrong; the map in this week's advertisement shows an area about 50 per cent larger. As presently written, the plan will allow stable historic residential areas to be consumed by modern high density development. It will continue to allow boxy commercial developments such as the one to be built across from All Saints' Church. That development was approved in a very hurried manner by c6uncil last week without going through the usual channels (administration committee) and without the opportunity for public input. The drawings submitted by the developer give little real idea of the impact of the building on the surrounding area. When I talked to Bob Short, planning director, and to Ed Buffet, chairman of the Downtown BIA, neither one had considered its impact on the church next door - a Whitby landmark for the last 130 years. An even older building, the for- mer residence of Robert Perry, the son of Whitby's founder, stands-right on the property. It will be allowed to remain, surrounded by asphalt in the middle of the parking lot. (I suspect it is being retained only because it would be politically messy to remove it at this time - much easier after a few trucks have run into it and.damage3d it "beyond repair"). It nmight'be sobering to the developer that his building isbeing built on what used to be part of Robert Perry's front lâwn. (The bowling alley on Byron Street >and the Quest School are to be demolished and replaced by a large parking lot). Council should be urged to reverse Its'àpproval - other proposed downtown developments have been referred to the secondary plan study - why wasn't this one? Why the hurry? Two previous meetings have already been held on the secondary plan - the first one laid out the general goals (motherhood and apple pie) and the second on Nov. 12 presented the draft "Proposed land use and transportation concepts and policies." Motherhood is still there in the broad policy statements, but the apple pie has gone bad. While making the general statement - "The quality and character of the downtown should be maintained and enhanced. This is par- ticularly of importance in the existing low density areas and the established commercial core" - it proceeds to propose an eight-storey height limit in all or part of 23 city blocks, all within five blocks of the four corners. How one can preserve neighborhoods of one and two-storey houses when an eight-storey building can be built next door defies basic planning principles. The plan as writ- ten is shizoprenic. The key to preserving the character of any area is scale. The scale of the core area of Whitby is currently one to three storeys with only a few exceptions. Therefore it follows that any height limit within that area should be in that range. I suggest that no new building shouldbe permitted which is higher than its immediate neighbours unless it passes through a specific detailed site plan approval process. No existing buildings should be demolished until approval has been granted for the replacement. The transportation proposals of the secondary plan are even worse news. A one-way street system using Dundas and Colborne is proposed. One resident at the Nov. 12 meeting commented on the similarity to the King-Bond corridor in Oshawa.. Do we want that? The Town wants it because a consultant tells them that Dundas will become 'capacity deficient" in a few years. They didn't need a consultant to tell them that, nor to tell them how to tear the heart out of Whitby by channelling ever more traffic through the.downtown - what they need is advice on how to direct the through traffic away from the core. Obviously an alternate east west corridor has to be provided right across Durham Region. Presently Dundas is the only through road between 401 and the 4th Concession and all the com- munities along Hwy 2 feel the pressure. Closing a few gaps in Rossland Rd. through Whitby, Ajaxand Oshawa would help alleviate the problem. This is a regional matter and strong pressure should be exerted through our elected representatives to get the Region to do something about it. The one-way street plan should be buried once and for all. Other aspects of the transportation plan are equally flawed - secondary traffic routes are designated through residential areas. The focus of our planners and politicians is on moving traffic, not on discouraging it. I grew up in Toronto on a residential street which was used as a main thoroughfare. Through the fifties and sixties the ratepayers complained bitterly and the politicians ignored the problem. When the ratepayer groups banded together in the early seventies and elected their own representatives, things changed. It is truly remarkable how a little innovation (four-way stop signs at every corner, parking on both sides of the street, or one way streets that change direction every block) can discourage traf- fic. Our politicians need to be reminded that cars don't vote - people do. The staff who wrote this plan appear to live in a world of splendid isolation where the experience of other communities - Pickering, Markham, Port Hope - is somehow irrelevant to Whitby. The meeting next Wednesday is the last on Stage II of the plan. "At the con- clusion of Stage II, council will have adopted the general land uses, transpor- tation policies and development policies for the Secondary Plan." This meeting may be the last opportunity to steer the plan down a better path. Even if you have never attended a public meeting in your life, come to this one and let your representatives know what you like about your community. 'Whitbyis my kind of town!' WITH OUR FEET -UP By Bill Swan Snarley Jake, the meanest, leanest fat man the town of Beaver had ever birthed, pushed his way through the after-five crowd at Burping Pete's. "We gotta do something, Luke," he said, plunking his shake 'n fries down on the table in front of Lucas Letterpress, editor and Prop. of the Beaver Flat Tail. 'If we don't there's gonna be a sad day coming." "How's that?" mumbled Lucas, his teeth firmly gripped on the lip of the cardboard cup. Tea, even in a cardboard cup, was Lucas' only weakness. "This," replied Snarley Jake, plunking a Garbage Patch doll down in front of Lucas. Lucas looked up with wondering eyes. "In case you're wondering," Snarley continued, "this is a doll. To be precise, a male doll." Again Lucas questioned silently, not yet really in- terested. "For boys." Lucas bit into his cardboard teacup. "A doll?" he said. "For boys?" "Shh!" said Snarley. "Any them feminists hear you, we're in for a rough time." "Look," he whispered. "This here doll means trouble. It's aimed at young boys. It doesn't bulge with muscles. It don't shoot bombs out in its fingers. It don' kill nor maim, nor fight, nor machinegun, ner nothin'." "What," said Lucas, "does it do?" "Snarley examined his toes. "That's the hard part," he said. "It...it...this is hard for me to say...it domesticates." "What?" "You heard me. Domesticates. Like housework. Dishes. Floors. Vacuums. Changes diapers. Does laundry. Irons shirts." "But the worst of it is, what kind of a role model does this give our kids? Especially the boys." Snarely hung his head, slurped at his shake. "Thing is, I think this is one of those Feminists' plots." "If so," said Lucas, "then it likely won't market too well. Too many NDPers among the feminists. And we ail know the NDPers couldn't market pig slopto flies." "Yah, yur right. Kids'll never go for it. But just the same, it worries me. What if they did? Think of the values it would pervert." Lucas crumpled his teacup and sent it arching toward the disposal bin. "You are right enough there," he said. "We're all wrapped up pretty tight in the toys we make for our kids." "Right," agreed Snarley. "We want our boys to grow up like real men and drive eight-wheel drive vehicles over Honda Civics. Play hockey and break bones and leave scars." "And control the world with robotics and make ail other people obey." "And worship wrestlers. Male wrestlers. And boxers. To love guns and death and destruction and other examples of a Christian Christmas." A pause. "But a male doll that likes housework? How horrid." "Feminists," snarled Snarley. "Ain't they everhappy?" said Lucas. "Heck, they've got ail those wonderful modern toys for girls. Why can't they leave boys toys alone." "You mean The Wonderful Pink Princess of Powder? And Light-Bulb Ovens? And Garbage Bag doils? You sure don't see any girls toys that put out the garbage or build concrete block retaining walls, do you?" Silence fell for a moment at Burpin' Pete's. Snarley Jake chewed on his cold fries, thoughtfully. "You'd think," he said finally, "that these here feminists wouldn't have time to go bothering where the're not wanted, what with them working ail day at work and ail evening ai housework. I mean to get involved in polities and stuff they sure gotta be lettin' somethin' slide. "I mean, why can't they just catch up on the ironing for once and leave fightin' and war and stuff to men?" 7- 7;7-,ý-7