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r- PAGE- SEVEN It is now a little over a year since the Downtown Busins Im- provement Area applied for inclusion in Heritage Canada's Main Street program. I remember at the time thinking that their chances of ting it were extremely remote because the support on coun- cil the planning department and amongst the merchapts was incredibly soft. As it turned out, though, there were enough people prepared to go along with the idea and mumble their support at the appropriate moments, that the idea flew. Whitby joined that select group of communities chosen to demonstrate the bootstrap ap- proach to downtown revitalization. As a longtime supporter and member of Heritage Canada, I was of course delighted, and when a few months later I acquired The Free Press, I became an active participant in that Main Street' process. In spite of soft support, the Main Street process has already yielded some positive effects for Whitby's old business district. There has been a new confidence on the part of developers that they were investing in an area with a future and a general consensus that new development should enhance rather. than replace the old buildings. New businesses have opened up, old ones have changed hands and many longtime business people have invested new money into their businesses. The appearance of the downtown this past Christmas was a far cry from the previous year. But there still remains many serious problems and in order to ob- tain an outsider's impartial assessment of those problems, Heritage Canada sent a resource team to Whitby a couple of weeks ago. The team consisted of Alex Temporale an architect from Mississauga and Jon Linton, an economist from Toronto. Jon and I had already met some five years ago when I had organized a seminar on - what else - downtown revitalization àt which he had talked about the economicbenefits and realities of revitalization. Jon was and still is with Woods Gordon Consultants. At the time he lived in the shadow of his father who writes a financial column in The Globe and Mail and my invitation to him to address that seminar was among the first of many such engagements. His reputation on the subject is now well established and I was delighted to see him return. Although I had'never met Alex Temporale, his name was also familiar as I had invited him to address the same seminar; however, he had been unable to come. Instead, I invited another architect, Nicholas Hill - but more on him later. So what did the resource team find out that's good and bad about Whitby? Their report will not beavailable for some time and I can- not presune to prejudge their conclusions; however, I will make some of my own observations about their visit. I was surprised that a year after the process started that there is still little spontaneous involvement by the business community. At a wine and cheese reception at the Centennial Building on the Wed- nesday night the half dozen business people present were far out- numbered by the politicians, officials, representatives of heritage organizations, press and assorted other hangers-on. The great mass of business people, who will be the main beneficiaries of revitalization and who will make or break it, were not there. At lunch the following day (we ate at Cedrick's, the best kept secret in downtown Whitby - we had the whole place to ourselves), Alex Temporale told me that in his experience the lack of in- volvement from the business community was fairly typical and Whitby was by no means exceptional in that regard. As in everything, there are many followers and only a few leaders, and business people,,being a fairly conservative lot, are prepared to let others take the initiative provided the direction seems reasonable - in other words their lack of involvement is a tacit though very half- hearted approval of the process. We also discussed the involvement of the local heritage movement in the revitalization. As the heritage groups had been far more in evidence than business people right from the beginning of the resource team's visit, he was already aware of the rancor and suspicion that still lingers over the Lynde House affair. Hopefully that will not stand in the way of their involvement in the revitalization process. Another concern we discussed was the planning process itself and the lack of real commitment from the planning department and Council to see that downtown gets the right kind of develop- ment. Although fully supportive of good compatible development, they do not appear to have the will to prevent inappropriate developments - and one bad development in the wrong place could irrevocably hurt the revitalization process. One means to control the redevelopment process is district designation under the Ontario Heritage Act. It was this subject that brought Nicholas Hill back to Whitby last week to address a meeting of the Durham branch of the Architectureal Conservancy of Ontario. Hill is now the President for all Ontario of that organization. Since'he spoke five years ago at the seminar in Whit- by, his architectural firm has done a number of district designation plans for communities from Cambridge to Niagara-on-the-Lake. Although this means of protecting heritage communities bas been available for more than 10 years, only in recent years bas it become IHill's address was well received by the group which was mostly dyed-in-the-Wool preservationists but which included councilor Drumm, Bil Little and bis wife and a contingent from the Ajax planning departmnent (the Town of Whitby had paid for the atten- dance of two members of our planning department but they didn't show up). Hil pointed out that the process of developing a district designation plan is a process of persuasion, education and consen- sus building, and that after initial skepticism, bis district plans have ail cleared the Ontario Municipal Board without opposition. Ail in ail the last two weeks have been an important stage in the rebuilding of downtown Whitby. From my own personal vantage pintit bas been an opportunity to renew old acquaintances and as beenavindication of a process that~Iheliped start hall a decade ago. To the editor: Copy of a letter to Mofeed Michael, general manager of Durham Region Non-Profit Housing Corporation. Dear Dr. Michael: I must tell you honestly, that I was most - disappointed and somewhat angered by the fact that you decided not to attend the meeting that you arranged. Con- sidering that your office contacted me on four occasions, without ex- planation, to arrange a meeting at your request - I willingly accepted your invitation. If you recall, there was a very bad snowstorm on this day, so I had to take time off my job in order to make our 4:30 meeting. I arrived ten minutes before our appoin- tment, only to find that you had gone home. I spoke briefly with one member of your planning staff, and he informed me that you wanted to discuss an article that appeared recently in the Whitby Free Press. As you are already aware, I have never been opposed to the non- profit aspects of this building. However, I have expressed to you and to both regional council and Whitby council my opposition to an eight-storey highrise apartment. This article, which I wrote, merely protrays the problsm, which I ex- plained to you almost a year ago. At our July 16/86 meeting, I conveyed to you the following concerns: a) new home owners are not being told about this apartment. b) to place a highrise apartment only 10 metres from homes is not only poor planning but also, creating a source of concern for many years to come. c) that this building would in- fringe upon people's privacy as weil as cause a severe shadowing effect on the surrounding homes. dY that to construct a building of such a size and not allow for proper landscaping and a buffer area is truly poor planning. e) the very real possibility of overflow parking onto the only en- try and exit for this subdivision. f) the monitoring of this building 'to insure proper maintenance and control. To date, not one of these concerns has been properly addressed. Neither yourself nor our local government have reacted to the many comments, which were ex- pressed at the public meetings, concerning this apartment. Not one aspect of this building was altered, in order to alleviate some of these concerns. It appears that the Durham Region Non-Profit Housing Cor- poration does not care about the ef- fects that their projects have on surrounding neighborhoods. For if it did, this building, which displays the poorest development and plan- ning within the entire town of Whitby, could not be going ahead in its present form. Over this past year I wàs led to believe that the building in question was actually reduced in size in or- der to make it more compatible with the surrounding neighborhood. However, I was recently shown a 3- D model of this approved subdivision and the apartment was shown as being only four storeys high. This scale model showed an apartment site which allowed for proper landscaping and provided a buffer area as well as underground derground parking. It appears that the Durham Region Non-Profit Housing Corp. has increased the size of this building to fulfill its own purpose, without considering who it may harm. Unfortunately, other than providing a place for the under- priviledged to live, I honestly can- not see on positive aspect to this building. The more people i taiJt u anu receive comments from, convinces me that this kind of poor planning creates more problems for the future and will damage, the cor- poration's credibility. Since con- struction has not yet begun, I am requesting that you consider an alternative style of building that would be more compatible with our area. 1 am aiso requesting that you invite the residents of this sub- division to a meeting, so that they can convey to you their point of view, and perhaps have their con- cerns alleviated. As for the article in The Free Press, its purpose was to show how poor decision-making affects human beings in a very real and concrete way and that the concerns which were expressed a year ago and ignored, are unfortunately coming true. I regret that I was unable to con- vey these thoughts to you in person. However, I sense that even if our meeting had taken place, very little would have been altered. It is for this reason that I will be sending copies of this letter to other gover- nment officials and to the press. . I would appreciate your co- operation and a written response. bincerely, Dennis Fox Whitby emý-- 1 - ~'1' This space has been set aside for welL-developed comments on issues oj local concern. Articles of preferably 700 - 1000 words may be submited by any concerned individuals whether politician or private citizen. Send to the attention of the editor at Box 206, Whitby. Ont. Li N 531. or leave at the Free Press of- fice at 131 Brock St. N. Concern over non-profit building WHITBY FREßEPRESS, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 15,1987, PAGE 7