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www.oakvillebeaver.com The Oakville Beaver Weekend, Saturday December 15, 2007 - 9 Mid-town Core seen as natural growth centre By David Lea OAKVILLE BEAVER STAFF With 2.8 million people and 1.4 million jobs expected to come to the GTA in the next quarter century, Oakville is already bracing itself to handle its share of the load. Oakville's business, municipal and provincial leaders have already begun listening to some options on how to deal with the coming influx with the topic commanding attention at the fourth Mayor's Business Breakfast on Thursday morning. "The real job that the mayor and everyone else has been wrestling with is where are we going to put all these people," said Joe Berridge, Partner in the Toronto-based planning and urban design firm Urban Strategies Inc. "The obvious strategy is that we are going to focus them around the most accessible places in the region." Berridge is proposing that Oakville's Mid-town Core be made into such an area noting that with the presence of the Go Train station, the QEW and, what Berridge calls very low density use land, the location is ideal for development. The fact that the Town, the Ontario government, Via Rail and Ontario Hydro own much of this land adds to the appeal of the location. "It is a natural growth centre to accommodate the tremendous growth and by implication that means this growth does not have to interrupt the quality of life that the rest of the area experiences," said Berridge "We are in the process of figuring out how we put that growth centre together." Berridge said part of that process involves talking to all agencies of the Town of Oakville in an effort to figure out how they see this land being used for the betterment of the town. "It is our responsibility to make a place that is a delightful place to be, that it's a pleasure to be in, that is a really great symbol of the kind of community that you are." Joe Berridge Partner in a Toronto-based planning and design firm As these are still the very preliminary stages of planning, details on how the Midtown Core, which is bounded on the east by Eighth Line and Chartwell Road, on the south by the Canadian National Railway and a small part of Cornwall Road, on the west by the Sixteen Mile Creek and on the north by the QEW, will change are not yet available and will not be until the spring of 2008. Berridge, however, is thinking big. "It is our responsibility to make a place that is a delightful place to be, that it's a pleasure to be in, that is a really great symbol of the kind of community that you are," he said. "We're talking about at a minimum of making some kind of public square/public space. We're exploring the idea of maybe moving the Town Hall, which believe it or not is going to be too small in 10 years for the density, to be a focal point there. We have in mind here, essentially, a kind of urban village centred around that incredible accessibility and centred around the public buildings that will be there." A high level of tree cover to offer shade in the summer and tame the wind in the winter is another initiative Berridge would like to see become a reality in the new Mid-town Core, but all this change will not come easy. As current parking lots would have to be relocated and new bridges across the QEW would probably have to be built, the endeavor is not expected to be a simple or cheap one. However, Berridge said the operation would have its rewards. "On the asset side we have these very extensive and valuable pieces of public land, the province may be intervening with major transportation investments and there is the opportunity to use some of the new taxing and financing initiatives the province has introduced to make the balance sheet work," he said. "It will look very good, but it will take a lot of hard work. We think there is a real opportunity to make this one of the most interesting, exciting, pleasant, high quality of life, high employment, high public realm places in the Greater Toronto Area." id Alerts Canada Inc. I WANT Luscious Lips Plump Lips I Erase Lines I Fill Folds Receive $100 towards your RestylaneTM treatment Offer expires Jan 18, 2008. May not be combined with any other offer. TM Pure Med SpaTM (beside Mademoiselle Fitness) 2395 Trafalgar Rd. (Winners Plaza) 1.888.413.5035 www.puremedspa.com