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The Oakville Beaver, W ednesday December 8, 2004 - A S Continued from page A1 Sharkey's three-week OMB hearing wraps up Budget calls for . % tax hike Continued from page A1 Business owners will face a hike of $24 per $100,000 of assessed property value. Ward 6 councillor Janice Wright, who served as chair of the budget committee, said her goal had been to maintain the current level of servic es in the town, provide additional funding for priority areas like transportation and the envi ronment, and minimize tax increases. "We believe this budget takes a balanced approach to ensuring both the present and the future needs of our town will be met," said Wright, as she introduced the proposed budget to the full town council. The budget calls for the town to spend $42.4 million on capital projects, with the remaining $133 million used for operating expenses. The capital budget will fund road reconstruc tion and resurfacing, building rehabilitation, equipment replacement, park redevelopment, storm sewer rehabilitation and growth-related projects. While town staff I "I've never heard a had originally created j member of my a budget calling for a constituency say,' I'm 5.5 per cent tax hike, i , . the budget committee I heaTM .? f,om »ou t0° pared down the num-1 mUCh. bers to arrive at the j final 4.9 per cent hike, j ' Ward5 Councillor To do that, the j committee endorsed a j series of cuts to the budget, including $100,000 earmarked for the creation of a Communities in Bloom program and $20,000 set aside to expand the loose leaf collection program to maturing areas within the town. The committee also agreed to increase transit fares effective April 1, to generate an additional $206,300. The actual details of the fare increase will be discussed in the coming months, but the budget committee suggested effort be made to minimize the effect of the increase on students and seniors. Clearly the most controversial of the cuts suggested by the committee, however, was the elimination of the $44,400 spent annually on council newsletters. The recommendation divided council, with some members arguing that the newsletters provide an important method of communication with the public, and others arguing that they are an inefficient tool in today's technological cli mate. Ward 5 councillor Jeff Knoll, who actually pays out of his own pocket to run a web site for ward issues, said he still believes paper commu nications are important to maintain. "I've never heard a member of my con stituency say, `I'm hearing from you: "My God, the budget too much,'" noted j is $175 million and Knoll. This is really j ^ ere are so many the only direct ! . ^ . method councillors | more TM P 0r,3nt have to communi- j issues, cate with their con- j stituents." 49 That district lies west of the Sharkey's property at 111 Forsythe St. in Kerr Village and to the east in downtown Oakville. Townsend Renaud said the Sharkey's site is not included in either Central Business District and not only doesn't share the four-storey height restriction, but is considered urban residential with no height restriction. Townsend Renaud said evidence was presented that Town council twice had opportunity to change that over the years, but hadn't. Townsend Renaud has also maintained that the Sharkey's site is being viewed through two different lenses by supporters and opponents of the proposal. "The Board will have to determine which is more appropriate," she said. Townsend Renaud believes it would be necessary to remove all the high rises from the area -- the 12 and 17-storey buildings adjacent to Sharkey's, buildings on Navy and Allan Streets and the Granary to end up with the lens used by the Town and residents -- a view of a homogeneous, low profile area. "This lens is not reflective of the diversity that exists on the ground." said Townsend Renaud. She added that even if the Town and residents look to a broader adjacent community, it still includes the high rises. Both sides agreed that benefits to redevelopment of the site, including the highly-demanded onestorey living, and the injection of life and business to the downtown and Kerr Village would be achieved with either Daniels' or the Town's proposals, just more modestly with the Town's. Townsend Renaud offered that Town staff had misinterpreted policy in assessing Daniels' proposal and issued a staff report containing errors that mis led the public and Council as to what was "doable" on the site. "The result has brought out a very divid ed community and that is unfortunate," said Townsend Renaud. Town lawyer Rob Doumani said Daniels didn't move to correct the report as it had. and wasn't shy about doing, in another instance, However, Rogers said "there's an obligation on the staff of this munic ipality to get it right for the community and coun cil." Doumani said one could tear the report apart on detail, but at its core it had the right information. Townsend Renaud asked Rogers to discard the evidence of Town expert witnesses, planner John Ghent and urban design expert Alex Temporale. "With the greatest respect to Mr. Temporale, he has an inherent bias," alleged Townsend Renaud, noting he had authored the Downtown Streetscape Vision, which promotes a low-profile character in downtown Oakville. Townsend Renaud said the claim that the site should foster development to reinforce the charac ter of the downtown is not supported by policy applicable to the site. "There is no question that the notion of intensi fication is a very difficult one for communities to embrace particularly when it's in apartment form," said Townsend Renaud, adding it's not easy politi cally and forms much of the OMB's caseload. Townsend Renaud said that if intensification is sought and there is no height limit, one has to "push the building up and out until you come to a point when it doesn't work anymore" in terms of impact on the community. The lawyer alleged the largest impact of the pro posal on the community is "altered expectations." "Should the application be turned down for this reason alone?" asked Townsend Renaud. "The Town's approach has been guided by the fact that this site lies within the historic centre of '·Resident Gil Penalosa Sharkey's Dockside Cafe as it sits today. Old Oakville," said Doumani. He asked Rogers to refuse Daniels' application and rezone the site Central Business District to allow a four to six-storey building with ground-fioor commercial like a coffee shop. That Region-owned property was part of Daniels' earlier proposals for a 19-storey tower and restau rant, but will not be left open space. Doumani said the Town's proposal respects the downtown vision by being consistent with commu nity character, not the high rises next door, allows for modest intensification and balances public and private interests. Doumani alleged that Daniels' expert planner and urban design expert "fundamentally erred" by not considering the development style the Town had "embraced and nurtured" for nearly three decades, instead focusing narrowly on adjacent high rises -- buildings that were deemed mistakes of the 1960s and which served as precedents for the Town to adopt a four-storey Central Business District height limit. Doumani said the Daniels' experts needed only to "lift their eyes" to the sea of low profile buildings to see the character of the wider community. Doumani took the board to Sharkey's co-owner Richard Crittenden's statement about how a premi um price was initially paid for the Sharkey's site and that a building of a certain stature would have to be built there for a proper return on investment. Doumani linked the need for such a return and Daniels' experts who he said "worked backwards" to justify the proposal. That drew a rebuff from Rogers who said. "It's going a bit far casting aspersions on their opinions and professionalism. It's really unfair to them." "There is no development that comes before this board that doesn't have some kind of arrangement behind it. This board does not pay any attention to that," said Rogers. While Doumani said he wasn't casting such aspersions. Rogers told him it was "offensive" and urged him on with his closing statement. "Those who forget history's lessons are doomed to repeat them. We ask the Board not to allow Daniels the opportunity to repeat the mistakes of the '60s," closed Doumani. Blair Taylor, who represented the four residents' groups, asked Rogers to respect founding father William Chisholm's vision for Oakville when he arrived here in 1820. Taylor said low-rise, human scale, pedestrianfriendly development have "all been hallmarks of downtown Oakville." The Sharkey's site is part of the Oakville Harbour and downtown Oakville and has been a gathering spot since 1910, first as the Oakville Inn, then the Riverside Lodge and then Sharkey's, he said. "Were these lands not grandfathered because of the existing building, there would likely be no devel opment on this site," said Taylor. He represented the Oakville-Lakeside Residents' Association, West Harbour Residents' Association, West River Residents' Association and TrafalgarChartwell Residents' Association. , MKno11 As well, he noted j that the newsletters ; cost only 30 cents per resident, per year, which he described as an "excellent value." But Mayor Ann Mulvale argued that eliminat ing or reducing the budget for the newsletters would demonstrate leadership by town politi cians. "This debate is not around subtracting from communications, but about better investing resources," she said. Eventually councillors agreed to the compro mise position of halving the newsletter budget,although some, like Councillor Tom Adams, suggested it was silly to endorse a number that was "picked out of thin air," without knowing what that amount of mgney would achieve. Local resident Gil Penalosa, who came to council to watch the budget debate, expressed disgust with the amount of time councillors spent on the newsletter issue. "My God, the budget is $175 million and there are so many more important issues," he said, pointing to trails, trees, growth, transit, arts and recreation. During the budget process, town treasurer Mo Lewis said that rising salary and benefits costs, construction prices, provincial legislation and increased prices for materials and supplies are all contributed to the need for the town to collect more cash from local residents. For example, Lewis noted, the Construction Price Index, which reflects costs of materials and supplies required for various maintenance and capital projects, is projected to increase by 7.9 per cent in 2005. The majority of the town's money is collected from property taxes, with the remainder coming from user fees and charges, and sources such as the $1.1 million promised for 2005 from the provincial gas tax. Development charges fund most of the cost of new infrastructure provided through the capital budget, but the town must find the money for ongoing maintenance and replacement of infra structure. ONLY AUTHORIZED SERVICE PROVIDER IN THE AREA CAPABLE OF SERVICING ANY COMPUTER SYSTEM W h y n o t a c q u ir e o u r te c h n ic a l e x p e r ti s e to p r o v id e c o s t- e ffe c tiv e , p r a c tic a l s o l u t i o n s fo r y o u r b u s i n e s s ! Mico Systems offers software and hardware support for small and large businesses alike. 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