WHITBY FREE PRESS, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 28, 1984, PAGE 5 Housing statement t abled pending further study By JONATHON LOCKE Free Press Staff Mixed reactions have greeted Whitby's proposed housing policy. Whitby Town Council's ad- ministrative committee has tabled the proposed municipal housing statement until next Monday, giving staff more time to clarify some points of concern. "There are a lot of cases where con- Speaking to You By SCOTT FENNELL F M > IF (PC - Ontario) Recently the Minister of Transport, Lloyd Axwor- thy, publicly stated that the Government has erec- ted one "Taj Mahal" after another. Mr. Axworthy stated that the prineiple reason for the Gover- nment's continuous errors, is because no onecom- plains to the Liberal Party about these horrendouse monuments. 'We all know that there have always been complaints - and the real problem is that the Government refuses to listen to them. The minister appears to have a conveniently short memory. What about the countless numbers of people who have called and written their objections against numerous megaprojects to the Liberal Government, which have landed on deaf ears? Think of the metrie program, the National Energy Program, the Canadair bail-out, to name but a few. I, for one, have spoken out and I will continue to speak out against the billions of dollars that this Government has wasted, and intends to waste, by sponsoring uneconomical megaprojects.Nine years ago, nearly a half of a billion dollars went to build the great Mirabel Airport which was proven un- necessary before it was built. It now operates at less than one tenth of its capacity. Lately the newspapers have suggested that the $514 million Bell Helicopter Texron Project will likely cost another million dollars because the Agricultured Lands Protection Commission has refused to reclassify the originally chosen land for industrial purposes. Of course, this is something which should have been checked out in the first place but the Liberal Government seems to have neglected to do so. Who knows how much this one will end up costing the taxpayers in the longrun?. Government spending is simply out of control, and it is time to put an endto uneconomic spending which is authorized completely for political reasons and time to begin using logic to get this country back on the track to recovery. Grits prepare for convention The Ontario Liberal Riding Association is gearing up for its elec- tion of seven delegates to the federal Liberal leadership convention. Nine delegates will be sent to Ottawa for the June 14 convention, made up of the seven who will be elected and Terry McCarl, president of the riding association since Jan. 11, 1984, and Doug Dickerson, the Liberal candidate in the last federal election who lost to Progressive Conser- vative MP Scott Fen- nell. Of the seven elected delegates two must be female and two must be "new Liberals" .under the age of 25, McCarl said in a recent inter- view. "The vote is held at a public meeting. The date is not certain yet," he added. "We must get clarification from party headquarters." A neutral chairperson must also be found, Mc- Carl said, and such people are "getting harder and harder to find these days." The election meeting will likely be held sometime in mid to late April, he said. sultant's recommen- dations differ from staff's recommen- dations, and I'd like to find out why," Regional Councillor Tom Edwar- ds said in an interview last week. Assisted housing for seniors and families is covered by three recommendations in the report, outlining a call to "encourage privately sponsored non-profit cooperative projects and request the Region of Durham to establish a municipal non-profit housing corporation". "Whitby ýhould follow the example of Ajax," Edwards said, "and also Brock, which is almost entirely rural. Both of these provide a non-profit housing cor- poration. Marie Brooks, direc- tor of Whitby Com- munity Care, agrees that such a corporation would benefit the town. Edwards and Brooks also agree on the suggested sale of ap- propriately located public lands to aid assisted housing projec- ts. "The obstacle to these projects is often the purchase price of the land," Edwards said. It is important to un- derstand the nature of assisted housing, Ed- wards said. "Scat- terization" is a concept which began in the early 1960's and involved the mixing up of income brackets within, cooperative housing areas, he explained. "This seemed unat- tainable at the time but it worked because people have to pay ac- cording to their in- come," he said. "This balances it out; the higher-income residents are in effect subsidizing the lower-income ones. The town has never suf- fered a loss." The report's suggestion that group homes be established in "appropriate areas of the town," worries Brooks. "If you situate a number of group homes in a certain part of town, it becomes like a ghet- to," he said. "That area also gets labelled by the other residents." Brookes stressed the importance of situating group homes among already existing neigh- bourhoods so that they "blend into the area". Group -homes should definitely be inspected by a town official, Brooks said, though she pointed out that the upkeep of such homes is up to the association which established it. "And they do rot generally neglect that responsibility," she said. The recommendation that a group home be set up dn the grounds of the Whitby Psychiatric Hospital has Edward's support. "I endorsed it when doing a study of the hospital in 1979," he said. "There ought to be a group home on the grounds to give them a chance to live on their own without being in the hustle and bustle where it might be difficult for them." Emergency housing should not be located "in the -vicinity of the downtown Whitby area", as the report recommends, Brooks New members must have held membership for a minimum of 72 hours before being able to vote, McCarl said. "Members in good standing have to renew their membership." Highstakes by Krauss SAVE $4.O0 persq.yd. b 100% Ny SAVE% No Wa See our large sele No Wax Vinyl F Starting as low as *5. MGN.-WED. rUNS. à FMl. Dif fusion iy Peerless ilon Cut & Loop $6.00 persq.yd. Do-it-yourself x Vinyl Tile Only .89 each ction of looring sq.yd. way Carpet Ltd. 1305 Harwood Ave. N., Ajax 683-6126 said. "If you have a shelter for abused women and children where everyone knows its location, you have. a problem," she said. A system whereby volun- teer families take them in would mean that the people who abused them wouldn't know where to find them. "This system is easier and cheaper because it could be done on a volunteer basis," Brooks said. "The only costs would be a co- ordinator and a couple of case workers." Edwards expressed concern over the suggestion that zoning by-laws be altered. While he agrees that the by-laws should be re- examined, he doesn't want the town to depart "from established guidelines that have been in place for years". The report also suggests that local by- laws be changed to allow doubling up, ALL MAKES DURHAM KEYBOARD SERVICES 355 BLOOR ST. W. OSHAWA 725-0001 defined as "two households sharing the same dwelling unit". Edwards said that the welfare of the people living in a neigh- bourhood would be damaged if doubling up were allowed and he will "not support" this recommendation. "I see nothing wrong (with doubling up)," Brooks said, "as long as the families aren't enormous. In that case, you would run into a sanitation problem." Regarding the recommendation that approval of redùced lot H ENNA OR WELLA THERMAL WAVE REDKEN-DAY INTO NIGHT sizes continue, Edwards suggested that more examination of population densities was necessary. "We have to subject this to some form of guideline to prevent overcrowding," he said. A recommendation that Edwards supports suggests that council should "try to obtain for Whitby a reasonable share of the activity un- der current rental assistances programs". "This is an admirable recommendation and I will support it with in- tensity," he said. $25 130 -$35 INCLUDES •CUT •SHAMPOO •CONDITIONER •SET OR BLOW DRY COMPARESAVE PERýMS . 11,ý ý 1 ýl