By Doug Draper
Another one of the few popular beaches left along the lakeshores of Niagara. Another plan to construct a high-rise condominium next to them.
A depiction of the high-rise condo many Crystal Beach residents are fighting to keep off of the popular Bay Beach in their community.
It is a scenario that is all too familiar to the residents of Port Dalhousie in St. Catharines and it is now one the residents of Crystal Beach area of Fort Erie find themselves embroiled in.
And just as I remember trying to shoehorn my way into a jam-packed legion hall in Port Dalhousie six years ago to hear residents duke it out with a consortium of high-priced developers and lawyers over plans to erect a multi-storey condo tower in the middle of a designated heritage district, the municipal hall in Fort Erie was crammed this past Jan. 25 with hundreds of people from the area – more than a dozen of them who stood up before the town’s council to speak for and more than two dozen who spoke against plans to build a 12-storey condo tower in front of Bay Beach.
And just as the developers won their bid to erect a 17-storey condo near Port Dalhousie’s Lakeside Park – despite a regional planning report that listed several reasons why the proposal conflicted with municipal and provincial planning rules, and a newly elected city council that joined in opposing it at Ontario Municipal Board hearings – those in Fort Erie opposed to this one have a long and costly fight on their hands. And the Fowler’s Toad (a threatened species in this province that apparently inhabits the site) is probably not going to help them. Continue reading
