By Doug Draper
Those opposed to the erection of a condo tower in front of Bay Beach – one of the last and most popular public beaches along Niagara’s lakefronts – have created a new coalition of homeowners, businesses and other organizations determined to fight it.
The McGuinty/Bradley vision of the future for Bay Beach, one of the last popular public beaches along the Niagara shores of Lake Erie. An image of Bay Beach, from summers past, is featured below.
The coalition, called the Fort Erie Waterfront Preservation Association, is made up of a host of community organizations, businesses, property owners and individuals in the Niagara area and, according to its spokespersons, is “firmly opposed” to plans to build a multi-storey condominium in front of the last public beach left – known affectionately by countless thousands as Bay Beach – in the iconic Crystal Beach area of Fort Erie.
“A private 12-storey tower on waterfront property that belongs to the public is simply not acceptable,” says Eric Gillespie, a lawyer representing the new coalition. “Amongst many other concerns, the scale of the building is totally inappropriate for an intimate waterfront cottage community. …
“All residents of Fort Erie should likely be concerned,” Gillespie added. “The changes to the zoning bylaw required for the (condominium) development may set an irreversible precedent for high-rise, high-density development all along the Fort Erie waterfront.”
Indeed, all residents along any waterfront throughout the rest of Niagara or any other region across the province of Ontario should be concerned. And maybe you folks who live in waterfront communities across the border should be concerned too, if you are not already.
Once again, and thanks to a recent decision by the Ontario government of Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty and the hacks he has working for him on the province’s Ontario Municipal Board, to approve the erection of a multi-storey condo tower in the heritage district of Port Dalhousie in Niagara, any land along a waterfront is open game now for development, however out of place or hostile it is to the surrounding communty.
In other words, if you want to put a great big glass tower box up in a community known and loved historically for smaller one- and two-storey cottages and homes, and businesses, well then so be it. The rich and the privileged may like to buy a condo in these locations along the waters – even if they only stay there half the year while they spend the rest of their retirement somewhere down in Georgia or Florida – and to hell with free access to our rivers and lakes for the rest of us.
Bay Beach, the way many have enjoyed it in summers gone by and many still want it to be.
Well, you know what, someone ought to finally tell them that if we are spending and working and spending our tax dollars to protect these waters, we should have access to them without having to get passed a private developer who might very well turn around and say – ‘This is our beachfront. No loitering. Get the hell off.”
That seems to be the way in today’s Dalton McGuinty’s Ontario. One of his Liberal MPPs, Kim Craitor of Niagara Falls, has tried putting a private membership bill forth, guaranteeing access to lakefronts for the public. But, so far, Craitor has been blown off by his own government because somehow, I suspect, the arrogant, elitist tone McGuinty has set for his party in Ontario leaves the government not giving a damn if you or I or our families can still find a place to take a peaceful walk along the beaches we’ve been blessed with without paying for it. As if, once again, we are not all paying enough through our taxes to keep these waters from turning into toxic sewage swamps.
But there is at least now another group in the province that plans to challenge McGuinty in his laying back and letting his private developer friends make all of our waterfronts private. That is the Fort Erie Waterfront Preservation Association whose lawyer goes on to say that “the proximity of privately owned condominiums on the beach represents an implied threat to all beachfront areas across the entire community in the future.”
The association argues that any future development for the Crystal Beach area must embrace a five-year-old Crystal Beach Neighborhood Plan where there is no place for high-rise development along the waterfront.
The association says it is also concerned – and we all should be – that if the high-rise condo plan for Bay Beach is approved applications to build similar high-rise developments at locations like Point Abino, Bay Beach, Thunder Bay, Windmill Point, Bertie Bay, Crescent Beach, Erie Beach, Waverly Beach, Marcy’s Woods and even along the historic Niagara Parkway may appear.
And this commentator would add that if you care about preserving what is left of these places for public use go after McGuinty and one of his cabinet ministers in Niagara, St. Catharines MPP Jim Bradley who never cared enough to raise a public word for saving Port Dalhousie – a designated heritage district in his own riding, and one many of his constituents fought to save – from a high-rise condo plan.
On that score, this coalition has a helluva battle ahead of it against the likes of McGuinty and Bradley. One can only hope that enough members of the public press this pro- line what is left of our beaches with high-rise condo clowns to back down.
For more information on the Fort Erie Waterfront Preservation Association, visit FEWPA@live.com.
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Niagara At Large 
From the late Jane Jacobs regarding Port Dahlousie:
January 24, 2005
Dear Kenneth Mackenzie,
I can’t say that I was happy to get your letter; I think the proposed vandalism of Port Dalhousie is heartbreaking news, but as long as
it is in the wind, I’m glad to know about it.
As you surmised from reading my work, this approach to mixing uses is a travesty, it will do no good functionally because of the
outrageous violations of Port Dalhousie’s scale and the lack of fine-grained support among the uses. Apparently the proposal is so
insensitive to what makes for business sense too, that it does not take into account that the very things that make Port Dalhousie
attractive as a residential community – its intimate human scale and its unique legacies from the past – will be lost to the built
environment.
I have known Jack Diamond for many years, and he well knows my arguments about how mixed uses work functionally, so if he has
given a false impression that I would be tolerant of this project, let alone supportive, I must suppose he gave such an impression
inadvertently.
I think you would do well to have a frank talk with Mr. Diamond. Good architects – and on the whole he is a good one – can often
educate clients who are insensitive or ignorant about their plans undermining their own long-term interests. We may be sure that
this unfortunate scheme if carried out, will in another decade or so be a laughing-stock, a sample of the most idiotic excesses of the
2000s – literally a haunted house of heedless opportunism run wild.
I wish I could meet with you as you ask, or otherwise help you, but that is impossible at present. (Early in the winter I broke my leg so
badly that I am in process of re-learning to walk, and until last week was in hospitals for surgery or rehabilitation. You can probably
appreciate what a backlog of unfulfilled commitments I have and that I’m in no position to add more!)
However, I can offer a few words of advice from experience that might be useful to you and PROUD. These battles aren’t won by
invoking experts from away. They can be won by unrelenting local opposition. But you must be tough and determined. There must
be a story behind the story of the province caving in on its suddenly worthless heritage designation. Find out what it is: as in a
murder mystery, Who benefits? Seek allies throughout St. Catherine’s. They may be smart enough to see that what is threatening
Port Dalhousie is a forecast of what will happen to them – as it surely will be if you lose this community battle.
You are at liberty to use this letter on your web-site or in any other way that can help you.
I realize my prescription takes a lot of effort and time, and possibly money too if you need to enlist legal help, which seems possible.
But don’ give up and do be high-hearted and have as good a time as you can doing battle in your good cause. Good luck, and
remember, you make your own luck, and you win on the mistakes of your opponents. Don’t let them get away with a thing!
Sincerely, Jane Jacobs
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A return of any of the Town of Fort Erie’s “Crystal Beach Public Waterfront Park” for private development is a simple minded proposal for people that measure “progress” in cubic yards of concrete, no matter what the cost.
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“I do not think the measure of a civilization
is how tall its buildings of concrete are,
But rather how well its people have learned to relate
to their environment and fellow man.”
-Sun Bear of the Chippewa Tribe
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