A Commentary by Doug Draper
I don’t know about you, but if I entered a room full of people and it was plainly obvious that at least half of them didn’t want me there, I think I know what I would do.
This mock poster depicts some Crystal Beach residents' nightmare image of what their community may one day look like if the condo tower for Bay Beach is approved.
Unless I had nowhere else to go or absolutely had to be there, I would find a way to make a dignified exit.
But that hardly seems to be the way with developers pushing an unpopular building plan on a community, even when it is clear that a critical mass of the residents living their don’t want it. If they can get a majority of the councillors to back the plan and if it then gets the okay following a hearing before the Ontario Municipal Board, just try to show the door to that developer without a long a costly fight.
That seems to be the case in the town of Fort Erie, Ontario where a Greater Toronto Area group of developers – the Molinaro Group – is pushing to follow through with an agreement consummated with the last town council to build a 13-storey condo tower in front of a popular Lake Erie beach in Crystal Beach where most of buildings, residential and commercial, are one or two storeys high.
Recently we had the new council (brought to in last October’s municipal elections) say no to this controversial agreement with the old council by a vote of four to three. Then we’ve had the staff for the town come back with a report, warning that property taxes could jump as high as six per cent or more if the developers choose to push forward with a case for the condo plan before a higher judicial body.
While I would suggest that assumption about how much a possible legal battle with the developers would impact on local taxes subjected to an audit, there is no doubt that the last council’s decision to enter an agreement to build this high-rise complex on what is otherwise a public beach, along with an OMB officer’s decision to approve, makes things all the more tough for the new council and those residents in the community opposed to this plan.
Even if the OMB hearing officer stated, as he did in his recent decision, that the new council is not necessarily beholden to the decision the old council made, the developers and their lawyers still have the old council’s approval and the OMB’s approval of the plan to make a forceful case before any appeal board they wish to make another pitch to.
At a February 22 committee meeting of the Fort Erie council, the town has decided to move ahead with a third-party review of the possible consequences of breaking the old council’s agreement with the developers, and that could take many weeks or months.
Looking back on all of this, it is too bad an agreement was entered into with these developers in the first place before fully exploring more creative ways of rejuvenating Crystal Beach in ways that are more compatible with its historic beachfront character. More than a decade ago there was a group of national architects that drew up some plans, in the wake of the closing of the once iconic Crystal Beach amusement park, for bringing back the best of this fine summer place for residents and visitors alike. But that plan never seemed to get the attention from the former council that the proposal for a tower complex did.
Just a couple of footnotes here.
Some members of the Fort Erie town’s staff and council have suggested that if the town says “no” to this development, it sends out a message that they are not open for growth. It might be mentioned to them that the message that it sends out is that they are not open for the wrong kind of growth. This long-time argument some use that if you don’t say ‘yest’ to every development proposal that comes across the table, you are not interested in growth needs to be buried, once and for all.
As for the OMB, one message seems to be clear from this provincially appointed body in the wake of its decision on this condo plan and on an earlier one, approving a high-rise tower at a site in Port Dalhousie, St. Catharines that is located inside a previously designated as a “heritage district.” So much for what the people living in the community think. So much for the principle of home rule.
Heritage district or no heritage district, and regardless of how incompatible the proposed new building may be with surrounding homes and businesses, if it is a high-rise condo along the waterfront, it gets an okay. And there is one more reason to consider getting rid of the OMB.
(We encourage you to share your views on this topic in the comment boxes below and to visit Niagara At Large daily at www.niagaraatlarge.com for more news and commentary of interest and concern to residents in our greater Niagara region and beyond.)
Niagara At Large 
What we have is a clash of visions the residents want a smaller and more unique to them, form of beach front, a traditional style of tourism venture, the Town want’ s a grandiose and towering project with lot’s of giveaways by the taxpayers,some of which could be illegal under the Municipal Act.The Act forbids Municipalities from offering inducements thatcan only be done by the Ontario Legistlature.. also there is no contract in force. The Town under Heinz Hummel sold waterfront property in the past, without asking for any input from the taxpayers and got away with it, bottom of Bardol Street to the left hand side, that land was possibly Federal owned land.
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Developers have over the years built large scale in the Niagara Region and during that time have been getting away with development fees so far below that which is charged in other Regions that it seemed to be some sort of a gift to them and like a forever entitlement to them. Recently the Region attempted to reverse this and bring these fees to a point of realism.
The OMB has 25 members the most of which come from Toronto and the rest distributed over the rest of Ontario…..
Oops sorry there is NOT one member from the Niagara Region and this might be the reasoning behind the permissiveness of this commission when it came to allowing high rise development in Port Dalhousie and NOW in Fort Erie. The amazing thing is the peoples from these areas were and are defiantly opposed to these unsightly towers of brick and mortar.
Yet this OMA gave the ok for development and this is what DEMOCRACY is all about???
God help us under this type of managment
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This is not about the appropriateness of the developement. That had been decided by the council and ratified by the OMB. This is about whether a deal is a deal. Whether Fort Erie can be trusted to do the right thing or is this some podunk community that can’t live up to an agreement. Whether a small group can decide to spend my tax dollars in fees and law suits because of a parochial NIMBY approach. It seems that some of this towns citizens want to be frozen in time. Well, do they live in long houses like the original owners of this land. NO they are only to happy to live in their homes that are not what was here. Do they forage off the land? NO. They are only too happy with modern grocery stores. I’ll bet that when they are in Florida they live in condos on or near the beach. The economy in those “condo” places are a darn site better than in Fort Erie. So for all of you out there, who have their pensions and don’t have to worry about making income or the town getting ahead, don’t pretend that you speak for me and others that would like to see Fort Erie move forward. You don’t. Just because I and others don’t go to town meetings doesn’t mean you can spend my money and we receive no benefit from those expenditures. How can we ever get ahead if we are not to be trusted by the business community? As for the new council. I don’t remember anything in my election handouts regarding spending my tax dollars on getting out of approved and signed contracts. Shame on you.
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Mr. Robinson:
I do not receive a pension as I still work full time and I certainly don’t have a condo in Florida. My wife and I split our time residing in both Buffalo and Fort Erie.
We purchased our properties at Bay Beach because of our belief that it was, and still is, a wise investment and A GREAT PLACE TO LIVE.
We have attended Council meetings and I have been privileged to address those whom you’ve elected on our opposition to the “Gateway” proposal.
Respectfully sir we disagree with your “assessment” of the new Council’s decision to explore it’s options and would ask that you don’t pretend to speak for us.
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Dear Alex I have been going to Town hall for over 30 years , Mayor Martin is a hypocrite, Big Sam Utvich a builder from Stevensville owned the former coal docks on Jarvis Street, he had arranged financing from people in Chicago to build luxury condominiums a restaurant and gift shop, the dining room would have an overhang on the river, also another developer wanted to build a senior citizens retirement village by Frenchmans Creek both of these people were denied the permits,the Ontario Supreme Court overturned the Towns decision on the village but the time taken was ten years, I know Doug Martin quite well I ran for council the same time he did in 1982 he is a hypocrite, as he was against both of these projects.Martin takes care of himself and his friends the rest of the people can go pound salt.
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Unfortunately this condo proposal was pushed through as if it were the second coming from the beginning. Facts and wishes of local residents and years of public planning were ignored or disregarded. A shadow study ignores large shadows on the public beach at important times of beach use. Town utilizes this poorly prepared document to make assertions that are misleading. The author of the shadow study admitted to errors I pointed out and notified the Town Clerk yet I have not seen any attempt to correct this information on the Town’s website. Local newspapers seem to have the same spin that the Town has. Pushing this with poor assertions and lacking the review that an environmental impact study would provide, a review that the town had planned for and set aside funding for but abruptly cancelled just as they abruptly signed a contract before the council was swept out of office, nearly taking the mayor. This whole project needs a good deal of fact checking applied to it and I am glad the new council has decided to repeal the zoning bylaw preventing it from moving forward until they get more factual information. For their diligence they have been vilified and an unprecedented campaign undertaken to scare the public with more biased unverified claims that lawsuits and increased taxes will keep developers away and be the downfall of Fort Erie. I say pushing projects without proper vetting is perhaps more harmful and costly in the long run.
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I love this new council, for a bunch of neophytes they ask the right questions and don’t swallow the manure that the Mayor and staff are trying to feed them, even Steve Passero who is a Chamber of Commerce mouthpiece , those people I know from the 1980s they lied to me on numerous occasions, and have a lot to answer for in my view, I started the Friendship Festival in Black Creek in the early 1980s, and we never got paid for giving them all the info for an International Festival.
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