The Ossington Avenue Community meeting and the Surprise!
Early this week I arrived home to find a notice of a community meeting about the ”existing and future changes on Ossington Avenue between Dundas Street West and Queen Street West” hosted by Joe Pantalone, our city councillor and deputy mayor.
The notice mentioned that there was some community concern about the the area becoming oversaturated with restaurants and bars. The May 28th meeting was “an opportunity for business people are residents to jointly discuss concerns and opinions about the recent and future changes on Ossington Avenue”.
GREAT! I agree. It has been changing quickly. Perhaps it’s a time to examine the options.
Yet…. suddenly…. this!
Deputy Mayor Joe Pantalone, (Trinity Spadina), the councillor for the area, brought an urgent motion to city council at the last minute which was passed without debate. (also reported here and here)
Where was my opinion in the matter? where was the debate?
I went to the meeting and it was essentially Joe Pantalone and a couple people from the city explaining what they had done already. The meeting was very busy with 100-150 people attending. My impression of the meeting was that while there were community members complaining about issues in the neighbourhood, all these issues were ones that were already well addressed by current city laws. The city already has zoning laws for the neighbourhood – not allowing “entertainment” and also not allowing excessive noise. Aren’t these the problems?
It’s not restaurants, bakeries and cafes that are at issue. It’s noise, garbage and too many people up at night.
What do you think?
Update: Now Magazine’s Paul Terefenko has also weighed in with his report.
[...] The crowd seemed to be friends and local foodies who had also and already heard about the opening as well as a few people who just walked by and poked their head in the door. It’s a small room, with seating for only about 30 people, and a bar near the front – which I’m certain will be crowded with people – offering room for about 10-12 more. I also poked my head out the back door and checked out a decent sized space, currently littered with trash from opening, which could be used for about 30-40 more seats. (We’ll see whether our rather dictatorial city councilor will allow that) [...]
[...] in these challenging times. It was done without notice on Ossington, and it seems you are, again deciding for the community without letting the community decide. Thank you for again for contacting me and for your comment [...]
[...] in place. And, until this weekend, and hearing a few voices in the first neighbourhood hearing which I wrote about here, I had only met a limited few – generally not homeowners – who agreed with the [...]