June 25th – 109 Ossington Community Consultation – Meeting Reminder

And tweet with the hashtag if you DO make it!

Yes, it’s strange that members of the community are not allowed to use visual media, Sol.  I asked and argued for the right to do this, as required to appropriately communicate certain points I would like to make; more generally, I always use PowerPoint presentations when giving talks, since it’s much more efficient and leads to better audience comprehension than the spoken word alone.  I was denied, met with the “well, this is how we always do it” response.  I’m planning on pressuring the Planning dept. to change this in future: surely community members should be allowed to use modern expressive resources when providing input.  Meanwhile, your point about keeping it chill is very well taken.

Also relevant to Sol’s comment, and to the meeting more generally, is preparing in advance for what you want to say.  It might be better to focus on one particular issue and develop that point in some (concise) detail, rather than try to hit every point that might be made about the proposal.

To be a “Nimby” is to be someone who rejects a project that would
enhance the public good just because it would interfere with some aspect
of your pleasure. What is the public good that the introduction of
MIDRISE development with chain store retail is supposed to bring about?
One might suppose that the need for growth is the public good in
question. But growth is a public good only if it is smart. Alll sound
planning principles—enshrined in Toronto’s Official Plan—say that
growth should be appropriately integrated into existing built form, and
should not negatively impact abutting neighborhoods. The introduction
of MIDRISE development with chain store retail would not be good growth,
since it would (a) drastically depart from existing built form on
Ossington, and (b) drastically negatively impact dozens of residential
homes, not to mention raise serious safety concerns (see Smart Growth
for Ossington’s remarks on the 109OZ proposal for details). Moreover,
the call for growth—that is, good growth, that does not cause more
problems than it solves—can be answered while staying within the
LOWRISE by-law limits—there is double or even triple the room for
additional density within these limits. On Ossington, we have not
outgrown the by-law. There is no good reason to go MIDRISE on
Ossington, and many good reasons to STAY LOWRISE. Sorry, that’s not
quite correct. Some people would stand to make millions of dollars by
air-dropping a MIDRISE condo onto LOWRISE Ossington. But that’s not a
public good. To resist the imposition of development whose only real
motivation is profit—not the public good—and which would drastically
negatively impact both business and residential communities is not
NIMBY-ism. It is common sense.