Work activity on Thursday (February 27) at the site of Brock Mission’s transitional housing development at 738 Chemong Road raised more than few eyebrows.
Neighbouring residents — many of them already smarting from Peterborough Mayor Jeff Leal’s exercising of his strong mayor powers at a council meeting this past Monday to fast-track the project — were surprised when it appeared work was already starting at the site of the proposed 52-unit six-storey apartment building.
For clarity, kawarthaNOW reached out to Brock Mission board member Alan Wilson, the project lead on behalf of the organization. He said the work done Thursday is related to required studies that need to be done before any actual construction can begin.
“We did the drill holes — what’s the soil like, what sort of loading can it take — as part of a commitment to do all the necessary studies to satisfy site planning approval,” explained Wilson. “What is happening today (Thursday) is the land use engineers are there digging a bit of a pit to confirm the level of the water table. We’re nowhere near the construction stage.”
The cost of the site work, added Wilson, is being covered from the $250,000 that the city earlier granted the project.
Sarah McNeilly, who lives near the Chemong Road site and also spoke at Monday’s council meeting, was among those surprised by the activity at the site of the development, which she describes as “my new view from my window.”
That said, her bigger concern remains unchanged, specifically that the development won’t face the same city staff and council oversight that it would have had Mayor Leal not exercised his strong mayors to speed up its approval.
“They’re just doing all the studies that should have been done before it was approved,” she said.
“Folks are feeling like they don’t have a voice; like they don’t matter. They’d like that to change. The story we were told at council (on February 24) was if you oppose this project — how it’s being managed, how it’s being rushed through — that means you hate homeless people, and that is not the case at all.”
“I think we’ve lost the nuance, and I think we’ve lost the common ground to be able to have discussions at all,” McNeilly said. “What we saw on Monday night was not, by any means, a conversation, or what I would consider a democratic process. I’m feeling a bit of dread from that whole ordeal, in the context of what we’re seeing from our neighbours to the south (the United States).”
At Monday’s council meeting, which served as a public meeting under the Planning Act, three councillors — Gary Baldwin, Kevin Duguay, and Lesley Parnell — joined Mayor Leal to vote in favour of his motion to expedite the project by amending the city’s zoning by-law and exempting the project from the city’s site plan requirements.
That transpired despite community opposition to the development, including its location, and the process and speed at which the proposed development is proceeding. Because Mayor Leal had invoked his strong mayor powers for the motion, the support of only one third of council (four councillors) was needed for the motion to pass.
As soon as the meeting began, councillor Joy Lachica raised a point of order to declare the meeting and the mayor’s motion as being out of order. That, however, was denied by councillor Lesley Parnell who, as the presiding officer for matters pertaining to the Planning Act, chaired the meeting. Two subsequent points of order by Lachica were also were denied.
“I simply (raised) my hand (for her point of order) based on discussion of the document that fell into our email just prior to walking into the room,” Lachica told kawarthaNOW, adding “A document that I was supposed to be voting on but hadn’t had a chance to read, analyze, ask questions about, yet it formed the (mayor’s) motion.”
“We didn’t have the accurate companion materials at the top of the meeting. There’s one document out there that says this and there’s a revision, but it’s not marked. It was given the same number. There’s two living documents — one’s correct and one isn’t correct. I just want to do my do due diligence and do this properly.”
Lachica said part of the motivation for the mayor’s motion has to do with the need for housing “and expediting things, but it’s based on residential units of a certain size and scale.”
“The submission that came to us related to size of each individual unit being smaller. I scratch my head and say ‘Perhaps that affects the number of units, and perhaps that affects the criteria of whether this even counts as residential according to the strong mayors (provisions) around housing’.”
“Those are normal questions that any politician reading companion materials would ask, and we didn’t have adequate time to look at it.”
Lachica makes it clear that her issue isn’t with Brock Mission. Quite the contrary, as she notes Cameron House — located on the same property as the new development — “is a precious organization that has had wide community support.”
That said, Lachica feels “the equilibrium that’s been established would no doubt be deeply impacted, and perhaps destroyed as it is, with something like going forward at that particular site.”
“But again, there was no opportunity to discuss an alternate site because there was no window between a general committee meeting and a finalizing meeting to be able to discuss that,” she added, referring to the fact that city council reconvened immediately after Monday’s general committee meeting to endorse the earlier decision with no further discussion.
“We need transitional housing (developments). We need partners that are willing to support, fundraise, erect and operate them. Brock Mission has a done a tremendous job and I compliment them.”
“It’s simply the process and the decision making that could have happened if there had been an extension of even a week, to be able to talk about a site change as Brock Mission has said they would be willing to consider.”
McNeilly, too, doesn’t “deny there’s a sense of urgency and there are problems that need to be addressed, but I maintain that the end, no matter how necessary or noble, never justifies the means if the means require the suspension of democracy itself. Is this how we want to do things?”
She also says she understands that the work done at the site so far is a requirement before site plan approval, except for one thing — “There’s been no site plan approval. That’s been waived.”
For his part, Wilson said public concerns about the development’s location and the scope of the project have been heard — Brock Mission held an open house community meeting at St. Peter Catholic Secondary School to present the proposed development to local residents, and Wilson was at Monday’s council meeting where McNeilly and other neighbours raised their concerns — and vows they will continue to be heard and considered.
“Both myself and my architect have copious notes on what people want included and what they don’t like about it, but it all comes back to people don’t want it in their backyard,” he said, adding “That would happen anywhere (that it’s located).”
As for the suggestion that locating the transitional housing building so close to Cameron House will negatively impact residents of the latter, Wilson said he’ll let Brock Mission’s 37-year track record speak for itself.
“We don’t put our people at any risk, period,” he said. “We know how to care for people’s safety. We know how to have people with different needs in different places. Our executive director and staff save lives. They don’t do that by putting anybody at risk.”
Looking ahead, Wilson said work will stop now at the site, but digging for the foundation will begin when frost is out of the ground — likely near the end of April — with building construction set to begin this summer.
In the meantime, he says efforts to secure government funding for the $16-million development are well underway.
