Category Archives: Slideshow

Our shoreline in the Old Lakeshore Road area of our downtown waterfront is not protected from development, as we’ve been led to believe, nor are the heritage buildings along the shore safe from demolition.

The Save Our Waterfront movement has been raising concerns about our weakened shoreline protection for a year now – ever since current city council removed the 20m setback from our own bylaws, inside of which no development is supposed take place. The rationale for removing the setbacks: Conservation Halton governs shoreline protection; they’ve got our back. This was a double regulation. Or so we were told.

Fast forward to last week, when the director of planning, Bruce Krushelnicki, told the Burlington Waterfront Access and Protection Advisory committee it’s possible a 3-4 storey building could go on the vacant waterfront lot beside Emma’s Back Porch – even though almost the entire lot is within the setback supposedly governed by Conservation Halton (and no longer governed by our own bylaws).

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Save Our Waterfront got an early Christmas present, thanks to your many emails and phone calls to your elected representatives: agreement in principle to strike a Citizen’s Advisory Committee on the Waterfront. But it’s a present with significant strings attached.

You can read the details of the proposed committee below, developed after a series of meetings with two city councillors and two Save Our Waterfront representatives. We’ll need votes from two more councillors, but this is a step in the right direction. And, as always, we welcome your feedback (either provide a comment below or send us an email).

But a few days ago, we learned about the “strings” attached: when the councillors ran the proposed committee past the city’s lawyer, the advice was to delay its establishment until after a decision in the Ontario Municipal Board hearing on Tim Horton’s waterfront property. The councillors have elected to take this legal advice, and put the committee on hold.

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We’re one step closer to getting 10-storey buildings right along our shoreline, but instead of transparently presenting the facts about recent events and their own role in them, our elected representatives would prefer to shoot the messenger.

You’re being “misled”, our downtown councilor, Peter Thoem, recently told one of our supporters, when she contacted him to express her concerns, after watching our latest video (below) outlining Tim Hortons pursuit of a 10-storey building on the vacant waterfront lot beside Emma’s Back Porch.

It’s a classic, old-school political tactic – discredit the messenger to divert focus from one’s own actions, instead of dealing with the issues.

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The Official Plan, passed by current city council, allows two development options along our waterfront.

Option 1, above, allows buildings ranging from 6-10 storeys. Option 2, below, permits buildings ranging from 8-15 storeys, and would require removal of most, if not all, of the 11 heritage properties in the area. Many of those properties date back to the 1800s, and tell important parts of Burlington’s story as an early port city.

But even this is a best case scenario. Already, owners of several properties in the area have appealed the height and setback limits to the Ontario Municipal Board.

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