Whitby Shores Community Forums

Like many Whitby Shores people, I enjoy living near the water and walking along the lakefront paths. I would like to see the waterfront area around the harbour further developed into a jewel for both residents and visitors, with a mixture of housing, shops and other amenities.

The lands are owned by Brookfield Homes. Brookfield is in the process of applying to the Town of Whitby to revise their original site plan to increase both the number of condos and their size (instead of 3 condos that are 15 stories high, Brookfield now wants 5 condos ranging in size  - including 9, 17, 21, 27, and 33 stories). This would increase residential density per hectare by 320% over the original plan.

I would like to see the Port Whitby area developed...but not as the developers vision...as our own vision.

To judge if others feel the same way, I have drafted a simple petition:

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/notobrookfield/

Please have a look and let me know what you think. Cut and paste the link into your email and send it on to others.

We only have one waterfront and only one chance to build it right.

Let's see what the people think before the July 7th Council meeting. We know Mayor Perkins has reservations about Brookfields vision for our port lands. Let's see if she is alone.

Thank you.

In my 4 years of living here, I have not yet witnessed a development proposal that would not be slammed by the local residents. It is possible that all those proposals are simply bad, but I suspect it is because many of my neighbours have a seroius case of NIMBYism. Every proposal is an attempt on THIER rights to enjoy unspoiled scenery for the rest of their lives. No to condos, no to office towers, hell, some even managed to get upset about building an elementary school.

Their expectation is that Whitby Shores will become some sort of a retirement community - I attended some of the meetings and the demographics of the crowd was unmistakable. I guess the younger crowd was too exhausted to attend after getting back from work.

To finish my rant, I would suggest correcting the math in the petition - the increase from 115 to 370 is not 320%.  

Hi...

Thanks for posting...this is exactly the kind of dialogue I hope to spark...an honest sharing of opinion as to where we are as a community.

I would agree with you that NIMBYism is at play here. Of course it is...we are the ones to speak out about our community and I would expect the folks along the 407 to speak out about the development proposed for their piece of the planet. The difference is, this is a new kind of NIMBY...it is perhaps DIP-IMBY..."Do It Properly In My Backyard".

I am not against development...I live in a place that 5 years ago was a big field by the lake!  

What I want to see is a vision for the  waterfront development driven by the Town and by the community (all of Whitby) and not driven by a developer with dollar signs in his eyes. Any new development will of course include residential space, but can it also not be moderated to create a livable community space?

I look at other communities, like Thunder Bay, Kingston, even Toronto (with the new West Don Lands project) as best case examples. In these places, the city and the community developed a vision for their waterfront and then asked developers to amend or even bid on the project. The communities contribute or even control the vision and the outcome.

See www.thunderbay.ca/waterfrontgallery

This is all I am asking for...it is different here because Brookfield already owns the land and would not have to bid, but the Town still controls the land use amendments the developer has asked for.

The Town started the process of designing a very special waterfront by making "Port Whitby" in its own section of the Official Plan...I want them to take the next step and move from some drab text in a written plan to a true vision for the future.

Let's block the high density (and the math does work, btw...115 to 370 is 320%) until we know what OUR vision is for OUR waterfront.


Thanks!


FYI...at the public/council meetings I attend, these issues are very much on the minds of younger residents. I myself am not a retiree...just a middle aged person with an interest in his community and access to the Town of Whitby website.



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Risky

In my 4 years of living here, I have not yet witnessed a development proposal that would not be slammed by the local residents. It is possible that all those proposals are simply bad, but I suspect it is because many of my neighbours have a seroius case of NIMBYism. Every proposal is an attempt on THIER rights to enjoy unspoiled scenery for the rest of their lives. No to condos, no to office towers, hell, some even managed to get upset about building an elementary school.

Their expectation is that Whitby Shores will become some sort of a retirement community - I attended some of the meetings and the demographics of the crowd was unmistakable. I guess the younger crowd was too exhausted to attend after getting back from work.

To finish my rant, I would suggest correcting the math in the petition - the increase from 115 to 370 is not 320%.  

[/quote]

Hi...I have been informed the Forum will do polls...I have created a simple poll to judge public opinion about the Brookfield proposal...if we see significant numbers of people responding, I will re-open the actual petition for submission to Council and that way we can work together on the wording of the petition.

Take the Poll! Thanks![/align]

I am a well informed resident who has resided in Old Port Whitby for 13 years now. Unfortunately, the development in the harbour was approved by council before I got here or I too would oppose it. However, the old proposal was nasty and this is much better for the area than what the builder is approved to do right now. I strongly suggest that you do some homework on this. I too believe that the density is a little much, but if you read the official plan we are expecting way more to be rammed down our throats in future and those battles we do need to fight. I would love to see the area developed like Pickering and will fight for that along Brock...but the battle for the island in the harbour was lost many years ago and you can thank Council back then for that. Just to let you know, we went through all of this when Whitby Shores was proposed to be built on VERY sensitive lands. We lost that battle too. We watched the bulldozers level all of the trees and dig into the marsh land and we watched all of the wildlife scatter not knowing where to go or what was happening to them. The town has continually turned down requests to meet with us and plan our Port Whitby area and we don't understand why that is. They simply respond to developers and believe me, there is a lot more brewing than just the harbour island so stay tuned.

Read and weep:
http://www.waterfronttrail.org/pdfs/book...011-15.pdf

We may debate housing developments but we shouldn't do it about math 370 is around 320% of 115 BUT the increase from 115 to 370 is NOT the increase of 320%. The same way doubling is only the increase of 100% and not 200%. It's a surprisingly common mistake.

Point well taken...don't need to diminish our argument on semantics or incorrect statements...could we say that the new development is over 3 times as large as what was approved previously (with 115 being as large and therefore 370 is over 3x as large)?

I can't find the poll anymore, but there was a comment on there about Mayor Perkins...see below the Mayor's quotes regarding another development that is being slated for South Whitby.

http://newsdurhamregion.com/news/Busines...icle/83527

http://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/249391