-
To water park, or not to water park...
26/04/2012 11:49 AM
I spent the morning at City Hall, listening to councillors debate the water park proposal. The verdict: no decision — yet. Possibly never.
Coun. Dan Vandal (St. Boniface) introduced a motion to defer a council vote on the project until its proponent, Alberta hotel chain Canalta, provides more information, specifically: substantial design plans of the three structures it wants to build (an indoor water park, a hotel and, to be developed later, a parkade), site plans that would show where exactly these facilities would be located on the currently city-owned piece of land in question (aka Parcel Four, on the southwest corner of Waterfront Drive and William Stephenson Way near The Forks), and a finalized public-access agreement (which would see the City give Canalta $7 million in exchange for a certain number of water-park admission tickets to be distributed to low-income citizens. Or something. At this point no one really knows how exactly this agreement would work, hence the motion). In addition, Vandal’s motion said Canalta must also consult with stakeholders, i.e. the Forks North Portage Partnership, the Human Rights Museum and the general public.
The motion passed by a vote of 10 to 5. Of note, two councillors, Mike Pagtakhan (Point Douglas) and Grant Nordman (St. Charles), voted against deferring the decision not because they didn’t want more information but because they’ve already made up their minds that they’re not going to support a water park at The Forks, period.
Then council broke for lunch, at which time I confirmed with Vandal that there’s no time frame on his motion. I mention this only to clear up any confusion you may have since a similar-sounding yet different motion was also made earlier in the meeting by Coun. Justin Swandel (St. Norbert). His motion was to delay the vote by up to 70 days in order to give Canalta the chance to present more information to council; it was voted down 11 to 4. Swandel’s motion was different from Vandal’s motion, however, because it didn’t require Canalta to provide specific information, it was more like an invitation for it to make whatever sales pitch it wanted.
So, as things now stand, when Canalta gets back to the City with the requested information, the proposal will be considered and voted on, but until it does, nothing will happen.
There is another possibility, of course: Canalta may decide to give up entirely and walk away from the deal. Coming up with detailed plans etc. will cost it money — figures thrown out during the meeting ranged from "tens of thousands" to $250,000 — and there’s no guarantee that council will end up voting in its favour even after that.
Fun fact: only two councillors met with reporters during that lunchtime scrum — Vandal and Devi Sharma (Old Kildonan, who seconded his motion to defer and who was one of the only councillors who had not stated her position on the original water park proposal in advance of today’s meeting; given that the decision was looking like it would be split down the middle, she could have — and may still be— a very important swing vote on this issue). Not that I’m saying councillors shouldn’t have the opportunity to eat, of course, but, given the amount of attention this issue has received, you’d think they’d have wanted to share their reactions to this latest turn of events with the slew of media types who were standing there, ready and waiting to take their comments. Certainly, most of them had plenty to say about all sort of things on the floor of council.
Here are some of the choice comments from the morning:
"It’s the respectful thing to do."
- Justin Swandel (St. Norbert), arguing in favour of allowing Canalta time to meet with council and provide more information on the proposal. His motion was voted down 11 to 4.
"They’re not bad people. For some reason we’re trying to demonize them."
- Swandel, on Canalta.
"Our Achilles heel in this whole development is that we don’t have any information… There’s an extraordinary level of concern about what we’re doing… The time is right to let the proponent make the case."
- Dan Vandal (St. Boniface)
"What this council must decide is if this is the right proposal at the right location under the right conditions… Council is being asked to approve this without even being able to see a basic conceptual sketch."
- Jenny Gerbasi (Fort Rouge – East Fort Garry)
"This has been a public policy disaster… There needs to be political and administrative accountability when things are mishandled."
- Gerbasi
"We just shut the door on somebody who wants to do business with us."
- Paula Havixbeck (Charleswood – Tuxedo)
"There is no plan. No one from the City is working on this. No one is working on another water park."
- Havixbeck, on rumours and media reports that another water park is being considered for the Seasons of Tuxedo development, aka the site where IKEA will be opening.
"It’s a cockamamie scheme."
- Brian Mayes (St. Vital), on the plan to give Canalta a $7 million grant as part of the deal to have it build on the site.
"I like the proposal — but I am in love with my constituents."
- Scott Fielding (St. James – Brooklands), who voted for Vandal’s motion.
"All politics are local. The people of St. Charles ward have spoken loud and clear that they are not in any way, shape or form against a water park — they are against a water park at The Forks."
- Grant Nordman (St. Charles)
"Councillor Swandel is worried about hurting their feelings. I was in business for 17 years. They’re big boys. They’ll get over it."
- Nordman, on Canalta
"Sometimes you have to draw a line in the sand."
- Nordman
"Asking us to vote for something without doing our due diligence is no way to do business… We still have to do our homework."
- Devi Sharma (Old Kildonan)
"A piece of bread to a starving man is much appreciated."
- John Orlikow (River Heights – Fort Garry), arguing that the $7 million should be split between all city wards and used to help community centres.
"It’s not council’s to do with what we will. It’s the public’s land."
- Orlikow, on Parcel Four
"People are going to Grand Forks to shop."
- Ross Eadie (Mynarski), refuting the idea that Winnipeggers head south of the border to visit water parks.
"I’m utterly amazed by the councillors who say ‘We don’t want more information...’ We shouldn’t act like a church and just have faith."
- Harvey Smith (Daniel McIntyre)
"They were not as confident as I was."
- Vandal, to media referring to his constituents and explaining why he introduced a motion to defer the vote pending more information when he had already voted in favour of the proposal at an earlier EPC meeting.
"The media asked me Monday how I was leaning. I don’t lean. I make decisions."
- Sharma, to media -
Quick: grab a pen!
An upcoming deadline and an awesome idea
18/04/2012 4:33 PM
Two things to share with you, starting with a time-sensitive request from local affordable housing advocates that I probably should have blogged about earlier (sorry, my bad).
$cms.template("FP Related Items Module")To those who care about housing — more specifically, the need for affordable housing — the Red Tent Coalition of Canada (which is a group of advocacy organizations across Canada that’s concerned about this very issue!) is now in the final days of a petition drive and needs your help.
Here’s some background (as per the press release) on what this is all about: "Across Canada, hundreds of thousands of co-op, non-profit and public housing units have been receiving subsidies for decades from the federal government. These subsidies, which are connected to their mortgages, allow very low-income families to be housed, but are beginning to run out as the mortgages expire."
In other words, as the mortgages on older properties are paid off, the federal funding which is currently being received by the agencies running these properties will disappear. The concern is that without subsidies, it will become more difficult for co-op and other types of non-profit organizations to subsidize rents so that they’re geared to the income of tenants (which, FYI, is basically what "social housing" is) and, as a result, rents will start rising to the point that people living on low incomes won’t be able to afford them.
If this trend continues, the federal government — which, you’ll remember, has already off-loaded most of the responsibility for social housing to the provinces — will not be funding any housing units by 2032.
The petition will be tabled in the House of Commons in the last week in May, right after a nation-wide weekend of action (the Winnipeg event is going to be a celebration of social housing on May 25 at the Lord Selkirk Park Housing Development) BUT in order for that to happen, it must be presented as signed, hard copies.Strangely old-school, I know, but apparently that’s how the feds roll.
The petition (which you can download here: www.defendoursocialhousing.wordpress.com , then print out and sign) chides the federal government for not investing sufficiently in the renovation, improvement and modernization of low-cost housing. It also notes that, according to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, 982,000 Canadian tenant (i.e. rental) households currently live with core housing need, which means either they spend a disproportionate amount of their income on their rent, or they live in crowded conditions, or in suites that have mold or are in need of repair or otherwise unsuitable.
It then asks the government to do two things:
• Immediately plan for an adequate budget that ensures the renovation, improvement, and modernization of all social housing units (i.e. low-cost housing, cooperatives, and non-profit housing)
• Commit to, without delay, maintaining the long-term subsidies granted to social housing units created before 1994, in particular those that provide low-income tenants a rent geared to their capacity to pay.
So, will signing a petition and presenting it in Ottawa have any effect? The cynic in me thinks probably not. Nonetheless, the lack of affordable housing is a big problem here in Winnipeg — where historically low rental vacancy rates have been hovering around 1% for some time now (ask someone who’s looking for a relatively cheap apartment right now how that’s working out for them) — and it’s not going to get any better anytime soon. Any attention we can get on this issue is a good thing, even if it doesn’t yield any immediate results. Sadly, it sometimes seems that in order for governments to take action on a particular issue, even if taking action is clearly the right thing to do, they first need to know that people care about said issue.
In an email sent out to supporters, Clark Brownlee, coordinator of the local advocacy coalition Right to Housing (righttohousing.ca) acknowledges as much: "While a petition in and of itself has limited impact, by taking an active approach with our contacts we can raise the awareness of this ‘time bomb’ that is ticking away silently, already having reduced the number of social housing units in Canada by an estimated 20,000 units."
The petition drive is now in its final days. All signed petitions must be turned in to the Social Planning Council (300-207 Donald St.) by Friday April 20 (note: SPC’s office is open from 8:30 a.m. to 4:40 p.m.).
They will then be forwarded to a Quebec-based group of housing committees, the Popular Front for Urban Restructuring (FRAPRU), which, as previously mentioned, will be delivering all petitions collected from across Canada to the House of Commons.
If you can’t make it down to the SPC office by this Friday, you can mail your signed petition directly to FRAPRU, so long as you get it there by April 30. The address is:
FRAPRU
#105-180 boul. René-Lévesque Est.
Montréal, QCH2X 1N6
I spoke with Christina Maes, a policy and program analyst with SPC, who says the Manitoba response to the petition drive has been overwhelmingly positive: she’s received 2,300 signatures so far, including some from rural communities and remote reserves. (Fun fact: on March 28, a group of five University of Winnipeg students armed with copies of the petition set up a mock bachelor apartment in the walkway to Centennial Hall to draw attention to the cause; in four hours, they managed to collect more than 500 signatures.)
For those of you who still want to get involved with this campaign, you’ve got a few days left.
• • •
Still on the topic of housing, I also want to share an awesome idea out of Vancouver that I was made aware of thanks to Right to Housing (which, BTW, is constantly disseminating all sorts of interesting info. Seriously, for a coalition of volunteers, these people are a veritable fountain of resources; do they ever sleep?).
The idea comes courtesy of the Pivot Legal Society of Vancouver, a cool advocacy organization that helped spearhead the Red Tent Campaign.
Pivot recognized that, along with a lack of funding, one of the biggest obstacles to creating safe, affordable housing for folks living on low income — and particularly for folks struggling with mental illness or addictions — is community opposition, a knee-jerk reaction dubbed NIMBY, or "not in my backyard."
In response to this reaction, it created a YIMBY toolkit — YIMBY, of course, standing for "Yes in my backyard."
I. Love. This.
Says Pivot: "The YIMBY kit is a how-to guide for YIMBYs — people who understand the value of addressing homelessness, addictions and mental illness in a proactive and positive way through safe and supportive housing. The kit helps break down some of the commonly held misconceptions about social housing and offers practical tips for building inclusive communities."
Along with research and case studies, it offers sample letters that you can send to politicians, developers and media to show your support for housing projects, and a "cringe test," which it describes as "a tool you can use to tell the difference between discrimination and a legitimate objection to supportive housing. If it sounds wrong when you say the same thing about a racial, ethnic or religious minority, then you know you’ve heard a discriminatory statement."
(A sample: Would you say "This neighbourhood already has its fair share of people on welfare" if it makes you cringe to say "This neighbourhood already has its fair share of Italians?"; would you say "We deserve to be warned before people with mental illness move onto our street" if it makes you cringe to say "We deserve to be warned before gays and lesbians move onto our street?")
Though much of what’s in it relates specifically to Vancouver, the toolkit will no doubt will be of interest to supporters of affordable housing here in Winnipeg, where NIMBYism is so entrenched and widespread, it’s practically become performance art (see: the freak-outs that occur pretty much EVERY time a developer wants to build any form of housing— upscale condos, seniors’ complex, residential facility for people with developmental disabilities, etc. — anywhere near any established neighbourhood).
Check it out the downloadable YIMBY toolkit here: www.pivotlegal.org/pivot-points/publications/yes-in-my-backyard-toolkit.
-
Stop sign slacktivism!
9/04/2012 2:20 PM
Hey — look what I happened upon last week! KONY 2012-themed guerilla art! This was spotted on a stop sign in Richmond West (and has inspired me to plan a bike ride during which I hope to take pictures of other altered stop signs; I’ve seen a few around downtown and I’ve heard there’s a couple in Wolseley).Could this be a prelude to what we can expect to see across Winnipeg on April 21 (April 20, of course, being the day people are supposed to gather at The Forks for an awareness-raising postering blitz)? Only time will tell.According to the Facebook page promoting said postering blitz, 10,875 people are taking part in this thing; FYI, apparently the plan is to meet at The Forks at 6 p.m. and poster until 9 p.m. (though I imagine some people will continue past that). Then again, many of these people probably signed on before the KONY 2012 backlash/Jason Russell public masturbation psychotic episode and are now disillusioned. Also: people who say they’re going to attend an event via Facebook don’t always do so, as we all know. I’m guessing the actual crowd will be significantly smaller.The bigger question: which April 20 event will draw more people — the KONY 2012 Cover the Night thing or the annual 4:20 rally on the grounds of the Legislature?Place your bets now, folks…
- Accessibility/Mobile Features
- Skip Navigation
