BY SAMUEL PICCOLO The VOICE
The Town’s efforts to arrive at a development plan for the current Pelham Arena site continued last Wednesday, with two meetings held at Pelham Fire Hall #1. The afternoon event ran from 4-6 PM, while the evening session, which was better attended, went from 6:30-8:30 PM. To begin the evening meeting, the urban planning firm hired by the Town, the Planning Partnership, outlined the process as it has occurred so far in front of 50 or so residents.In June, the firm held public sessions in the Pelham Arena, where planners were present and developed sketches as input was given from Town residents. The Planning Partnership then distilled these sketches into five distinct plans, each containing some configuration of single-detached homes, town homes, and/or apartment complexes. These plans, said the Planning Partnership’s Donna Hinde, were then included in an online survey in July in which residents were encouraged to participate. Hinde specified that the survey had received 120 responses.
The contention began here.
“Only a hundred and twenty?” said Paul Bryant, a resident, “Out of seventeen thousand?”
Hinde bristled, saying that 120 was actually a lot relative to how these surveys typically pan out. A few others in the crowd backed up Bryant, saying that they couldn’t access the survey.
Joe Bouchard chimed-in the from the back of the room.
“Considering how many people are here tonight, I’m surprised that there were even a hundred and twenty.”
The rest of the room muttered for a minute before Hinde brought their attention back to the presentation. She continued to speak, but when she got to mentioning Haist Street, she mistakenly pronounced it “Heist,” as in robbery or rip-off.
“Excuse me,” said David Shatford, a Fenwick resident sitting in the back. “It’s ‘Haist,’ not ‘Heist.’ Just so you know.”
“Thank you,” Hinde said tersely.
She pointed back the screen, and began outlining the five “explorations” that the Planning Partnership and the Town had included in to the survey. While acknowledging that the survey was not “statistically significant,” because it was not sufficiently large or randomized, Hinde emphasized that it was useful for identifying “strong views” in the community. One of these “strong views” found in the survey was a desire that existing parkland be kept.
Hinde pointed to the screen where survey results showed a hostility to any plan that altered the placement of the soccer fields.
As she spoke to the survey results, one man in the audience pulled out his phone and punched in the numbers in its calculator. “How come those don’t add up to 120?” he asked.
Hinde seemed momentarily surprised. The 120-participant figure was an average, she said. Some people participated in the survey solely to register their displeasure with “exploration” five. The fifth option, one that proposed two four-storey apartment complexes on the existing arena parking lot, was another one of those “strong views” that Hinde mentioned.
Mike Hudson, a planner at the firm, began to explain some of the specifics of the “explorations.”
The Planning Partnership’s preferred model was number three, since, according to Hudson, it best combined the “strong views” of the public with the restrictions placed on the firm by the Town. In option three, the existing arena and parking lot would be replaced by a mix of town homes and single-detached units. Hudson said that this would provide a diversity of structures, while still maintaining a “gentle intensification” of housing.
This intensification on brownfield development—meaning construction on previously paved land (as opposed to greenfield, such as the land in East Fonthill)—is something required by the province, and thus the Town had also required the Planning Partnership to include it in all plans.
In this exploration, the soccer fields, platform tennis facility, wooded area, and playground would remain where they are, while the tennis courts that border Haist Street would be re-purposed as a parking lot for approximately 30 vehicles.
After Hudson had finished this explanation, various objections were raised.
“The flooding that exists now will only get worse,” said one woman who lives nearby the site. Others argued that parts of the Pelham Arena property become very wet after heavy rains, a problem that would be exacerbated should homes be built there. Pelham’s Director of Planning and Development Barb Wiens sought to allay these fears.
“There will be a full, detailed, engineering plan, including storm drainage,” she said, adding that this plan was typically not done at the current stage of planning.
“Thirty spots doesn't seem like enough to me,” said Dave Grant, another resident in attendance.
The Town’s Director of Recreation, Culture, and Wellness Vickie vanRavenswaay, said that the fields at the Pelham Arena are used only from Monday to Thursday and have been scheduled to be phased out for some time, with games and practises moved to Glynn A. Green school and Harold Black Park. After being pressed by residents living near the arena, vanRavenswaay conceded that some teams could still be using the fields in greater capacities.
“Those are the best fields,” said David Shatford. “Glynn A. Green has no shade on a hot summer day, and after rain, you have to swim in Harold Black Park.”
Shatford continued: “I’m also pleased to see Mayor Augustyn and Councillor Papp here tonight, listening,” he said, mistakenly identifying the Councillor present.
“Durley,” said John Durley, the Councillor who was there.
“Ah, sorry,” Shatford said, and paused for a moment. “I haven’t seen you around much.” Durley has sat on Council since 2003. The two spoke privately afterward.
“What’s to stop a developer from diverging from those plans?” another man asked. “I have first-hand experience of that happening.”
Hudson and Hinde both assured him that any land sale to a developer would include an pre-arranged agreement as to how the land be used. The man remained skeptical. As the presentation wrapped up, the man and Hinde continued to speak. Hinde said that she and Hudson had received a lot of positive feedback in the earlier session. She looked to the large pieces of planning paper on which feedback had been written. “This a good plan,” she read.
The man was again skeptical. “This is really remarkable,” he said, “that there was all this positive feedback and now no one here likes anything that’s going on,” he said.
“Well, I’m not making these comments up,” she said. “You should’ve come to the four o’clock meeting.” She carried the planning paper over to another table.
The man continued.
“We don’t want to be a big city,” he said. “Toronto wanted to be a big city, and now it’s a big city with big city problems.”
“Toronto” and “the GTA” are the most profane words surrounding any sort of development in rural areas. Certainly it didn’t help in this case that the Planning Partnership is a firm based in downtown Toronto. Hudson realized that this creates a perception problem, and he spoke thoughtfully on the matter.
“People might just see us as a big firm from Toronto coming in and telling them what to do. And maybe they’re right. I don’t know. But we try to really listen and to come up with the best plan that we can.”
He recalled the first public consultation on the plan, in June at the Arena, when he was drawing on a sheet as members of the public looked over his shoulder and threw out ideas.
Hudson said that he is used to drawing along in an office, but that the Planning Partnership is trying to reject the common practise of simply creating plans and then presenting them. Many other firms, he said, will simply do what a town asks and then present one or two options. The Planning Partnership, which has done work in Pelham since the 1990s, does occasionally run into difficulties with its non-conformist approach, but Hudson believes that it can also make for better plans, too.
“This is a pretty good plan,” he said, referring to the third option, mentioning in the particular the conservation of the parkland and the tree lot. “I’ve seen much worse.”
