Rotary Club of Burlington Central
23rd of November 2017
Chairman Lawrence Leung.
Lawrence welcomed back Rick Howarth to the club. He welcomed our one visitor, and today’s speaker Chris Phillips.
There will be Club Visioning or the Five-Year Plan, the first for a long time, on December 9 between 10 and 2pm and it will take place at the Salvation Army on Prospect Street. We are requested to sign up; the deadline is December 1.
There will be a Global Grant Qualification and Training programme this Saturday. Two people are needed to attend this in order to qualify and Owen McElhinney has volunteered.
Alan Ramsey brought up the question of the cost of breakfast for our Thursday morning meetings. There's been a sudden change in the club policy such that the current hot breakfast will be available at a significantly higher price and two lesser breakfasts are also offered and the club is being asked for their opinions on which of these options is most acceptable, or indeed whether we should be looking for a different venue. There has already been a wide range of opinions and ultimately there will be a board decision after a few weeks of further gathering of comments.
Santa Claus will be coming to town on 21 December for the family party. On 14 December there will be a club members’ party with venue to be announced.
On November 30 the annual general meeting with Mike Molloy, chairman. We also need a speaker for that day.
Anthony Ford-Jones asked the club to consider trading in their supermarket loyalty points for gift cards and contributing to the club's Christmas family hampers that will be going to 5 families in the Kings Road area. The intention is to make these presentations of non-perishable goods and the idea of presenting something which allows people to make their own choices as to what they present to their family is important and it allows them to preserve dignity and is considered to be preferable to direct offerings of goods.
This Sunday the Harbourtown Sound will be performing at the Burlington Performing Arts Centre. Our own club has sold the lion's share of tickets close to 150 so far the majority being sold by Joe Watson and Glenn Warnica, numbering 65. Glenn thanked the club for its 30% of the sales. Through the magic of matching, the proceeds will amount to $130,000. This year, Bridgestone and Discovery Ford were the two sponsors for $5,000 each and this amounted to $60,000 after matching. It's hoped that in future years there will be a repeat concert and hopefully six sponsors who will have to be found and who might between them make earnings of up to a quarter of $1 million. Glenn won Joe's bottle of Amarone!
Terry Sedore was today's Master at Arms but because there was such a small number of people in attendance, a goodly number being at the Peace Breakfast and sorting out the poinsettia deliveries, unfortunately his intended victims were not present. We learned that the poinsettia sales have increased from $21,000 last year to $24,000 this year, half of the proceeds going to the club. There are many tireless individuals arranging for the delivery of these lovely plants.
Dave Beckett offered a happy $20 in thanks for the cleanup of his garden won at the silent auction at Lakeside à la Carte. His wife was quite thrilled by the work that was done.
Richard Pass was happy for the graduation of the third generation in his family at Carleton University. He also noted that the new Holocaust Memorial built by Daniel Liebeskind was unveiled in Ottawa this past weekend.
This week there was the selection of the new exchange students at the Burlington club. We will learn more about the lucky winner of this process, a young woman whose mother was herself an exchange student when young and both went to Nelson high school.
Today's guest speaker was introduced by Glenn, Chris Phillips presented a talk on the West Harbour Project in Hamilton of which he is the senior adviser. He appreciated the opportunity of addressing our club, himself an ex-Optimist from Stoney Creek. He also welcomed the chance today of observing the Hamilton Harbour from the other side, a very different vantage point.
Chris’ father was 35 years in the Stelco rod mill. The mills were a key element of the growth of Hamilton and their labours allowed the more recent generations to be the 1st to go to university. The legacy of the Mills and the harbours left over from all the shipping traffic of former years has led to a new vision of jobs, recreation, through a planned transformation of four districts of the waterfront. The industrial waterfront was critical to the economy of Hamilton which even today remains the largest by tonnage in the entire St Lawrence Seaway. Whereas the Mills employee infinitely fewer people, they produce more, and higher quality steel the never before.
He told us of the priceless heritage of this great waterfront from Cootes Paradise to Princess Point and that there would be something for everyone. In the early 80s the harbour was polluted, dying ecologically, smothered by emissions and sewage effluent such that there was nothing living in the harbour. Owing to good leadership in the early 80s the Remedial Action Plan was made which has being kept going since and has allowed for a considerable amount of work in transforming the harbour lands the last piece of the puzzle being the Randle Reef. A lot of work with Environment Canada and Natural Resources has allowed for cleaning up of the harbour such that Walleye and Perch are now in the harbour and no longer polluted.
The city took over from the federal government in early 2000's. It was clear that the waterfront was just not part of the city; it was either industrial or boating, but really the rest of the city had no look-in. Between 2000 and 2003 was planned for recreation residential and commercial use with the master plan for recreational facilities been done between 2008 and 2010 to the tune of $145 million. Boardwalks, promenade and marinas were proposed and designed with gathering places. There was a great need for investment. Fortunately the council’s vision through to 2018 was able to pull in $80 million over four years from the city a good basis for others to get on board. Bayfront Park was founded on what had been industrial landfill but had been blocked off from the public. In the early 90s Bayfront was remediated the highly useable park that it is today. The rest of the remediation linked existing parks.
There will be continuous access to water's edge and this started in the early 2000. There is an area around the yacht club that is still not completely connected. The path will be alongside and even over the water with cantilevered boardwalks.
In the Barton Tiffany area, the proposed stadium, the area is to be transformed from industrial to commercial and residential alongside the West Harbour GO station.
The Pier 8 lands are being transformed with a parking lot turning to public open spaces, cafes and commercial, all at the foot of James Street. There will be a piazza like feel to it. There will be 1200 residential units and 1200 commercial. Nine blocks of Pier 8 are being developed with an open promenade around the edge; 30 acres will be developed. They were looking for $140 million and aside from the initial sale, tax revenues will provide this. There have been no tax revenue from this area since the 1930s and it was hoped that $8 to 9 million per year would be brought in. There will be no sacrifice from public funds required to get it going. Less than half of the lands will be developed.
It was important not to allow the whole thing to be a free for all private project but a partnership where there will be direction by the city of the developers to follow the vision. One developer is to be chosen from the shortlist.
There was a design from competition for a Pier 8 promenade with event spaces and development of the waterfront walk.
There were questions from the audience asking about how tall the buildings would be and they have been capped at eight stories as this is to be a "midrise" community. Questions about the effectiveness of the GO system reveal problems because CN owns the lines that MetroLinx will have to make work. It's possible that there will be a separate line to improve that system.
Macassa Bay yacht club will remain.
Chris was thanked for this informative talk by Jamie Edwards.
Anthony Ford-Jones
