WHITBY FREE PRESS, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 24, 1988, PAGE 7 PAGE SEVEN LATER... HEOTHERSIDE of the, FENCE By Doug Anderson SMALL MINDS and STRIP PLAZAS An OMB hearing was supposed to have taken place yesterday into the rezoning of a strip of land on the S side of Dundas between Annes and Bell Drive for a strip plaza. I wrote about this particular application and the gradual plaza-ization of Whitby last November. In that column, I cheered the downtown BIA for appealing that rezoning to the Ontario Municipal Board on behalf of the downtown business community. (Every business within a defined downtown boundary is a member of the BIA and pays a special tax levy. It is administered by a Board appointed by Town Council.) Well, the Board of the BIA got cold feet and withdrew their objection. The property has now been rezoned for yet ... another strip plaza. There were a lot of people, including myself, who viewed that OMB hearing as an opportunity to strike a blow for rational commercial development in this community, an opportunity to stop the spread of such plazas, and prevent Dundas St. W. from becoming another Dundas East. This proposed rezoning could have been a relatively easy opportunity to establish guidelines on how much and what You'd be amazed at what you car catch in Lake Ontario this summer! kind of commercial development would be allowed in Whitby. When commercial development outstrips demand for the space, all businesses suffer. A glut of vacant shops reduces the vitality of the whole area and business failures follow. The most successful business areas are invariably the most concentrated - Oshawa Centre for example. At the other extreme are the West Lynde Plaza at Jeffery and Dundas and the small plaza on Michael Blvd. in West Lynde itself, both of which are half empty, with many of the remaining shops struggling against inadequate customer traffic. The proposed plaza is in this same area yet somehow the owner rationalizes that it will be commercially viable. (I have often wondered whether there was some tax dodge that we ordinary mortals have been missing out on that somehow makes empty plazas profitable.) So why did the BIA Board get cold feet? The narrow view of their role in the community prevailed. Why should they be the guardians of business common sense in Whitby? Why should they be fighting this application when others who should have been weren't? Perhaps they weren't the most appropriate group to take the matter to the OMB but somebody needed to and having stated their intention to do so, they had an obligation not only to their members but to the community at large to follow through. I felt strongly enough about this issue to have carried it to the OMB myself ...but it is now too late. Certainly the most appropriate ones to oppose it would have been our local councillors - the ones we elect to act as guardians of the community, to protect, its commercial well-being, etc, etc. But they, at both the local and the regional level chose to reject logic and the professional advice. of their respective planning departments. The next most likely group to have defended existing commercial interests against the quick-fip artists fromRe M , 1 Toronto would have been the Chamber of Commerce but theyThssoewsoraeattenth etcrerfHih y12ndhe9hocsin were no place to be seen. (yteRa)b ai .BonadDvdL rgsutli unddw bu 89 h And so it came down to the BIA. While Ed Buffet was soeepr hnmvdt oot o~okfrteSel rgsSe opnfuddb Chairman it had assumed an activist positionrwhichsrecog- nized that the revitalization of the downtown would be profoundly influenced by commercial developments through- 1 ER G out the community. A proliferation of small commercial fo h ensaAgs 3 98eiino h plazas had little economic justification and would be bad forWHTYF EPR S business - not just downtown but in all the established *Srkn okr aehle oko h obt re olto oto ln n commercial areas. wrsdpti saa But Ed is no longer at the helm and the Board bas lost Ane brdewsisaldothCndanPcfc aiwyasofadnSretn much of its drive. It was more concerned with the dollars Ags 1 they might have to spend to fight the application at the 0MB A91uitwnbuedvop ntnMangRad ilberdyfrcupcyn than with the less-easily defined but ultimately far moreNoebr costly long-term impact of this plaza ...and the next one DoadGMKyisWtbsnedpuycrk ...and the next one ... 2 ER G Someone convinced them that the cost of an 0MB appeal fo h wouldbe aout 7,0 whih ispYobb'ydaire typcazederethtsy u ganctc 2 in6 Lediin Otarothssu mr speca yes an stdiesand xpet inesesaeism storeingwsoprted at tshue north-westh oviniof ibra noiandtion 9th conession special lawyers and studies and expert witnesses are required. But in this case all the expert professional work0Sid ingo was already done by the planning departments of the Town was lredy oneby he laning epatmets f te Twn- Town Council bas proposed that a joint committee study problems in relations between and the Region. These planners were .the expert witnesses that the BIA could have called - the only witnesses they 0 Ontario County bas accepted a tender of $1,350>000 by Milne & Nicholîs of Toronto te would have needed. The cost of the appeal would have been construct a new county administration building on Rossland Road. closer to $500 than to $7,000. - The Town ofWhitby bas created a new staff position of building and plumbing inspector. In the history of OMB appeals in this community, good planning has had a lot more to do with their success than the 100 YEARS AGO amount of money spent. This should have been an easy from the Friday, August 24, 1888 edition of the victory. WHITBY CHRONICLE And so as a result of small-mindedness, Whitby gets - John Derby, who was killed by a Toronto street car, was buried at Myrtle last week. another strip plaza. Where are the politicians who can see * The Port Whitby wbarves are covered witb lumber, shingles, railway tes and telephone farther than the ends of their noses? Where is the Chamber poles te be shipped to the United States and elsewbere. of Commerce and its mandate to serve the business interests Drilling for natural gas is being carried out in Whitby but littie is being found. of the community? Where is the courage of the BIA? Where The Whitby Brass Band presents concerts twice a week on the town streets to raise money are the people who can see and act on the broader interests of tecommunity?