HOW GOOD IS THE GOOD NEWS ON THE FORESHORE?

The Toronto community has welcomed the recent news that Lake Macquarie City Council will place a modest café on the waterfront at Bath Street site and not a six-storey apartment tower.

On the surface the community’s two-year campaign to preserve the public foreshore for recreational use looks to have been successful, however, community unease still exists that Council is not following up with all of its previous decisions to protect this key piece of public waterfront for future generations.

The concern is that the ‘operational’ land of the proposed café and car park could still be sold off to a developer and, under the current zoning, be built upon at higher density.

Council’s resolution of September 2019 to defer further work on the large commercial development at Bath Street also included the integration of this site into the Toronto Foreshore Masterplan and initiating a process to reclassify the site as ‘community’ land.

Unfortunately, the community is still in the dark over Council’s implementation of the other aspects of last year’s resolution, still waiting almost 12 months later! 

In the past few years Council has reclassified numerous ‘Community land’ holdings around Toronto to ‘Operational land’, allowing the lots to be commercially developed or sold. It would be equitable for the Toronto region to regain some public land by reclassifying the Bath St site to ‘Community land’ for future generations .

TFPG and community leaders want Council to respond to the urgent need to provide more and not less recreational parkland for our rapidly growing population. The COVID crisis has brought even more awareness of the need for open-air public recreation.

TFPG is advocating for the Bath Street and adjacent ‘operational’ land to be reclassified and rezoned as ‘community’ land in perpetuity. Community classification does not preclude a long-term lease of compliant businesses such as café, information centre or equipment hire.

TFPG are encouraging the community to respond to the Council's online survey and include a comment about the importance of permanent protection of all the public foreshore as ‘Community land’.

Council’s very brief online survey https://shape.lakemac.com.au/future-toronto is providing an opportunity for the community to say what features they would like to see included on the Bath Street parkland. The survey is open till Monday 24 August.

Make your comment count.

How would you like your Foreshore/Pool?

“How hard is it for a local council to give the public what it wants?” asked Samantha Hutchinson in her CBD column in the Sydney Morning Herald of 4 June 2020. “Near impossible” was the answer.

No she wasn’t referring to Lake Macquarie City Council but to Georges River Council in southern Sydney which is working through a planning process to upgrade a local pool.

Georges River Council began by shutting down the Kogarah War Memorial Pool before the new pool had even been designed. Then in May 2020 councillors decided to build the new pool at nearby Todd Park.

Yet a planning report obtained by Ms Hutchinson revealed that “almost three-quarters of residents who made submissions asked for it to stay in its original location”.

Nevertheless, the new pool will have a water slide. Residents were asked for their thoughts on a water slide: “How many said yes? Less than 1%”.

Now Georges River is a long way from Lake Macquarie so it may be hard to see the relevance to Toronto.

But, in the ongoing saga of Council’s proposed high-rise building for the Toronto Foreshore, the community has long argued for the Bath Street site to be integrated with the foreshore parkland with improved recreational amenities.

So Council’s recent response to the question of “Why was the community not asked to provide input into which scenarios were chosen for the ‘Sustainability Review” is perplexing:

“SGS Economics are a specialist consultancy firm that were engaged as a sub-consultant… SGS methodology sought to remove as much subjectivity from the process as possible and provide Councillors with an independent analysis of the site with respect to the potential uses. The ideology behind the different potential uses is not to identify specifically what the future use will be, but rather to compare a number of different scales of use, hence why their analysis ranges from a “Do Nothing” approach right through to a “Precinct Plan”.

The scenarios being examined by the consultant are: 

1) do nothing 

2) open space, park 

3) park with cafe 

4) compliant development for community purposes 

5) 4-6 storey residential development with commercial space 

6) as for (5) but with serviced apartments, and 

7) as for (5) and (6) but with a Precinct Plan.

Even after Council had in September 2019 walked away from endorsing a proposed Precinct Plan and unanimously voted to defer further work on the proposed mixed use apartment building, we now have a consultant being paid to examine a Precinct Plan and high-rise residential and serviced apartment buildings as part of a series of ‘scalable options’!

The community has provided many suggestions for the future use of the Bath Street site, but we are not being consulted because that would be ‘subjective’. Meanwhile Council staff and the consultants are happily playing ducks and drakes with several options that the community has already rejected.

In August 2019 Mayor Fraser assured a packed public gallery that she had “listened to the community” and that any decision “will not be without proper consultation with the community and lengthy discussion about what the community wants“. Perhaps Council staff need to be reminded of this?

Westlakes ratepayers know how it feels to be shut out of decision-making that directly affects them.

At least the Georges River community was allowed to comment, even if the comments were then ignored.

The Westlakes community still has not been given any say on the future use of the Bath Street site !

Perhaps it’s time we spoke with Ms Hutchinson and the Sydney Morning Herald. They may better be able to find out what has happened to the Foreshore Master Plan and who is so determined to resurrect the high-rise apartment tower.

What do you want to see on the Toronto foreshore?

The Toronto Foreshore Masterplan community consultation finishes on Monday 24th September.

This is an important opportunity to contribute to the future of the Foreshore and also the Bath St site. Council will be using the comments to inform their decision making, reflecting what the community wants... and there are some interesting comments on the site.

Even though 500 people physically attended a community meeting indicating the preference for community parkland, the flavour and likes of some comments on the Bath St area of the Toronto Foreshore Masterplan is that development is preferred.

Please consider contributing to the process and making a comment. Get help at the library if you need computer support. When making comments ensure they are unequivocal.

Make a comment on the TFM by 24/9/18. https://shape.lakemac.com.au/future-toronto