City vows to protect park space from potential development
Pointe-Claire citizens and members of city council, including Mayor John Belvedere, gathered at a snowy soccer field on John Fisher Ave. in a show of solidarity, Sunday.
The field just north of Lindsay Place High School is poised to become a permanent green space.
“It’s a win-win situation,” Jenny Gomes Farrugia said. Farrugia administers Pointe-Claire-centric Facebook pages Citoyens pour un meilleur Pointe-Claire and Walton Development Awareness Group. She has been one of a number of strong voices asking council to clarify decisions when it comes to studying potential development projects.
In the city’s 2010 master urban plan, the soccer park was flagged as an infill site, which means there was a chance it could become a residential development. Belvedere said that he and council asked for a list of infill sites following the municipal elections, just over one year ago. They wanted to take a closer look at each site.
“A study showed us that moving the soccer field to another location would be expensive and that the installation of infrastructure (for a residential development) would be very expensive, so chances of it ever being developed were slim,” he said. “So I went to the director general and said ‘let’s make this official.’”
Belvedere said the draft bylaw protecting the park as a green space will be discussed at the Dec. 4 council meeting and that the decision to save the park was the result of co-operation between the city, council and citizens.
“We got it off the table,” Belvedere said. “No more uncertainty. We want to protect our green spaces.”
Concern that the green space would be gobbled up by another condo or townhouse development spiked in June after the park was listed in a draft bylaw amendment concerning the exclusion of what is called a “communal commodity room” when calculating the height of a residential building.
“It was the citizens who brought (the John Fisher soccer park situation) to council and said its status needed to be changed,” Farrugia said.
Council continues to be roundly questioned about the development of infill sites. Following heated debates about the future of the nowclosed Pioneer bar and restaurant in the Pointe-Claire Village and a derelict strip mall on Walton Ave., council has put a temporary hold on any proposals for new infill projects. The future of projects that were already underway at one level or another, including Walton and the Pioneer, continues to concern Farrugia and other citizen advocates, including council meeting regular Susan Weaver.
Weaver was upbeat about the soccer park decision.
“Of course, I was pleased, but also somewhat surprised because I thought that the (master plan) was set in stone,” Weaver said. “It just goes to show that zoning regulations can easily be changed when citizens speak up (about) what they want for their city. Elected officials listened and showed the will to change the bylaw.”