The answer, says the mayor, is for council to ensure good design and a connection to the street.

Astonished that councillors won’t hold the line at their own proposed downtown height limit of 17 storeys, some residents are worried the approval of 421 Brant is paving the way for developers to consistently and successfully push the limits higher.

On Feb. 13, the Ontario Municipal Board ruled against the city in its fight against a 26-storey Adi Development Group tower on Martha Street and Lakeshore Road, across from the waterfront. Adi used the city’s growth strategy to win.

“This is a devastating decision,” says Meed Ward. Adi now becomes the new precedent for heights.

A resident group called the Engaged Citizens of Burlington (ECoB) has now emerged, vowing to fight for a different downtown than envisioned by city politicians.

Group chair Jim Young says there is a lot at stake because all Burlington neighbourhoods will be affected by new rules for tall buildings and overdevelopment.

The fight includes a plan to defeat current councillors in the coming fall election.

Support is coming from across Burlington, including Aldershot, Tyandaga and Alton Village where others also feel “their voice and opinions are ignored by city council and staff,” Young says.

Residents want council to delay its scheduled April approval of the official plan for reasons that include limiting further condo towers. But it is a steep uphill battle. Meed Ward says the new 24-storey proposal across from City Hall is “the inevitable fruit of the decision that council made in November.”

“We have lost control of planning the downtown, and applications ...”

The mayor, however, says postponement of the vote on the new official plan is unlikely.

Goldring also discounts the likelihood that tall towers will go up in all 27 mapped locations, saying places like the Ukrainian Church (on Pearl Street), Village Square (which faces Pearl, Pine and Elizabeth streets) and the Lions Park and its children’s centre (on James Street), will not be redeveloped any time soon.

SO

WHY INCLUDE those lands in the many proposed 17-storey tower zones?

“That’s a good question,” Goldring says. “I don’t have a good answer right now.”

A resident group called the Engaged Citizens of Burlington (ECoB) has now emerged, vowing to fight for a different downtown than envisioned by city politicians.

City planners say a lot has to fall into place first, like land assembly by developers, which is how the 421 and 409 Brant proposals were put together.

Goldring says he believes “new development will fit in well and the impact will be far less than people think.”

“I firmly believe that over time, development downtown will be the appropriate scale.”

That’s not how all residents see it. Worse, some feel ignored despite the many meetings the city held to get public feedback.

Nick Carnicelli, president of Carriage Gate Homes, the developer of 421 Brant, says that’s not the case and that council and staff “work hard to balance all interests.”

“The dialogue, the meetings back and forth, it’s endless. A lot goes in to get a development to the approval stage,” he says.

“The perception the developer goes in and gets everything they want is not fair. I’ve been at this for 30 years and it doesn’t matter (what you propose), a lot of people don’t like to see change.”

“There is so much anger in the community right now.” JOAN LITTLE BURLINGTON RESIDENT

Carnicelli says 421 Brant, at a 30 per cent smaller footprint than originally planned, will dramatically improve Brant Street. Its tall slender tower is the trade-off for looking much nicer at street level, he says.

Joan Little, a Burlington resident, Spectator columnist and one-time city councillor, says she hasn’t seen such sweeping citizen unrest in her 45 years of watching and participating in city affairs.

“There is so much anger in the community right now,” she notes.

In the midst of it is animosity that council made downtown an “urban growth centre” — unlike the Town of Oakville, which pushed intensification away from its downtown.

In Oakville, this “cut down on land speculation ... and ultimately, when the development industry sees your willingness to defend your plan, it’s in their interest to work with you,” says Meed Ward.

Little says there is also considerable confusion at public meetings and she’s never seen such citizen difficulty in following the planning process because staff have made it so convoluted. Residents claim even councillors are having trouble following it.

“It’s a zoo,” says Little. “I don’t even get half the stuff. It’s like spooning fog at these meetings.”

For example, she says, when residents ask questions about how transit and parking tie into plans, the answer is often ‘We’ll get back to you.’

IN JANUARY,

the Engaged Citizens of Burlington led a rally at City Hall before a planning meeting that then stretched into two days and drew 33 delegations, most urging a delay in ratifying the new official plan.

Group member Lisa Kearns told councillors at the time “there has been an outcry of opposition and a sense of a broken trust” since the approval of 421 Brant.

She urged them to reverse the trend with “a good explanation” now for other options.

“We need a complete strategy and we need it before this (official plan) is voted into law.”

However, not everyone opposed the changes. Downtown dweller Linda Davies, who is also a realtor for another Carriage Gate Homes project, says there’s room to grow downtown.

“It’s not like tomorrow we’ll be cheek by jowl.”

There’s always fear of change, she adds, but said the pictures painted are so black — that it will “be a concrete jungle, that there will be a reduced quality of life.”

Davies says: “Let’s not pay attention to height ... as much as a pedestrian-friendly, thriving, energetic place to live.”

Burlington city assistant manager Mary Lou Tanner says staff have made substantial changes to its proposed official plan based on resident feedback.

The tallest buildings will be where people wanted them, she says.

“We identified growth areas where residents felt growth was appropriate and protected areas where they felt it wasn’t.

“We are coming from decades of traditional suburban growth and we are out of that type of land ... that’s a significant change for all of us in the city.”