MATCHETTE CONFLICT
West-end road to stay open
City councillors have decided not to close Matchette Road around the Ojibwa Nature Centre, which would have helped protect endangered species from becoming roadkill.
Instead, councillors will wait until the 2018 budget deliberations to decide whether to build an eco bridge or tunnel to allow animals to cross more safely, at a cost of perhaps $100,000 to $200,000.
It was a win for developer Coco Group, which plans to put in a bigbox development just down the street at Matchette and Sprucewood, over the Friends of Ojibwa, a group of environmentally minded people who have been battling the issue for more than a decade.
Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens suggested the threat of a lawsuit was a factor in the decision.
“We know the risk is very significant and to move forward with the closure of Matchette Road at this time would certainly have put the corporation in great legal jeopardy,” Dilkens said after a crowded and sometimes rowdy council meeting Monday night.
“Lawyers always like to hedge their bets and say the chances of winning are 50-50. In this case, I would say the chances of the city losing were probably 99-1.”
Dilkens said a potential lawsuit, which likely would have been filed by Coco and others if a major road along the planned development were to close, would have amounted to tens of millions of dollars.
Council went into a closeddoor meeting to discuss the legal implications before coming back out and quickly voting not to close Matchette.
“City council really wasn’t left with a lot of options,” said Dilkens, adding that even asking for an environmental assessment of closure would risk drawing a lawsuit. “Closing Matchette could be seen as protecting wildlife, but certainly you would have taken your eye off of protecting the taxpayer.”
The Coco Group will now soon start building a roundabout at Matchette and Sprucewood, at its own cost, in advance of the big-box project.
Monday’s meeting was so emotional that Dilkens stood down the issue and left council chambers. The mayor temporarily stopped discussion after a few members of the audience, who wanted the road closed, repeatedly interrupted opposing speakers.
City of Windsor head of security Sebastian Pirrone asked members of the packed house to leave, until city CAO Onorio Colucci came over to say the mayor only wanted to take a break to let people cool down.
After about 15 minutes and a short closed-door discussion, Dilkens and councillors came back and discussion started again.
Greg Goggin, who lives across from the Ojibwa Nature Centre, thinks council made a mistake.
“The decision was terrible,” he said. “It doesn’t seem like the City of Windsor is looking out for its residents’ best interests.
“It seems like it’s looking out for the big-box developers’ interests.”
Goggin said 22 endangered species are at risk, since so many are killed trying to cross Matchette, smack dab in the middle of the Ojibwa nature complex. He doesn’t consider eco tunnels or bridges as good, but doesn’t expect council to spring for those, anyway.
“I don’t think anything is going to happen,” with eco passageways, he said. “Because they don’t really care about animals.”
Matchette Road hosts some 9,800 cars a day in that area. Environmentalists have long wanted to shrink the roadway as a way to protect species in the Ojibwa parks area.
The more natural areas connect to one another, the greater the chance of promoting biodiversity, the environmentalists argue
But an environmental assessment on closing Matchette Road could cost between $150,000 and $250,000.
Coun. Fred Francis took offence at a comment by Save Ojibwa leader Nancy Pancheshan, who suggested the Ward 1 councillor has a conflict of interest because he lives in a home built by the Coco Group near the Ojibwa complex.
After recently hearing about the complaint against him, Francis said he paid for legal advice on the issue and was told he has no conflict of interest.
He also thinks council made the right decision to keep Matchette Road open.
“It was the reasonable thing to do,” he said.
“From a liability standpoint, it really was the only thing we could do.”
The Ontario Municipal Board last year ruled in favour of the Coco Group, which wants to build a 450,000-square-foot big-box development at Matchette Road and Sprucewood Avenue. The City of Windsor had previously approved the project.
Coco had argued during the hearings that it doesn’t expect much traffic from Matchette Road for its development, though groups such as Save Ojibwa argued the opposite.
Environmentalists want Matchette Road closed somewhere between the Ojibwa Nature Centre and Sprucewood to stop through traffic.