Council should side with public on parking issue

To the Editor

As Joni Mitchell’s 1970 hit song so aptly put it: “Don’t it always seem to go/That you don’t know what you’ve got ‘till it’s gone/They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.” That seems a very apt description of what is happening in Elmira.

The proposed expansion of the semi-truck parking lot at the north end of Elmira will do exactly that. The proposed expansion of the previous salvage yard to allow for 115 semitrucks will destroy the wild area just north of Bolender Park, south of the Kissing Bridge Trail, and just west of the residential area on High Street. Hundreds of mature trees, bushes, flowers, and the natural habitat for many small animals/birds will be bulldozed and covered with gravel to enable more trucks to park there. Not to mention that it will be on top of a landfill that actively produces methane gas.

It doesn’t seem to matter that more than 1,500 people signed a petition expressing their opposition to the parking lot. One man from Toronto and one man on the staff of Woolwich Township have decided that a parking lot needs to go in that location no matter what the residents want.

Elmira already has several truck parking lots. Just count them as you drive down Union Street. There is also one on Oriole Street between Arthur Street and Union as well as a large one on Southfield Drive between Arthur and Union. With more than

450 heavy trucks going through the intersection of Arthur and Church streets every day, what does it matter if they add another hundred or so? Will more heavy trucks add to the destruction of our roads/ streets and increase taxes for repairs?

The study that your tax dollars paid for that has been presented to council pretty much discounts all objections, which include: health issues due to increased exposure to diesel gas fumes i.e., cancer, heart, lung issues, more dust, destruction of hundreds of mature trees, more noise, more lights and all less than a block from a residential area, next to a popular trail and bordering Bolender Park. Will the leaking oil and gas produce toxic drainage into the creek which runs along the parking area?

The report says: that there won’t be that many diesel fumes; even though it will be trucks driving on gravel there won’t be much dust; and the noise won’t be a problem because the trucks will only be going in and out. It continues that the mature trees that will be destroyed are old and some are not native anyway, plus saplings will be planted on a one-toone basis to replace the mature trees cut down. It doesn’t mention where they will be planted, who will purchase and plant and take care of them and how many will not survive the transplanting or the decades it will take for them to grow to the same size as the ones being torn down.

The lights on tall poles for the parking lot won’t lower the quality of life for the residents because there will be a 10-foot metal fence erected, where there used to be trees, to block the residents’ view.

The lot won’t bother the Bolender Park visitors since the company will leave a few trees between the parking lot and the park and the same for the Kissing Bridge Trail. And, of course, who can determine how any of this will affect the property value of the homes adjacent to the proposed parking lot? Residents should not worry about that.

Oh, and the small animals/birds that currently live in the area will just have to die or find another location, such as the homes nearby, in which to nest. Additionally, the methane gas produced by the landfill that will be covered by gravel won’t be a problem. Of course, now the trees and shrubs are helping to filter the gas as it rises vertically, but with gravel and trucks covering the area, a lot of that gas will have to go horizontally into the park, the trail, and the residential area to find the way out of the landfill.

We all know that once a zone has been changed, it is not just for the new owner but stays with the land, so in the future if someone else buys the land they can pretty much do what they want with it.

As David Brenneman, chief administrative officer of Woolwich Township stated in a meeting on January 10, “Residents have a right to enjoy their property”. I couldn’t agree more with Mr. Brenneman.

More than 1,500 people signed a petition that was delivered to the council stating that they opposed the addition of a heavy truck parking lot next to Bolender Park. Let’s hope that with the odds of 1,500-2, we might stand a chance of preventing another heavy truck parking lot from coming to Elmira.

Dan Holt

ELMIRA