Wow! Did I get my wrist soundly slapped!
I was intrigued by Rainer Hummel (of Hummel Properties) and his all-out attack on every comment I have made about developers, planners, even elected councils, on their increasing attacks on communities who have generational connections, more recent members, who have found that same community a place they have discovered, and chosen, as a place they freely chose to live in, warts and all, because they like it as it is, just as it is.
I’m not sure that is yet illegal, is it?
Yet with his support for the Ford government, and its Bill 23, Rainer Hummel apparently believes that, just like Ford, any residents questioning these planning decisions are merely NIMBYs and are not even to be allowed to question what developers plan for their communities! So, Ford’s legislation is for purely altruistic reasons acceptable in a democratic society, whilst anyone whose home is threatened and expresses concern about it are criminals in all but name?
Just to set the record straight in my opinions that have been published, I have always accepted developers as the group with just one single aim: to make a profit, nothing more. They are not charitable institutions, why should they be? I’m not sure they are the knights in shining amour that Rainer claims, only interested in promoting good and beneficial planning for society and, particularly, “affordable housing”?
There are very few, and very isolated successes, with developers in Niagara embracing affordable housing projects. Increasingly we see reports of affordable housing projects failing, and even being cancelled, because the promised support of developers has been withdrawn because they can no longer afford to. Again, I don’t blame developers completely—I just wish they would be honest enough to admit they need to make a profit to survive.
I guess it should be nice to know that it is not the property owners and resident taxpayers in a municipality who employ and pay for their planning staff, but actually the municipality’s development charges, taken from developers, that actually pay for them, so, I guess, developers actually employ them? I did not know that.
Silly me! I believed that in our democratic society we elect municipal councils who, once elected, will impartially represent the wishes of all the residents of the community they take an oath of office to serve.
As a part of that commitment, they hire staff at every level in their municipality, on behalf of their residents, to serve and protect the best interests of their community. Seems pretty simple to me.
I wonder if Rainer has been watching the varied stories about the current budget discussions being held in Niagara’s municipalities for the 2023 budgets? The capital budget side is economically scary, but quite straightforward, just what projects and services any municipality can afford to carry forward and agree the funding and tax dollars to support them.
A far bigger problem is an operational budget in every municipality in Niagara, and which totally ignore what the ordinary citizens have been subjected to economically, since the onset of Covid.
This is to approve the amount we, the taxpayer, will have to pay to support the salaries, wages and benefits of all our town hall staff who, so far, have been totally protected from the negative effects of Covid that an overwhelming majority of us residents have had to accept.
I guess if Rainer Hummel is prepared to commit to covering the costs of all 12 planning staffs, in all 12 municipalities in Niagara, for the upcoming budget year, I might have to reconsider my opinions.
I have been a professional mariner my entire life. I know what being a professional is all about.
To describe planners as to be so professional that they somehow are above any criticism is so ridiculous it is beyond credible belief in this world we live in. I wish I could see myself as so insulated from the real world most of us live in.
Think democracy, then think of this.
A committee of adjustment (CoA), appointed by an elected council to adjudicate applications on behalf of that council, was convened to a hearing regarding minor variances with regard to a proposed development application. After due deliberation the CoA chose to reject the application recommended by their planner. In their opinion, based on existing planning policies, it did not fit those policies.
The developer chose to submit an appeal to the Ontario Land Tribunal. That OLT hearing was last week.
The council and planner supported the developer’s appeal, although its unlikely that any member of council turned up. The Township planner, whose recommendation was rejected by the CoA, appeared to support the appeal along with consultants and expert witnesses, all financed by the taxpayer.
The members of the CoA, appointed by council to act on their behalf and who chose to reject those five minor variance applications, were not even invited to attend the OLT hearing to explain their decision.
They could have applied to attend, but it would have been only as residents, not as members of a Committee of Adjustment appointed by the elected council to make decisions on their behalf. They would have been there as residents, nothing more, and their submissions totally ignored by the OLT unless the developer chose to seek damages from them. The Township planner would have probably supported this.
Please, Mr. Hummel, don’t believe your chosen narrative, that all development is good and that this somehow absolves you, as a developer, and the city and town hall planners who support you, of any responsibility for the destruction of multi-generational neighborhoods and communities who have only ever wanted to protect their own community identity.
Before you choose to rebut this—something I have no problem with— I would like the answer to a couple of questions.
I have no real problem with the argument that past development policies have never kept up with future demand but I wonder just who will be paying, upfront, for all these developments we are told have to be built at whatever cost in the next decades?
Can you offer a single substantiated and economical argument that proves that all these many necessary millions of homes are actually necessary? Or, more important, that anyone who buys them will be able to buy them without being subsidized by the taxpayer?
I don’t have a support staff to do any research. I’m just an 80-year-old retiree, finding it increasingly difficult to understand how those I chose to elect, and the staff they choose to employ to represent my best interests, couldn’t really care less.
With all due respect, Mr. Hummel, you are the last person I could imagine who has a clue about the concerns of ordinary citizens and taxpayers who ensure you and your company’s profits continue to rise.
Andrew Watts
Wainfleet
