PelhamToday received the following letter to the editor from a reader in response to the second collapse of a luxury condo building under construction in Welland:
What a lovely, positive statement from the development company, Evertrust Development, building those lovely, luxury, canal-side condos!
Move on, no problem here—we'll be back up and running in no time and get all those pesky repairs completed and then finish the job!
Really?
I wonder what the results may have been if those 'structural failures' had not occurred until after folk were living there. Another rather strange comment from the City's planning staff claimed that inspections were being conducted throughout the entire building process, and that was all? Isn't it a bit concerning that professional building inspectors saw absolutely no indications of such a catastrophic structural failure, and now a second one, and does it absolve them all from any responsibility at all?
I've no doubt that there are many good developers out there, and Evertrust Development may be one of the best, but after such a basic collapse, followed by a second one, isn't there anyone in the development industry, including City planning staff, whose priorities appear to be to support developers at all costs, prepared to admit that this is not just a small issue but could have been a potential life-threatening disaster?
This second collapse, captured on a neighbourhood security camera, certainly looks catastrophic.
Is it really only a small 'blip' in what is a huge and highly costly development?
And with an increasing number of such highly expensive, high-end developments being encouraged across all of Ontario, where are the planners, developers and all their consultants to reassure potential investors that this is one(now a 'two-off') and can never happen again?
Andrew Watts
Wainfleet
