Reduce Reuse Recycle

Last Call at the Gladstone Hotel

http://www.thestar.com/Unassigned/article/204493

Sounds like a wicked documentary. I wish I can see it sometime after exams are done.

Not far from the hotel will be the Bohemian Embassy, the development that's heavily protested by the local artisan community.

Isn't it just history repeating? The sans-art Gladstone neighbourhood was once gentrified by the influx of artists community. Now the neighbourhood will face another round of gentrification. Maybe it's karma. maybe it's just the natural cycle that any neighbourhood tends to go through.

So much for community activism in the name of public interest. Who is the public afterall? Underneath all the planning arguments against the 18storey yuppy development is still the same NIMBYism attitude towards any changes. How can you so righteously argue against changes when you yourself brought changes? How do we ascertain that any changes brought on by the development must be negative? Now who's a hypocrite here?

Perhaps I'm a bit harsh on the neighbourhood groups. I am only using one as an example. What I wish to address is our apparent gaps in our ideology when it comes to community planning. On one hand we strive to "revive" neighbourhood without specifying what that really means. On the other we seem petrified at the idea of gentrification without knowing what it really looks like either. What makes some changes a valid revival and others gentrification? Every act of "revival" will involve displacement of some members of the neighbourhood. So why is it okay when gladstone long term patrons were evicted but not okay if some artists risk getting displaced? How do we balance one social group against another? I suspect going to the city's planning documents will not produce consensus. Pointing fingers at provincial agency as a source of your own indecision will not achieve consensus either.

Inherent in our efforts to eliminate poverty are efforts that will resemble gentrification to some extent. Arguing against the magnitude of such changes is probably reasonable than arguing against the type of change. A group of artists and a couple of developers may not be that different in their impact to the neighbourhood. Why don't we focus on the kind of changes that would sustain the neighbourhood instead of typecasting a project by its labels rather than its merits? Otherwise, the kind of progressive changes may be prevented and the neighbourhood could simply spiral downwards in its natural cycle. In other words, planning is entitled to regulate use but not the users. It's purely beyond your authority to dictate who can be in your neighbourhood. Here, you have community wanting the city to ban the development because the proposed users would be too rich for their taste. In most cases, cities usually try to act beyond their power by prohibitng body rub parlours or porn shops to keep out unwanted porno freaks. In both cases, the city would be ultra vires or without power to do so.

One word of advice: work on your planning instruments. They may not be the law, but they yield wide impact. An official plan that uses wide-sweeping terms with no consensus on its true definition will produce planning conflicts, with or without the OMB. Eliminating the OMB is merely asking for provincial downloading for more responsibilities. If you think eliminating the OMB will give you more discretion then you have now, then you're wrong. Abolishing a middle man will not expand the scope of municipal power. The City of Toronto Act merely confers power to the city to create a parallel agency to the OMB. It doens't allow you to have the final say on planning projects (although you can always try to hide your true motive - until someone finds out and challenge you in court).

posted by Tiff @ 12:08 AM