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Have a look at the latest news below:
Annual WHRA Spring Cleanup
Proposed Parkland at 3 Lakeshore
Town's Midtown Vision
We URGENTLY Need Your View on 16 Storey Building
Older news:
Can you put a date to an old photo?
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Annual WHRA Spring Cleanup
SATURDAY, APRIL 26th
Begins @ 9:30 a.m.
1. Rain or shine, meet at the MacDonald’s house (107 Bath Street one house west of Kerr)
2. Gloves and garbage bags are provided (but you may want to bring a rake)
3. Head off to one of our parks and help out
It takes only an hour or two!
4. All are invited back afterwards for coffee and cookies
Come and meet your neighbours!
For more info call Lesley at 905-844-0787
MANY HANDS MAKE LIGHT WORK
Proposed Parkland at 3 Lakeshore
This new park area will provide a safe and inviting link between the downtown street level, and the harbour/creek area below. The Town retained the services of MBTW Landscape Architects to develop a conceptual plan for the property and this was the first opportunity for the public to provide comments on the proposed parkland area.
Town's Midtown Vision
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OAKVILLE REDEVELOPMENT
GO eyes paradise from a parking lot
The GO station's vast paved parking area could become a vibrant work-live community
Feb 11, 2008 04:30 AM
Tess Kalinowski
Transportation Reporter
Today the Oakville GO station's dominant feature is a vast expanse of paved parking.
But Oakville is already moving to transform that land into a vibrant work-live neighbourhood that could attract between 20,000 and 30,000 people to the area south of the QEW near Trafalgar Rd.
The vision for the Midtown Oakville area includes offices, light industry, homes, walking and cycling trails and, at its heart, access to local transit, GO service and bus rapid transit. Oakville is even considering relocating its town hall from the current location north of the QEW.
"The stars, the moon and the planets have all lined up on this," said Oakville Mayor Rob Burton, adding that 13 months of consultations have wrought nothing but praise for the planned development.
"This is absolutely a place that is ripe for land use and transportation," said Joe Berridge, a transportation consultant developing a business plan for Midtown.
He is the same expert who has been working with the province's transportation planning agency, Metrolinx, on a proposal to put mobility hubs across Greater Toronto. In places like Oakville, those hubs could be destinations in themselves, a neighbourhood where people work, live, meet and shop.
"Midtown has all the components of a mobility hub," Berridge told the GO board Friday. "It has the best chance of any of the urban growth centres of getting off to a strong start."
What makes Oakville's GO station so ripe for this kind of development is the vast amount of public land available there, if parking lots are replaced by structures.
GO and the town together own about 12 hectares of land in the area. Some 33 hectares are railway and hydro lands, and there's a parcel belonging to General Electric.
The Midtown development is effectively underway with the advent of GO's third track along the lakeshore and the widening of the QEW underpass, Burton said. He expects many of the homes, workplaces and amenities in the plan to be in place by 2020, with the entire vision realized within 20 years.
It will be a decade before the town outgrows its current civic headquarters, but at that point moving it would be a real possibility. Oakville is expected to grow from its current population of 166,000 to about 230,000 by 2021. "Many of us believe that to support Midtown is to take a position there," said Burton.
Midtown is one of three intensification areas already identified in the existing urban plan and the province's Places to Grow document. At least one or two more will be identified in a new official plan for the town to be released in June, according to Burton.
He's determined that Midtown won't take the "left turn" that occurred in the Uptown area of Dundas St. and Trafalgar Rd. Initially visualized as a vibrant "Manhattan style" streetscape, it became another sprawling big-box development.
The third area designated for intensification is around Dundas St. and Bronte Rd.
If the Midtown development shows signs of success, the Bronte GO station would be an obvious next target for development.
As to costs, Burton says Oakville is still trying to catch up with the current pace of growth in terms of infrastructure and services.
"I'm not the mayor who is going to subsidize growth. Growth is supposed to pay for itself," he said.
Berridge said early signals suggest a successful Midtown development could indeed pay for itself.
We URGENTLY Need Your View on 16 Storey Building
To date, the WHRA has received approximately 160 paper petitions and 11 email submitions to the proposed Moldenhaur project. That number represents about 25% of our community. We need your opinion!
Moldenhaur has presented thier proposal for a 16 storey condominium/commercial building with 14 townhouses (see further down for details on their designs and at the Town's web site).
At issue (among others):
- 16 storey height exceeds the 4 storey zoning
- population density will be greatly increased
- commercial use on the ground floor will create traffic problems
The Town now must consider the proposal and would like input from local residents and others. Specifically, the Town wants to know how you feel about the proposed structure and its intended use, why you feel that way, and what alternatives might you suggest.
Here are some such email letters submitted thus far:
- Bruce and Patti Hone
- Pat & Joe Lewis
- Richard Penkett
- a response from Mayor Rob Burton
- Robert and Virginia McCluskey
- Dawne Rudman
- Carole Gilbert
- Kaethe Looman-Irvine, Len Irvine
- Norm & Nancy Byrne
- Allen Walsh
- Anne Grove
- results from online poll
- and a PDF by Frank and Mary Beth Dunnigan.
Although traditional "snail mail" might carry more weight than other forms of communiction, we would suggest you compose an email ASAP since a deadline is fast approaching. Send copies of your views to:
Regional Councillor Fred Oliver, (foliver@oakville.ca)
Councillor Cathy Duddeck, (cduddeck@oakville.ca)
Mayor Rob Burton, (mayor@oakville.ca)
Planning Dept., Director, (planning@oakville.ca)
West Harbour Residents Association, (petercm@295.ca)
We will try to post responses on this web site.
Alernatively, you could just use the simple online Form below (but please note that, for reasons unknown, this form does not always work - instead, send an email to the addresses given above if possible).
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16 Storey Building
South of Lakeshore
Between Brock and Brant Streets
Moldenhaur has officially announced a 16 storey building is proposed on the block south of Lakeshore where the diner "Me and Joe's" and the mall with Agabi, World of Water, Pet Value, Kukapelli, and other stores are currently located. Two homes to the south of these are also included in the project, with 14 townhouses planned for the southern portion of the project.
We have begun to assemble some information - click here to see some pictures.
Check out Town of Oakville's Website using the search word Brant or Brock for more information. To make it easier, we have copies of the PDFs on subjects such as shadow studies for summer and spring/fall as well as the proposed floorplans.
Should you have some comments on the project, write to us at this address. Put "WHRA" in the subject title to avoid it being filtered and please let us know what you think is more appropriate for the building site.
Recent Events and News
Can you put a date to an old photo?
This old aerial photograph of Oakville was recently submitted (click on it to get a much larger image). Can you put a date to it? 1956 perhaps?
Note that the "new" library hasn't been built yet, there appears to be a railbridge across the creek on Rebecca street, the road doesn't appear paved on Kerr south of Lakeshore. Any other hints/clues?
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