The Partridge file - the Frink saga continues
Just as we thought the frink saga has ended local Lawyer Martin Partidge has filed an appeal to the Minister of the Environment of Ontario. He claims that an environmental assessment of the project is neccessary as exemptions are granted to projects that cost less that $1.5 million. The Frink has cost, Martin claims, at least $5 million so far and rising. The documents that he uses to explain the reasoning are here. Check them out there are 28 pages of tightly packed reasonings and Martin is asking the Minister to examine every one of them.
The argument is simple - what is the project? Is it the concrete pad or is it the whole amount of money needed to build the infrastructure for the pad and the monies used to fund the stages of the project and more importantly is it the original cost of the land and its reclamation. One little project ;or many little parts of a big project?
The Town's reaction has been one of dismissal, just as it has been all the way along this project's path. My way or the highway!
The argument is simple - what is the project? Is it the concrete pad or is it the whole amount of money needed to build the infrastructure for the pad and the monies used to fund the stages of the project and more importantly is it the original cost of the land and its reclamation. One little project ;or many little parts of a big project?
The Town's reaction has been one of dismissal, just as it has been all the way along this project's path. My way or the highway!
2 comments:
I would like to clarify that the threshold for exemption from environmental assessment is $3.5M, not $1.5M.
Aside from that, you've got it right. It's all in how you define a "project". Steve Robinson says the "project" will cost $1.5M, yet when the Mayor requested funding from the province two years ago, his letter said that the Town had already spent $2.5M. With $1.5M more just for the upcoming frink, the total must be at least $4M.
Then there's $170,000 or so for the Albert Street culvert and a gazillion more for the other ancient culverts and, oh yes, the $500,000 for diverting Midland Creek a while ago.
I believe that the Environmental Assessment Act is written so as to prevent municipalities from breaking up projects arbitrarily to duck under the threshold.
It seems from the documentation that Martin has assembled that in 1997 there was a clear decision by the council (under Mayor Chalovich) to create a park and landscped area north of the harbour. Even then the cost of purchasing the land and making the changes was high, but perhaps not high enough to involve an environmental assessment at that time. Subsequently the town bought and remediated the Diversy site and connected it to the other waterfront lands. Diversion of the Creek appears to be an integral part of the park creation, but the town has cleverly never connected them from a financial and authorisation perspective. The Frink was the last staw, expecially as it was destroying the previous phases of the Diversy portion of the Park.
Perhaps this is why the Mayor was so adamant that he wouldn't even have a public meeting to discuss the Frink. Did some of the politicians and/or the town staff realize even then that if they held a public meeting it would be forced to discuss the entire waterfront renewal, and did they realize that this would put them in hot ( or murky) water?
The provincial laws about environmental assesment and project approval are not designed to allow to five small projects instead of authorizing one large one, although civil servants who put together regulations have always been the most adept at finding loopholes.
We owe a debt of gratitude to Martin Partridge for putting all the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle together, but unfortunately we cannaot expect that the Mayor will be co-operative in allowing any public discussion of the Frink or the entire project of which is jsut a small part. We can expect that he will continue to rant and rave and threaten the council members into submission.
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