When members of St. Catharines` Green Committee wanted to bump up the green on a stretch of recently repaved road, they got some extra help because of the street`s shady past.
The original trees along Glenridge Avenue between the CNR tracks and the base of the Niagara Escarpment had been donated in 1967 by Canada Trust as one of the company`s centennial projects, said Peter Howes, a member of the Green Committee.
Joe Kovacs, a former Canada Trust employee, and Howes` neighbour, knew about the Green Committee`s planned replanting and knew about his former employer`s original involvement.
The Liberals have a new star Member of Parliament from the Greater Toronto Area.
They are unlikely, however, to be pleased with their overall performance in the GTA, where they surrendered several seats in the 905 region and struggled to retain others they won by large margins in 2006.
1008WIND Town council stunned by $21M cost of rebuild
LAKESHORE - Town council was stunned to learn Tuesday it will now cost $21 million to rebuild its Belle River pollution control plant after an earlier botched expansion cost $11 million -- money now conceded to have been almost entirely wasted on a poor design.
In a 4-3 vote, council accepted a tender for $17.7 million from Kingdom Construction Ltd. to rebuild the plant -- a figure almost $6.4 million higher than the estimate of $11.3 million to rebuild the plant just two years ago.
Engineering will also increase from the $1.7 million estimated in 2006 to about $3.2 million.
1008OTWA Developer launches lawsuit due to landslide risk
A developer is naming multiple defendants, including the City of Gatineau, in a $2.8-million lawsuit that alleges the firm can`t dispose of land affected by a serious landslide risk.
Lawyer Jean Faullem said his client, Les Enterprises Berard, is unable to sell 30 properties around Lafrance St. because of the unstable land. Faullem said the company has been able to sell 21 nearby properties that aren`t affected by the landslide risk, but "everything else is causing a problem" because of a moratorium on construction in the area.
1008HAMN Worst-case property tax hike`s 9.3 per cent
Hamilton property tax payers are looking at a potential increase of 9.3 per cent next year unless city officials can cut costs and the province helps out.
While finance commissioner Joe Rinaldo is starting with that number, he says he and other department heads know it`s unacceptable.
1008HAMN Council eyes licences for all rental housing
Hamilton city council wants to license rental housing citywide, not just in the three neighbourhoods with lots of student housing.
Councillors voted yesterday to endorse citywide licensing, while also letting staff proceed with a community consultation process on licensing in the Ainslie Wood-Westdale area around McMaster University as well as neighbourhoods near Mohawk College`s Fennell and Stoney Creek campuses.
1008HAMN Local rapid transit not on track till at least 2012
Regional transportation agency Metrolinx gave Hamilton a reality check yesterday, suggesting planning won`t even begin for local rapid transit until 2012 or 2013.
Hamilton city staff -- confident that the city has a good case for light rapid transit -- had hoped for shovels in the ground by 2011.
1008DURH Council eyeing four per cent tax increase
The average Durham homeowner might get a bit of a break when it comes time to hike taxes for the 2009 regional budget, as councillors voted to reduce the property tax guideline to four per cent. Region staff had originally proposed a 4.9-per-cent guideline to the Region`s various departments to use in creating their budgets. The rate would mean an additional $94 in taxes on a home valued at $280,000. The drop to four per cent would mean savings of $18 for the same home.
OSHAWA -- Ed Cooper spends a lot of time sitting on his front porch.
The Athol Street resident has filled the space with wicker furniture, candles and potted plants to create something of an urban oasis, the perfect spot to kick back with a cup of tea and watch the world go by.
But the view isn`t always ideal. Police cars and ambulances are a regular sight, as are cars parked on front lawns, drunken shouting, fights and swearing.
1008TNTO Permits proposed to curb renovation hassles
Helaine Becker came home from a trip a few years ago to find a neighbour doing a major renovation had built a construction fence down the middle of her driveway.
"They had the fence for nine months. They damaged our car, they flooded our basement and we never did receive any compensation for the damage," Becker said in an interview at City Hall.
Her family would have had to take the neighbours to court, she said; that would have been time-consuming, costly and stressful.
Lawyers for a major developer say the law firm that helped Innisfil residents battle a huge development on Lake Simcoe acted unreasonably, frivolously and vexatiously in dragging out a three-month hearing at the Ontario Municipal Board.
The accusations came on the second day of a hearing to determine whether the protesting residents – who lost their fight to kill the project – and their lawyers, Gilberts LLP, will have to pay legal fees the developer incurred in last year`s legal battle: a whopping $3.2 million.
Canadian resale home prices continued to slide last month, with the average home 6.2 per cent cheaper than it was last year.
The average price was $315,461 in September, compared with $336,321 a year ago, according to figures released yesterday by the Canadian Real Estate Association.
"Price declines appear to be broadening as well as deepening nationally," Merrill Lynch economist David Wolf said in an economic note. "We remain of the view that Canada`s housing market is unlikely to collapse in the same way that we`ve seen in the U.S. and the U.K., but that it is likely to continue to trend weaker than the consensus believes and that the risk of an outright bust cannot be dismissed."
TORONTO -- Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty is promising no new fees or taxes when the province delivers its economic statement next Wednesday, saying the current economic turmoil makes it the wrong time to impose new expenses on hard-working families. "I know families would not be looking forward to undue expenditures imposed upon them by any level of government," McGuinty said in the legislature under opposition questioning yesterday.
1008CATH Fort Erie doctors table local hospital plan
Fort Erie`s Douglas Memorial Hospital isn`t the drain on the Niagara Health System some have made it out to be.
But it could be the "valve" that takes the pressure off larger acute-care hospitals, including Greater Niagara General, a group of senior doctors fighting to save Douglas Memorial from service cuts say.
"You have to use the system as a whole," Dr. Patricia Teal, the hospital`s chief of surgery, said Wednesday during a news conference.
Homeowners in Toronto`s trendiest neighbourhoods could be in for a nasty shock when they open the mail in the coming days as the first property-value assessment hikes in three years are sent out.
The average jump will be 5.4% across the city of Toronto, but under the law assessments in some areas will decrease to offset larger increases elsewhere.
A "bizarre" request from city staff is concerning trustees who are anxious to get a new elementary school built in Orillia.
A few weeks ago, city staff asked Simcoe County District School Board staff for traffic and crossing guard surveys before approving the site plan for a new school to be built at the Lions Oval.
The site plan is all that`s preventing construction from beginning -- unless the board gets a conditional building permit.
Brad Parkes, supervisor of design and construction, said only once in the two decades he`s been with the board has there been a request for a traffic survey -- but never one for a crossing guard survey.
1008OTWA Developer sues Gatineau, others, after landslide
A developer that planned to build up to 50 houses in a neighbourhood where six families were forced to relocate because of the risk of a landslide is suing the City of Gatineau and three other defendants because the company says it will never be able to sell the houses.
Six homes on Lafrance Street were evacuated in April after a crack developed in a hillside behind the buildings, posing the risk of a landslide. The area is layered with unstable leda clay that loosened after last winter`s heavy snow.
1008OTWA Bus capacity to increase, but so will fares
OC Transpo officials are planning to increase the transit system`s capacity by 5.7 per cent next year to try to keep up with growing demand -- and to help justify higher fares.
At a presentation yesterday to city council`s transit committee on the city-owned company`s 2009 plans, Transpo director Alain Mercier said demand this year is consistently up five per cent or more over last year. In September, ridership was up 7.7 per cent from the year before.
Metrolinx chairman Rob MacIsaac says Hamilton has made a great pitch for funding for rapid transit but "that`s different than being ready to go."
At a Spectator editorial board meeting on Tuesday, he pointed to York Region as an example of being ready. He said the first projects to be funded in the Metrolinx budget are likely Toronto projects.
City staff are scrambling to find out how much the municipality would be on the hook for to cover hoped-for rapid transit plans, if the province won`t pay the full capital costs.
The city has been planning based on the premise that the capital for an estimated $1.1-billion worth of rapid transit lines -- one east-west, and one north-south -- would appear in the first five years of the Metrolinx budget.
