The Southwestern Regional Centre is still slated for closure in March 2009, according to the Ontario Ministry of Community and Social Services.
Recent media reports suggested the facility, located in Dealtown, could close as early as this September. However, Erika Botond, ministry spokeswoman, told The Chatham Daily News on Thursday the original plan stands.
"We`re still moving towards our March 31st date," she said.
Over the past several years, most of the facility`s residents have been moved to group homes within the community.
Chatham-Kent residents are spending a bigger portion of their paycheques on housing than they were at the beginning of the decade.
The median cost of housing in Chatham-Kent was $7,922 a year -- or $660 a month -- in 2006, Statistics Canada reported Wednesday in a new report on shelter costs across the country. That means the average household in Chatham-Kent spent 17.2 per cent of its income on housing and shelter costs in 2006. The previous census data from 2001 indicated households in Chatham-Kent spent 16.3 per cent of their income on housing costs.
City engineer David Shantz hopes the contractor working on new Wellington Street sewers can find a quieter fan for its air exchanger.
That`s because the noisy contraption that`s now providing fresh air to workers in a tunnel below the road will likely be running until well into October.
"We`ve got a long summer ahead," Shantz said.
He was responding to questions from Ward 5 Coun. Mark Dzugan, who raised the issue during Tuesday night`s council meeting.
Proposed residential sprinkler bill moves closer to reality
BRAMPTON - Proposed legislation introduced by a local provincial politician to reduce house fire deaths and damage passed another hurdle at Queen`s Park.
Bill 72, the Municipal Residential Sprinkler Act, authored and introduced by Brampton-Springdale MPP Linda Jeffrey, received Second Reading in the Legislature May 29.
A temporary solution may soon be reached regarding Orangeville`s pending parking crisis.
The fruit of negotiations between Mayor Rob Adams and Forecast Inc. will be presented to council in a closed session Monday evening.
Forecast is currently suing the town and others over the ownership of 86 to 90 Broadway; town officials announced the purchase of that property last August — to be used for free public parking — but the developer claims it had already signed a purchase agreement.
"It`s an unfortunate circumstance ... but I think everybody is trying to work toward a solution," says Todd Lisso, Forecast president.
London has become a national poster child for crumbling municipal public works.
Last fall`s road sinkhole at Dundas and Wellington streets, which cost taxpayers $1.1 million, has made the cover of Forum, Canada`s national municipal affairs magazine.
"I would prefer it did not happen, but the reality is it is happening everywhere," Mayor Ann Marie DeCicco-Best said yesterday. "Other communities have had bridges collapsing. This issue must be addressed."
Spectacular blaze destroys historic Welland building
A 99-year-old Welland building once home to a seed company was razed after a fire ripped through the structure Sunday night.
Concerned about the potential for explosion, Niagara Regional Police cordoned off an area far from the Victoria Street building because propane and acetylene tanks were reported to be inside.
It was also believed a padlocked cube van parked behind the building had a full tank of gasoline.
Small explosions could be heard as firefighters battled the blaze that required volunteer firefighters to be called in to help.
Hundreds of people watched from nearby street corners as huge plumes of smoke towered above the building.
To turn around an old call to action, now is the time for all good parties to come to the aid of the long-running Six Nations land claims negotiations.
More to the point, it`s time to give the ongoing talks more relevance by training a stronger focus on those claims in the Haldimand Tract that currently are home to the greatest areas of conflict.
Right now, the focus of discussions in that meeting place in the Oneida business park at Six Nations seems to be mainly on the latest offer the federal government put forward about five months ago to settle a claim over the flooding of land for the Welland Canal in the 1820s.
They tore down a parking lot and put up a paradise.
That`s how town crier Dave McKee described Harmony Square, the exciting new attraction that brought thousands to the downtown for its official opening on the weekend.
Harmony Square sits on land that was once the home of a parking lot and a couple of dilapidated buildings. "For some reason I was thinking of Joni Mitchell the other day," McKee said. "I think I was reading something about her and that line from her song about paving paradise and putting up a parking lot kept going through my head.
"Then it came to me. We tore up a parking lot and put up a paradise."
Calling it paradise may be a bit of an overstatement.
Final council approval expected for $1.3-million Grey Street extension
The city finally is getting ready to proceed with construction of the Grey Street extension.
Councillors endorsed a staff recommendation in committee of the whole this week to proceed with the $1.3-million construction of Grey`s missing link between Rowanwood Avenue and James Avenue.
SHARED COST
The cost will be shared with Brant Star Development, which owns property where the link will run. The city`s share is $775,000 for 570 metres of the stretch, while Brant Star`s share is $350,000 for 160 metres.
While Simcoe County`s new growth plan has some municipalities fighting for more jobs, New Tecumseth is more concerned with having places for workers to live.
New Tecumseth Deputy-mayor Rick Milne said it would be nice if more employees at the Honda plant, for example, lived in and around Alliston and contributed more to the town`s volunteer base.
"For the most part, Honda`s workforce from New Tecumseth is less than five per cent," he said, adding some plant employees come from as far as away as Owen Sound and Huntsville and rent apartments in town during the week.
"Renting a house here during the week, that`s not a healthy family life," Milne said, not to mention the long commutes.
It will be trees – and not subdivisions – that ultimately put some of the Toronto area`s final farmers out of business.
Two powerful ideas of our time, land conservation and the local food movement, appear pitted against each other after a decision made last Friday.
The Rouge Park Alliance approved a seven-year rehabilitation plan for the park, which includes the Toronto Zoo and protects a large portion of the GTA`s rare green space. Under the plan, about 700 hectares of land, most of it in Markham and Scarborough, will be converted from farmland and struggling natural area to lush forest and meadow. The rehabilitation is due to begin next year.
Ontario needs to take a more proactive approach with new vehicle technologies if it hopes to stay competitive and keep jobs in the province.
That`s the advice of Greg Rohrauer, the head of GM of Canada`s Centre of Excellence, the country`s only automotive engineering school.
Rohrauer, a professor of engineering at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, is convinced that energy-efficient vehicles that are fully or partially powered by electricity from the grid is where the market is heading.
Staging your home for sale is all well and good. But living in a staged home is a whole other matter.
In Thursday`s Homes & Condos section, I shared my experience undertaking my own DIY fluff job, which I thought was pretty darn good, until certified Canadian staging professional Tara Savelle, owner, Home On Display (homeon display.ca), breezed through and gently but firmly told me otherwise.
I asked Savelle to grade my efforts, thinking that my husband, Robert, and I represent the average homeowner: whatever we can do, you can do.
Provincial environment ministry officials say it`s far too early for them to know if a proposed waste-disposal technology for the city will be a success because serious emissions testing has not yet begun.
In fact, it may take two years before a full-scale waste-to-electricity plant of the kind the city wants to build will get approval, said Steve Burns, ministry district manager for Eastern Ontario.
Ottawa and Gatineau today bear little resemblance to the logging camps that sprang up on the banks of the Ottawa River two centuries ago.
In that time, Canada has undergone a gradual transformation from colony to country, and the towns either side of the river went through waves of amalgamation as their economic activity shifted from sending trees down river to governing Canada. The two cities may have grown up together, but there remain some enduring and profound differences between them.
OTTAWA -- While the federal Conservatives consider a $620 million share of the bid for the Pan American Games, opposition MPs are hopeful the government will throw its weight behind the contest.
The Ontario Liberals` business plan for the 2015 Pan Am Games calls for the seven cities and regions in Ontario`s Golden Horseshoe region to host the event. Ontario`s plan estimates the games will cost $1.77 billion and proposes the cities, the province and the federal government split the bill three ways.
A proposal that could see University of Western Ontario exempt from higher fees for water use is getting a failing grade from some city politicians.
With city hall staff studying changes to London water rates -- essentially, big businesses would pay more while homeowners would get a break -- some members of council question the fairness in giving UWO special treatment. "I have real problems giving special considerations to some institutions," Controller Gina Barber said yesterday. "We`re not talking about major, major changes here."
