What do you think of this project?

  • Total voters
    52
I just heard back from Anne Stevenson:

Thank you for reaching out about the old BMO site, and for your help in stopping the Arlington parking lot. I appreciate your frustration with the current state of the BMO site and your lack of enthusiasm for Westrich's proposed surface parking lot. While it's not a decision that's coming to Council, I'll confess that I feel I could live with what Westrich is proposing. You're absolutely right that there's a huge risk of us suffering from goodenough-ism but I'm also mindful of not letting the perfect be the enemy of the better-than-what's-there-now. The imperative for me is moving the site into new hands and helping make that viable for a proven developer is something I'm open to. Even with the allowance for parking revenue, it's still looking like an exceptionally hard site to make viable and I'm worried we'll be stuck with the status quo indefinitely without some concessions being made.

I know that's not ideal and I hope that you don't give up! Thanks to community voices like yours, we're seeing other progress with our unlicensed parking lot initiative, including lots being closed down and other lands changing hands - all the things we want to be seeing happen to build a stronger downtown.

Thanks again for reaching out and for all your great advocacy. If you wanted to chat further, don't hesitate to let me know and we could grab a coffee.

Not perfect, but a thoughtful response nevertheless. I was surprised about the offer of coffee!
 
ADob said:
I just heard back from Anne Stevenson:

Thank you for reaching out about the old BMO site, and for your help in stopping the Arlington parking lot. I appreciate your frustration with the current state of the BMO site and your lack of enthusiasm for Westrich's proposed surface parking lot. While it's not a decision that's coming to Council, I'll confess that I feel I could live with what Westrich is proposing. You're absolutely right that there's a huge risk of us suffering from goodenough-ism but I'm also mindful of not letting the perfect be the enemy of the better-than-what's-there-now. The imperative for me is moving the site into new hands and helping make that viable for a proven developer is something I'm open to. Even with the allowance for parking revenue, it's still looking like an exceptionally hard site to make viable and I'm worried we'll be stuck with the status quo indefinitely without some concessions being made.

I know that's not ideal and I hope that you don't give up! Thanks to community voices like yours, we're seeing other progress with our unlicensed parking lot initiative, including lots being closed down and other lands changing hands - all the things we want to be seeing happen to build a stronger downtown.

Thanks again for reaching out and for all your great advocacy. If you wanted to chat further, don't hesitate to let me know and we could grab a coffee.

Not perfect, but a thoughtful response nevertheless. I was surprised about the offer of coffee!
Click to expand...

I'm more surprised that Anne herself actually responded to you.
Every time I wrote to her, I get a response from one of her flunkies.
 
ADob said:
I just heard back from Anne Stevenson:

Thank you for reaching out about the old BMO site, and for your help in stopping the Arlington parking lot. I appreciate your frustration with the current state of the BMO site and your lack of enthusiasm for Westrich's proposed surface parking lot. While it's not a decision that's coming to Council, I'll confess that I feel I could live with what Westrich is proposing. You're absolutely right that there's a huge risk of us suffering from goodenough-ism but I'm also mindful of not letting the perfect be the enemy of the better-than-what's-there-now. The imperative for me is moving the site into new hands and helping make that viable for a proven developer is something I'm open to. Even with the allowance for parking revenue, it's still looking like an exceptionally hard site to make viable and I'm worried we'll be stuck with the status quo indefinitely without some concessions being made.

I know that's not ideal and I hope that you don't give up! Thanks to community voices like yours, we're seeing other progress with our unlicensed parking lot initiative, including lots being closed down and other lands changing hands - all the things we want to be seeing happen to build a stronger downtown.

Thanks again for reaching out and for all your great advocacy. If you wanted to chat further, don't hesitate to let me know and we could grab a coffee.

Not perfect, but a thoughtful response nevertheless. I was surprised about the offer of coffee!
Click to expand...
It was a thoughtful response and I hope having to think about this may help her and others better realize the shortcomings here. I realize she represents the area, so is obviously the first person to raise this issue with but reading through the tea leaves here I feel she is almost inviting people to bring up this issue and other related ones with her council colleagues. Perhaps others on council also need to be convinced.
 
ADob said:
I just heard back from Anne Stevenson:

Thank you for reaching out about the old BMO site, and for your help in stopping the Arlington parking lot. I appreciate your frustration with the current state of the BMO site and your lack of enthusiasm for Westrich's proposed surface parking lot. While it's not a decision that's coming to Council, I'll confess that I feel I could live with what Westrich is proposing. You're absolutely right that there's a huge risk of us suffering from goodenough-ism but I'm also mindful of not letting the perfect be the enemy of the better-than-what's-there-now. The imperative for me is moving the site into new hands and helping make that viable for a proven developer is something I'm open to. Even with the allowance for parking revenue, it's still looking like an exceptionally hard site to make viable and I'm worried we'll be stuck with the status quo indefinitely without some concessions being made.

I know that's not ideal and I hope that you don't give up! Thanks to community voices like yours, we're seeing other progress with our unlicensed parking lot initiative, including lots being closed down and other lands changing hands - all the things we want to be seeing happen to build a stronger downtown.

Thanks again for reaching out and for all your great advocacy. If you wanted to chat further, don't hesitate to let me know and we could grab a coffee.

Not perfect, but a thoughtful response nevertheless. I was surprised about the offer of coffee!
Click to expand...
Too bad the status quo will be a parking lot for 15-20 years.
 
inclusion said:
Too bad the status quo will be a parking lot for 15-20 years.
Click to expand...
I responded to her email asking about putting timelines both on post-demo developments and "temporary" parking lots.
And, as much as it pains me to say this, the alternative really does seem to be a bombed out urban disaster zone instead. It's a profoundly shitty dilemma here.
 
ADob said:
I responded to her email asking about putting timelines both on post-demo developments and "temporary" parking lots.
And, as much as it pains me to say this, the alternative really does seem to be a bombed out urban disaster zone instead. It's a profoundly shitty dilemma here.
Click to expand...
I think the city should place large tombstone photos of the Tegler Building and the Bank of Montreal Building along the three flanking sidewalks overlooking this bomber our urban disaster zone and leave it in place as a warning to future councils and administrations of the real world consequences of their making short term expedient decisions regarding our urban fabric.

Accepting the alternative instead would only serve to legitimize the alternative and will be yet one more example of our continuing to accept - and create precedents for more - of things in our downtown core solely because they’re “not as bad as our other choices”.

That’s not a recipe for “no more crap”, it’s a recipe for living with crap forever.
 
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