The 466 Hawthorn Rd. Heritage listing is also on tonight’s agenda items. Officer recommendations are to accept the Panel Report recommendations and to include the 2 Seaview properties under the Heritage listing. Should we therefore expect some humble pie tonight from councillors? After all, they have cost residents an extra 4 Heritage Advisors ‘reports’; a panel hearing, lawyers and staff time. In short, quite a few thousand dollars that has been needlessly flushed down the toilet. Readers should also remember Cr. Lipshutz’s new found expertise in Heritage matters. We also had Tang and Hyams claiming that recourse to a Panel was to ensure that a member of the community wasn’t disadvantaged simply because of who he was.
We anticipate that this will be the constant refrain tonight – council has only acted in the best interests of social justice, blah, blah, blah. No apologies, and no accounting for the dismal performance of Council lawyers in this matter. But, we still have had no real plausible explanation of how and why this stuff up occurred in the first place. Nor what role the planning department played in this entire fiasco.
September 20, 2011 at 6:08 PM
Much has been made by Council of ensuring that a member of the community wasn’t disadvantaged because of who he was. I am sure anyone who has read the Council minutes will draw the conclusion that in this instance “disadvantaged” is not an appropriate term to use.
I have read the report of the planning panel and note that the panel’s recommendation is for the minister to intervene and extend the heritage listing to the Seaview Street units. Tonights resolution for the Council to write to the Minister requesting extension of the heritage listing to the Seaview Street units is a whitewash. As is the failure of the officers report to include the planning panel criticism of Council for ignoring heritage considerations.
September 21, 2011 at 10:07 AM
You should take your own advice and give us all a break.