Decisions today impact life tomorrow

(March 17) - We have to pay attention. Decisions are being made today that will affect the health and prosperity of our city for a long time to come. They are not being done in secret anymore. It all happens out in the open with lots of notice. We shouldn’t wait until the process is locked in before we stand up and voice our opinions.

The Hanlon Creek Business Park is a good case in point. The deterioration of that part of Guelph did not begin with this council. Nor with the former one. It began with a provincial decision to build the expressway. It was supposed to have rerouted Highway 6 around the city and relieved traffic congestion. It did neither. It cuts like a knife through the heart of the Hanlon Creek watershed.

We should have demanded better then. We didn’t, and it is there. It has been there for over 30 years and isn’t going away. Industry began locating along its southern flanks, and the city developed a plan to attract more. What we see there now is the logical outcome of our failure to challenge a decision four decades ago.

The city’s website has aerial photos of the land to be developed. It looks like a beautiful part of our landscape. Plans for the area have been in the works since 1993. It has been studied to death. The Ward 2 website operated by Councillors Ian Findlay and Vicki Beard has a staff report detailing all this. Doing more studies will afflict the city with paralysis by analysis.

The significant environmental features of the area can be preserved. I am reasonably confident that with the depth of environmental awareness around city hall, this will be done.

While we are focusing attention on what is, for all intents and purposes, a done deal, other decisions are being made. They will have equally bad consequences in another decade or two.

Two of these are the so-called “upgrade” of the Hanlon Expressway and construction of a super highway connecting Guelph to Waterloo and Brampton. Cloverleaf overpasses will have a much deeper impact on Hanlon Creek than the regulated development of a business park will ever have.

A lot of heat was generated by the decision to expropriate three buildings to make way for a new library. What about the land the province will expropriate to make way for the overpasses and the new Highway 7? Where is the heat over that?

It is all part of the same picture. We have a voice in how it is painted. The city is developing a natural heritage strategy which “aims to identify Guelph’s significant natural areas and ensure their long-term protection and enhancement.” It’s all part of a process to integrate the natural heritage system into the city’s official plan update. Public consultation meetings are scheduled for March 24 and 25 at the Scottsdale Holiday Inn. Attending one of them should not be all you do for your city. It should be part of a long-term commitment we all make to preserve Guelph as a good place to live.

Twenty years from now, this recession will be part of our history. People will work in the Hanlon Creek Business Park. They might be able to ride their bikes to work, or take the bus, or drive an electric car. Or they might have to navigate their way through a network of divided highways. These choices are being made now and we should pay attention to them.

The crazy Kentucky cross builder I talked about last week got one thing right. If we go to hell, it will be our own fault.