Media Coverage of May 7th protest
From the Brampton Guardian
Photo from the Brampton Guardian - May 7th, 2007
Castlemore residents speak out about plan for more development
By Pam Douglas, Staff Writer, the Brampton Guardian
Residents from the Castlemore area of Brampton gathered outside city hall Monday night to let city council know they're opposed to a development proposal for Castlemore Golf and Country Club. Instead, they want the land used for a park.
Leave it to a child to cut through the politics of an issue and get right to the heart of it.
"I don't know why you are cutting down trees that give us oxygen," 11-year-old Daniella DiBiase told Mayor Susan Fennell, city councillors and commissioners at a public meeting at city hall Monday night. "All of the green is going to be gone. We don't need any more houses. Aren't there enough houses in Brampton?"
That earned her applause from the more than 200 residents who packed city hall to oppose a housing development on Castlemore Golf and Country Club.
DiBiase was joined by friends Sarah Scott, 11, and Nicole Lambe, 10, at the podium. In unison, the girls chorused: "Mayor Fennell, please build us a park and please stop killing the old trees."
The Save Castlemore Committee has become a registered charity, switched it's name to GreenVisions, and organizers say it will lobby for more parks and green spaces in Brampton, not just for Castlemore golf course to be bought by the city and turned into a passive park.
GreenVisions staged a rally outside city hall in the hour before the statutory public meeting was to begin. They filled the council chambers and the overflow had to be accommodated in the atrium on the first floor, where speakers broadcast what was being said inside the council chambers.
The three girls weren't the only youngsters at the meeting who tried to appeal to council's environmental conscience.
Christian, Anthony and their sister Erica described how they see turtles, frogs, deer and fox around their house. They told councillors the development would fill in all the ponds on the site.
"This can't be good and we think the wildlife will all die," Christian said bluntly.
However, it was the adults in the crowd who really came out swinging.
Some accused officials with landowner Intracorp of lying to them when they bought their homes in 2000, promising the golf course would not be developed. Now, they said, the company is breaking that promise. They quoted directly from letters sent to homebuyers at the time, assuring them that the 18 holes on what was once a 27-hole golf course will not be developed.
"It's been a series of lies and deceit through the whole thing," said a resident on Louvain Drive, just north of the golf course, north of Countryside Drive. "When a developer tells you they're not going to build additional houses, you believe them."
Another resident, Mario Iorio of Tortoise Court, which will be surrounded to the north and south by the proposed 201-unit subdivision, pointed out that Intracorp and Candevcon, the developer of the site, made the maximum $750 donation to last fall's re-election campaign for Regional Councillor Gael Miles. And all but three councillors - John Sanderson, Vicky Dhillon, and John Hutton - accepted donations to their re-election campaigns from Candevcon, including Fennell's campaign.
He called on all councillors whose campaigns received the donations to bow out of the decision-making process and declare a conflict of interest.
"I fully believe we have a major conflict of interest here," Iorio said. "I think it should go to an impartial body. This would eliminate any conflict of interest."
"Shame on you all," he said, calling it rubbing salt in the wound.
He conceded the developers made contributions to some of the candidates who ultimately lost, too, noting they were probably covering all the bases.
"We have insurmountable odds against us," Iorio said of the residents' fight.
The land has been designated in the city's Official Plan for residential development since 1993.
The public comments will be included in a city planning staff recommendation on the proposal before it is considered by planning committee and then council.
Concerned about development GreenVisions spokesperson Bruce Haines told council he is very concerned about the way his community is being developed.
"There are folks who are looking to pave over our city," he said.
He cautioned the city not to blame the province's Places to Grow for all development, noting there are many references in the policy paper about quality of life and protection of the environment.
City staff say Wards 9 and 10 actually have the most "open space" of any other combined wards, and the Castlemore area has seven city parks between two and four acres. The city also owns 100 acres at the corner of McVean Drive and Castlemore Road, just down the street from the golf course. That land has been set aside for a city-wide park.
There are more amenities planned for the east end of the city, according to city staff, and that will be spelled out in the city's Parks, Culture and Recreation Master Plan, a draft of which will be available for public comment in the fall, according to city staff.
Residents complained they have no libraries or swimming pools, and schools are overcrowded, forcing some students to be bussed to Bolton and Malton.
GreenVisions said the city's ratio of parkland to developed land has decreased from 3.63 acres per 1,000 residents in 2001 to 2.95 acres in 2007.
From the Toronto Star
Neighbours rally against golf course development
Christian Cotroneo, STAFF REPORTER
Before a developer sells new homes on a controversial stretch of Brampton land, it is selling the idea to local residents.
And few of the hundred or so people cramming into council chambers at City Hall last night were buying.
While representatives of Intracorp Development Ltd marshalled maps, figures and diagrams to support their bid to build on the land, promising naturalized areas and "vegetation buffers," they earned mostly jeers from attendees.
At stake is whether a parcel of Castlemore Golf & Country Club, about 63 acres could be developed for 201 single detached lots.
Intracorp bought the land in 1998 and converted nine holes of what was originally a 27-hole course.
Last night, amid vocal opposition, City Hall hosted a second public consultation over the company's bid to develop another nine holes of the course.
"That's part of our due diligence under the planning act," said John Corbett, the city's commissioner of Planning, Design and Development.
The message rang out early as some 40 people descended on City Hall waving signs of protest. "Our position is quite simple: We want the City to preserve green space and not allow development to occur here," said Bruce Haines, chair of Greenvisions, a non-profit citizen's group rallying to oppose the bid.
Peter Orphanus, chair of the Sierra Club's Peel Region Group, stood alongside Haines, decrying what he sees as Brampton's development "by the seat of its pants."
"They're going ahead with subdivisions without really having a plan to place the subdivisions," he said.
The plan, critics say, imperils a vital stretch of an ecosystem "as a node along the Humber River tributary."
The Castlemore golf course stretches alongside Countryside Dr. Between Goreway Dr. And Airport Rd. The surrounding area, riddled with ponds and streams, teems with wildlife, including deer, fox and lynxs.
The fate of the golf course won't be decided soon, with Corbett estimating it could take as many as eight months before the planning department makes a recommendation to City Council. "When we do it, we want to provide council with the best information," he said.
Last night, that spelled some 35 registered speakers, 25 additional people waiting to speak and another crowd waiting outside of the chambers, wondering if they could speak.
Overwhelmingly, they were speaking against the development.
There were about 40 people waving signs outside City Hall before the meeting began. There were more than 100 inside the chambers and scores more on the main floor, watching via TV.
