It’s been almost a year since TCHC met with residents living adjacent to Regent Park, to give us an update. For several months, Shuter St has been clogged with mud, from TCHC and TDSB construction activity (see photos). In response to TCHC’s meeting invite, a week before the meeting, we replied:
Please invite someone from TDSB (school board) who is knowledgeable about the renovation of Nelson Mandela Park Public School. Their construction is also affecting the neighbourhood. The neighbourhood needs a single point of contact to address concerns – hopefully this “Community Construction Liaison Committee” will be that single point of contact.
TDSB was a “no show”, without offering any explanation.
Here is a copy of TCHC’s presentation, given Feb 29, and minutes prepared by CPLC. Trefann Court’s highlights from this meeting:
To reduce the large amounts on mud tracked onto Shuter Street by construction trucks accessing the site, the contractor is finally implementing a truck washing station (on Sackville north of Shuter), mud mats, and repeated an earlier promise to spread calcite on roadways, to control the dust. The Daniels Corporation representative claimed that an employee inspects the entire area surrounding the Regent Park construction site throughout each day, and takes immediate action to remedy any negative impacts, including the removal of dirt from nearby streets.
Glenn Gustafson (Councillor McConnell’s rep) attended this meeting, and was told that the dirt can accumulate 2 inches deep in the eastbound curb lane of Shuter. Three hour parking is currently permitted; in practice vehicles park here throughout the day and night, so and the curb lane doesn’t get cleaned for several months at a time. More parking enforcement won’t solve this problem; we’re expecting prompt action from the councillor to implement temporary parking restrictions (eg. no parking on 15th and 30th of each month) so that the increased accumulation of dirt/debris from construction traffic is periodically cleaned off the street.
According to TCHC, the school is scheduled to re-open in Sept 2012, even though it will still be in the middle of a construction zone. One resident suggested: to avoid exposing school children to high levels of dust, construction traffic and other potential safety hazards resulting from ongoing Regent Park phase 2 reconstruction, the school re-opening should be delayed for a year. A seemingly reasonable suggestion, but no one from the school board was in attendance at this meeting to listen/respond.
TCHC re-iterated that the community centre (not yet under construction) will be completed this year, also the big park. Sackville and Sumach road re-construction will be completed this year and these roads re-opened to the public, allowing travel from Shuter to Dundas.
As detailed on pages 6-7 of the presentation, Phase 2 will have a mix of “market-priced condo” (m) and “subsidized rental” (r). See map showing location of each block #.
- projects underway: block 20(r), 24 north(m), 25(m)
- in 2012/2013: block 21(m), 22(r), 24 south(r), 23 (m? r?)
Still no decision yet, on whether “block 23″ (NW corner of Sackville and Shuter) will be rental or market condos. TCHC promised to advise this committee as soon as their decision is made public.
(Corktown Association also attended this meeting; here is their summary.)
Updated:
- added photos, link to corktown.ca (March 4)
- added minutes prepared by TCHC (March 12)
- added additional info from TDSB (March 20)