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Originally Posted by Haliguy
Maybe... but not in this situation. The church moved out to Clayton park and the developer was suppose to start construction soon after demolishion, but the then the financial crise hit. Nobody could predict that.
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Exactly! "Soon" after demolition just isn't good enough. Over at the Trillium, they knocked down the old houses and were in the ground almost immediately. That's how it should be done. I concede that it would have been tough for the developer to have put the empty church building to use, but not impossible. Maybe they could have rented the space to someone. Held performances there perhaps. Who knows. Parking, unfortuantely, is just too lucrative and with an added tax reduction.
If this one goes ahead, it's no big deal. But if the developer ends up not going through with this project for a number of years or if they end up selling to another owner, we'll have lost the church building for no good reason. There has to be a better way of doing things. I don't fault the developer, they're just making a business decision within the existing regulations and in the current economic climate. It's up to the city to change the calculation by adjusting the tax structure or the available options by demanding more in development agreements or being more restrictive in demolition permits.