Developers eye Pleasantview area for major project

[waterloowarrior]

Ancaster News/Dundas

We'll soon be surrounded by nothing but asphalt

Published on Apr 04, 2008

Re: Developers Eye Pleasantview Area for Major Project, March 28 , The News.

I could not believe it when I read that developers are once again eyeing the fields in the Pleasantview neighbourhood. It seems to me that the status of this land has been going on for years. It also seems to me that many regulations, including the 1995 OMB decision and the designation of "protected countryside" under the province's Greenbelt Plan, stipulate against the kind of development proposed.

In addition, just last summer, the minister of natural resources proposed an amendment to Regulation 827 under the Niagara Escarpment Planning and Development Act to add four areas to the Niagara Escarpment Planning Area: one of these areas is Pleasantview. A number of stakeholders requested these additions, including the City of Hamilton, the Ratepayers Association of Pleasantview Survey, the Hamilton Naturalists' Club and the Royal Botanical Gardens.

Planner Ed Fothergill is quoted as saying, "This is not an environmentally significant property." How can Mr. Fothergill say the land is not environmentally significant given the stakeholders listed above?

Mr. Fothergill also states, "We don't see this as an urban form of development." This does not make sense at all, how else would one classify 760 residential units on 200 acres of land, if not urban?

The land that Mr. Fothergill and his developer friends want represents a natural corridor between (the ecologically sensitive) Cootes Paradise and the rest of the Niagara Escarpment. Developing this land will have devastating effects on the wildlife in this area.

We have had quite enough suburban sprawl in Dundas as well as the entire City of Hamilton. We need to take better care of our remaining green spaces before we are surrounded by nothing but asphalt. It is time to designate the land located within Pleasantview as national or provincial parkland -- a suggestion made by Councillor Russ Powers when he was the MP.


Kris Robinson
Dundas