{"id":2713,"date":"2010-01-18T13:00:22","date_gmt":"2010-01-18T17:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingatlantic.ca\/?p=2713"},"modified":"2013-01-21T04:42:24","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T08:42:24","slug":"sustainability-vs-consumerism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/atlantic\/2010\/01\/18\/sustainability-vs-consumerism\/","title":{"rendered":"Sustainability vs. Consumerism"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" title=\"Wal-Mart Super Center (Malone, NY - but might as well be anywhere)\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3297\/3241622395_3fc8e4c1f3.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"237\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>CHARLOTTETOWN <\/strong>&#8211; I had a nasty case of d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu last week when the City of Charlottetown announced that another Big Box development was coming to town.\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.plaza.ca\/\">PlazaCorp<\/a> is already responsible for 300,000 square feet of strip malls in Charlottetown, complete with their upfront parking lagoons, but this new development ratchets the insult and degradation of Charlottetown to a completely new level.<\/p>\n<p>The threatened site, which can be seen embedded in this <a href=\"http:\/\/theguardian.pe.ca\/index.cfm?sid=317394&amp;sc=98\" target=\"_blank\">Guardian article<\/a>, sits just north of the Charlottetown Mall, south of the Arterial Road, west of University and east of Mount Edward Road.\u00a0 A review of the <a href=\"http:\/\/data.mapchannels.com\/mc3\/273\/shopcentre011110_273.htm?v=3&amp;x=0&amp;y=0&amp;z=14&amp;t=2&amp;f=1\">map<\/a> provided by the Guardian shows heavily sloped land and a watershed on this property which, from an environmental perspective, set off alarm bells in my head.\u00a0 Currently being used as farmland, PlazaCorp is proposing turning a juxtaposed agrarian landscape into yet another cookie-cutter Big Box asphalt lagoon.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps those alarm bells are why council has decided to refer the issue to public consultation, a process that is likely to divide the city into the &#8220;we want more shopping&#8221; and &#8220;local is better&#8221; camps so typical of this age of transformation.\u00a0 Ironically, this battle is patterned after a debate that is still taking place in my hometown of Windsor, Ontario.\u00a0 In spite of starting the discussion more than two years ago when Jenny Coco, fittingly a local paving company magnate, wanted to build a development next to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ojibway.ca\/index.htm\" target=\"_blank\">federally protected prairies<\/a>, the development on the border of Windsor and Lasalle has not broken ground.\u00a0 Back then I was writing for a local blog and advocacy group, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.scaledown.ca\">Scaledown.ca<\/a>, where our <a href=\"http:\/\/www.google.ca\/#hl=en&amp;source=hp&amp;q=CocoBox+site%3Ascaledown.ca&amp;btnG=Google+Search&amp;meta=&amp;aq=f&amp;oq=CocoBox+site%3Ascaledown.ca&amp;fp=a2b129115f5e3c19\" target=\"_blank\">thoughts, failures, and rants<\/a> are still lurking online.\u00a0 Even the Ontario Municipal Board, the final authority on all things development in Ontario, has <a href=\"http:\/\/www.windsorstar.com\/business\/development+hearing+delayed\/2384394\/story.html\" target=\"_blank\">pushed back<\/a> on the CocoBox complex (as we so lovingly dubbed it) in recent weeks.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->But what if this new Charlottetown development was built to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cagbc.org\/leed\/what\/index.php\">LEED Platinum<\/a> standards, complete with 100% renewable energy, free recharging stations for electric cars, and a green roof growing produce for the local soup kitchen, would there still be opposition?<\/p>\n<p>That is a tough question, as raising the bar on building standards, a trend started by the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tpsgc-pwgsc.gc.ca\/bulletin\/fa-db\/2007\/2007-03\/2007-03-009-eng.html\">Jean Canfield Building<\/a> amoung others, would be very tempting, however this is not just an environmental debate.\u00a0 The reality is that big box retailers, the current Island offerings included, are damaging more than just our physical environment, they are degrading our economic and social environment as well.\u00a0 When I made a presentation to Windsor&#8217;s City Council two years ago against the CocoBox proposal, the facts and figures <a href=\"http:\/\/www.alanhalberstadt.com\/index.php?option=com_content&amp;task=view&amp;Itemid=87&amp;id=8203&amp;bsb_midx=47\">fell on deaf ears<\/a>, well before the global economic crises destroyed our fragile fiscal stability (see the full <a href=\"https:\/\/docs.google.com\/fileview?id=0B-C40JmfcCL2MTU5NWNjZGEtMzliYi00NjVjLWIwOWUtNDIxNDI0OWVjOGIz&amp;hl=en\">PowerPoint presentation<\/a> via Google Docs).<\/p>\n<p>The fact is Charlottetown can&#8217;t afford another big box development.\u00a0 Oh sure, there will be a short-term upswing in building activity and jobs as a result, but history (and history in a far more prosperous economic era I might add) has shown that these effects are short lived and often disguise the net negative effects on a community.\u00a0 Countless cities before us have tried to build big and failed, having gutted their local business community, and associated tax base, in the process.<\/p>\n<p>All of these objections could be considered the same old song and dance from &#8220;an opponent to development&#8221;, as some have incorrectly labeled me in the past, if it weren&#8217;t for the city&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/atlantic\/2009\/11\/10\/planning-for-the-future-with-an-icsp\/\">recent investment<\/a> in an <a href=\"http:\/\/www.infc.gc.ca\/links-liens\/resources-ressources\/resources-ressources-eng.html\">Integrated Community Sustainability Plan<\/a>.\u00a0 My question to city council is how, in light of all the recommendations, commitments, and pledges made in the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.city.charlottetown.pe.ca\/pdfs\/DRAFT_ICSP_Charlottetown.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">draft ICSP<\/a>, did the city decide that another big box development would allow us &#8220;<span>to strategically align ourselves to develop a more sustainable, healthy future&#8221;?\u00a0 My bet is that council didn&#8217;t decide, but instead is letting the public decide whether or not this development, after being help up to ICSP scrutiny, ever sees the light of day.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span> I expect that a review of the cold hard facts about big box development, and its impact on the social, environmental, economic and cultural sustainability (all <a href=\"http:\/\/revolution.ca\/clients\/City_charlottetown\/Charlottetown_Poster_Final.pdf\">pillars of the ICSP<\/a>) will allow reason to prevail and council to ultimately reject this new blight on our landscape.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em><span>photo by <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/people\/nnecapa\/\">Northern New England Chapter of the American Planning Association<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>CHARLOTTETOWN &#8211; I had a nasty case of d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu last week when the City of Charlottetown announced that another Big Box development was coming to town.\u00a0 PlazaCorp is already responsible for 300,000 square feet of strip malls in Charlottetown, complete with their upfront parking lagoons, but this new development ratchets the insult and degradation<a href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/atlantic\/2010\/01\/18\/sustainability-vs-consumerism\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"sr-only\">&#8220;Sustainability vs. Consumerism&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8015,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[393,344,341],"tags":[1599,1596,410,355,1603,1602,373,347,516,1604,1592,1598,1593,457,1594,1601,802,1600,1597,758,500,1595],"class_list":["post-2713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-infrastructure","category-politics","category-urban-design","tag-advocacy","tag-american-planning-association","tag-bigbox","tag-charlottetown","tag-charlottetown-mall","tag-cocobox","tag-construction","tag-development","tag-google","tag-ground","tag-jenny-coco","tag-lasalle","tag-northern-new-england-chapter","tag-ontario","tag-ontario-municipal-board","tag-plazacorp","tag-renewable-energy","tag-scaledown","tag-scaledown-ca","tag-the-guardian","tag-windsor","tag-windsors-city-council"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Sustainability vs. Consumerism - Spacing Atlantic<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/atlantic\/2010\/01\/18\/sustainability-vs-consumerism\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Sustainability vs. Consumerism - Spacing Atlantic\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"CHARLOTTETOWN &#8211; 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He lives in Charlottetown, PEI with his wife, four children, eight heritage hens, and a chocolate lab named Daisy. 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