A group of concerned citizens has launched a website and an online petition urging people to band together to “save cherry beach:”
The Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Corporation (TWRC) and Toronto Economic Development Corporation (TEDCO) have created some amazing plans for the waterfront and deserve credit for putting together what promises to be a great community in which to live and work. They have however underestimated the need for treed greenspace parkland. This space exists now along the waterfront south of Unwin Avenue. For some reason in spite of the plans presented outlining different locations for the soccer fields the TWRC/TEDCO has decided to place these concrete and astroturf soccer fields and an additional parking lot right by Cherry Beach and in the process cutting down over 250 mature trees!
The TWRC has argued that the land contains contaminated soil that needs to be cleaned up, but the group isn’t buying it:
The proposal to ‘clean’ the site involves paving one area for parking, putting fill over another which will kill all the trees on the site and then a concrete cap on top (the soccer fields) and putting the runoff ditch into a culvert passing under the site (making it get to the lake easier?). This is supposed to clean up the site when all it really does is put off cleaning it up to a later date and someone elses problem. The contaminants are not being removed so how is this cleaning?
The group plans to demonstrate at two upcoming TWRC board meetings, and asks all concerned citizens to ask their local politicians to step in a stop the deforestation.
Cherry Beach has been the site of some controversy since the Toronto Star blew the lid off the parties that take place there on summer weekends.
Image from Blueflag.org
4 comments
this has really got everyone outraged in the dance music community: it seems almost too likely that they tried to put a stop to the parties there to make it easier to develop. hopefully promise parties receive cultural event status like tam tams in montréal…
i will sit in front of the bulldozers if i have to.
who’s the ward councillor? McConnell?
oops – should have RTFW – it’s Fletcher.
Why do you need to pave under a soccer field? Would that not be more dangerous than a grass pitch? I suppose you could have toxic chemicals bubbling up, or sink holes to fall into.
I doubt that paving is ever a smart choice though. Kevin Mercer gave a great speech at Pledge TO Green about how crappy the effect of impermeable surfaces is on water.
http://www.riversides.org