The house that my wife and I are having built in Oakville is now over a year late in being completed.
If you’ve been reading my blog you already know my thoughts on how ludicrous this all is.
I’m meeting with the Mayor of Oakville this Friday and am impressed with the response that we’ve had from his office.
Things have moved marginally forward, but those owners that have lived in construction hell for almost a year now are still living in construction hell today.
We’ve seen the road cleaned a couple times, but that is supposed to be done weekly if not daily once people are living there.
Big trucks and construction machinery tear up the grounds every day leaving massive globs of mud on the road.
They did knock down and remove those temporary telephone polls and come and stake out the perimeter fence.
I’m looking to find out specifics like when the “grading, curbs, road paving will be completed” but will let you know how things go following my meeting Friday morning.
On the College Park scene, we have another Municipal Government involved in what I would suggest to be a shameful abuse of consumers/taxpayers.
I’ve written about this decade old “phoney promotion” about “the City Government having negotiated a $3.5 Million Dollar Park Renovation” to assist a developer in selling three huge (one the highest residential tower in the country) residential towers of condo units, not to mention a huge commercial retail building!
The history is quite well documented on my blog but here’s the Reader’s Digest version:
About a decade ago, the city and a developer set out on a journey to exploit vacant land adjoining to an existing commercial tower/retail complex known as College Park (the original Eaton store).
When I say these two parties (the developer AND the City of Toronto) it’s because they are the two key player in this “artistically from a ‘Marketing’ perspective (I “guess“?!?)
Here’s another example of “education” or “formal education” bastardizing “integrity“, calling it a profession, and applying that bastardization onto consumers!
dilapidated park sat for almost a decade
And these marketing so-called professionals get rewarded for basically “bending the truth” (where I come from we call that “lying”).
So, they sold out one full tower (Phase I at College Park) using the story about “the upcoming $3.5 Million Park Renovation“.
And then they sold out the second high rise high density tower (Phase II at College Park) promoting this “multi-million dollar park renovation“.
And then they sold twelve townhouses in the park (“Parkview Townhomes“) again using the $3.5 Million Park Renovation as their legitimate “marketing hook“.
It didn’t matter that it was being mis-stated (lied about), education requiring MBA behind one’s name meant that you were “good at this“!
Now, eight years passed and all these millions of dollars poured into the coffers of the City of Toronto in Permit fees, hook-up fees, registration fees and whatever creative named fees they could come up with, and of course the developer.
Question: Who does the Municipal Government work for?
And then comes Aura, touted as the tallest residential condominium building in the country, and of course “offering that $3.5 Million Dollar Park Renovation“.
The City Councilor (“Kristyn Wong-Tam“) printed full colour brochures touting “how she and the City had negotiated the $3.5 Million Dollar Park Renovation“.
So, where’s the scam?
Drum roll please!
Townhouse front doors facing College Park
The scam comes in the form of there actually “NOT BEING A $3.5 MILLION DOLLAR PARK RENOVATION BUT RATHER the completion of necessary maintenance by the developer to undertake conventional maintenance to its commercial parking structure under the park“!
So let’s look at initiative undertaken by these two players in this now decade long game the City of Toronto and a private development company.
This is significant as in my opinion there is at least the appearance of a serious conflict of interest here that has shortchanged if not flagrantly exploited tax payers to the benefit of a private corporation.
This potential conflict of interest while having generated massive profits for the City of Toronto and the developer but it has done so at the expense of the tax payers that the City officials are hired to “protect“!
One year after fulfilling Tarion requirements to operate the newly completed Phase II of College Park, the City “CUT OFF ALL WATERING SYSTEMS IN THE PARK . . . . KILLING ALL VEGETATION, the historic fountain/water feature and skating rink, and rendering the once beautiful park a wasteland (day-time rapes occurred, vagrants collected there using the park as a toilet, just a total destruction of a once cherished community green space.
You’ve got to ask yourself why the City would cut off all water to this green oasis in the core of Canada’s major city.
Better yet ask how the City justified charging all these consumer full property taxes to a park that in almost a decade is yet to materialize!
And where did the money that historically maintained the park go to?
You can see why my inquiry ties these two players at the hip as the city reportedly (Toronto Life Magazine “Trouble In Condoland”) as the city reportedly generates “somewhere around $10 Million per building” or at least $40 Million at College Park alone!
So, this fall, with three (3) days notice, after over a decade of waiting the thousands of taxpayers that were “promised a $3.5 Million Dollar Park Renovation” the front door entrance to the townhouses were boarded up and the park renovation commenced.
One might think that the taxpayers forfeiting their front entrance to their home might be shown a little more respect but that one would be wrong.
Construction hit like a freight train with all the trees cut down and concrete removed in just over a month.
Then the construction site sat dormant for two months with nothing happening (and yes townhouse owners had no front door).
Then finally a new crew showed up and took away all the soil, clearly showing the true reason underscoring the construction (the cement roof of the developer’s commercial parking garage).
Remember, that’s the reason that the water got shut off destroying the park years back (the developer’s parking garage was experiencing leaks).
So, this is what our government is about?
Conflict of interest?
What I find most outrageous in our City Councillor spending our tax dollars orchestrating self-serving, self-promoting “misinformation” about “the $3.5 Million Park Renovation that she had negotiated“!
Can someone pinpoint any element or even reflection of “integrity” here!
Even fully grown uneducated street kids know better than to lie obviously!
We early day entrepreneurs learned to avoid lying as it only clouds your efforts and leads to break downs, conflict and mistrust.
Integrity becomes a survival skill to we entrepreneurs and that’s a survival skill that doesn’t seem to be included in the curriculum of all those educated folks!
The “waterproofing of the parking garage” is about half done and I’ve got to confess that it has proven an education in and of itself as I watch wave after wave of choreographed construction workers do their thing.
You can learn a lot by just watching so I do as I think constant learning of anything to be stimulating and fulfilling leading to a longer and fuller life.
And once all this tarring and sealing is completed and the dirt all replaced, I can’t help but wonder “just how much or what minute fraction of the “Park Renovation” part of all of that $3.5 Million really applies.
I’m Charles
