Group hijacks meeting, politely

[attach]1271[/attach]It was a citizens uprising, albeit a polite one.

During a public meeting organized by Councillor Karen Stintz, intended to be an informal question and answer session between stakeholders involved in a redevelopment application for the Yonge Eglinton Centre, a group of vocal residents took control.

RioCan, the site’s owner, recently updated the plans to build three storeys of retail space on the open plaza located on the corner of Yonge and Eglinton.

It’s that notion that didn’t sit well with residents at the meeting.

A similar plan, put forth by former owners Greenwin in 2004, was met with equal disdain at the time. That plan, dubbed Crystal Palace, was shot down by the city with residents’ association heads leading the charge.

“The open space should be preserved,” said Paula Greco of the Sherwood Park Residents Association.

Following a 30-minute open house that saw the most vocal residents targeting planning staff and a lone architect to vent their frustrations, some ratepayers association members took control of the event.

Terry Mills, an urban planner and member of the Oriole Park Residents Association, first spoke up, calling on the councillors in the room to say a few words and appointing a somewhat reluctant Stintz to mediate an open forum.

With the room’s attention finally brought to focus, 40-year veteran architect and Sherwood Park Residents Association vice president Andre Leroux offered a guerrilla slide show drawing similarities between the Yonge Eglinton Centre’s plaza and Rockefeller Plaza in New York. He noted that both are roughly the same size, privately owned and located in midtown.

Councillor Michael Walker, of neighbouring Ward 22, spoke to the room, acknowledging the nut issue of the evening.

“The lightning rod of this development, and I’ve seen it since 2000, is the invasion of this open space,” he said, calling the intersection the jewel of North Toronto.

He also called on his colleagues at city council to come to a final position on the redevelopment.

School board trustee Josh Matlow, who is running for Walker’s council seat in this fall’s election, cited a solution he and others came to in a development quandary with North Toronto Collegiate as an example of what might be done here.

In that case, Matlow helped to draft an agreement between developers, the city and the residents’ associations in what he called a bottom-up approach to consultation, giving residents a larger voice in the process.

But Stintz was quick to quell the mood, dropping a bit of harsh reality on the assembly.

“It’s very important to understand: this isn’t a public square,” she said. “The city doesn’t have any ownership stake in this property, so we’re limited in what we can do.”

But some residents are choosing to continue the fight, limits or not.

Mills, for one, says he wants to impress upon the right people the importance of seeing the RioCan redevelopment in the context of the other developments in the area including the new transit line planned along Eglinton as part of Transit City.

But, says Stintz, not all hope is lost for the redevelopment’s critics.

“RioCan has agreed to form a steering committee of residents to work with RioCan on the big issue that the space is used and successful.”