Civic Reflections on a Summer Day

Well, it is still summer and the living is easy which is a much nicer way to view life when you get up in the morning than House Stark’s motto Winter is Coming though inevitably winter will be here soon enough.  Summer walks are definitely a great way to reacquaint yourself with your neighborhood and over the last few days I’ve been up and down the Junot Street corridor off of which I live to observe the state of developments.

As many in the neighborhood know, the City of Thunder Bay is planning to reconstruct the Golf Links Road/Junot Avenue corridor between the Harbour Expressway and Walkover Street.  The road will be widened to four lanes and there are plans to improve sidewalks and bike paths as well as municipal servicing.  Indeed, some new sidewalks are going in as I write.  This is also all related to plans for additional density development as the area continues to grow as a central residential and commercial area.  An open house was held in April to solicit input on land use in the area with suggestions ranging from the proposed new events centre to industrial use to a mining innovation centre.

Of course, development proposals and actual development are already underway – sort of. Condominium construction appears to be stalled at the Thunder Bay Golf Club on Junot aside from a rather large pile of dirt.  Hotel construction on Junot is proceeding well with the Days Inn there completing yet another lengthening.  One wonders if the plan is to make it into the world’s longest hotel as a tourist attraction.

The controversial new EMS Station is now open and still causing controversy given the new 75,000 dollar sculpture that was recently unveiled.  Of course, that piece of art is quite the bargain compared to the waterfront beacons, which ran nearly one million dollars.  The EMS art piece is much smaller and does not have whispers emanate from its base.  Indeed, being so small is probably why all the trees and brush were cleared from the other side of the street prior to installation – to afford the houses there a better view of both the new EMS station as well as its new art work.

The desire to develop this part of the City has been present for some time given the past attempt to put in a new Tim Horton’s/Hotel complex in the same area that sparked enormous neighborhood opposition.  Wooded land in the city does not generate tax revenue as well as residential, commercial or industrial land.  As a result, the wooded area across from the EMS station was apparently sold off for residential building lots with at least one municipal councilor on the evening news saying how it was a prime residential area.  That was of course quite amusing given that the original location of the EMS was further up the street where the residents of the prime residential area there chased it off.  In some respects, this is actually a clever strategy as once the EMS station is built, only people who want to live across from it will actually build there – with the exception of the homeowners who used to have trees as a buffer.

Given the ideal location of this land, we can no doubt expect many of our local politicians and notables to erect their homes there.  Perhaps we can be innovative and erect a new public centre in the spirit of our 55 Plus Centre – the Politician Plus Centre where current and past local politicians can go hang out and engage in creative discussions and activities or perhaps rent cheap accommodation in a prime neighborhood as a reward for their years of service.

However, winter is coming and with winter will come a reengagement with issues and debate for City Council.  While it is fun to debate bike lanes and tanning salons in the summer, I suppose they will need to deal with questions like what actually caused the water treatment plant to fail during last spring’s flooding.  Perhaps, we will also find out what is going to happen with the plans for the events centre or if we will indeed see hotel and condominium construction begin on the waterfront this year.   If we do not get answers, I suppose we can all go to the waterfront and ask for guidance from the whispering beacons.