Surplus Land

As a group of neighbours prepares to make its case against the City in front of the Ontario Municipal Board later this week a couple of well-worn real estate phrases come to mind. The first tenet is “Location, location, location” when a piece of property comes on the market. Location drives price and desirability for a home, as does it when it comes to a place for children to play, dogs to walk and older folk to stroll. Almost everyone loves a neighbourhood park and it may even add to the value of the homes located near it.

The City bureaucrats have reviewed the land they now hold; variously described as developer-designated parkland, lake access, laneways and parks and decided that they will have no use for many of these parcels of land either now or into their foreseeable future. What better way to raise shekels for the City coffers than to sell off these surplus lands? Many of these lands have city services and would attract builders, increasing assessment overnight.

In their zeal to keep the tax burden reasonable, the Mayor and council have run into more than one roadblock in their scheme to sell off these surplus lands. Occasionally, as in the case of the Pinewood area, the citizens brought enough pressure to bear that the City fathers/mothers changed their minds. It seems the people in the Graniteville area could not petition enough votes on council to stop the sale of what they consider their parkland. Hence the hearing with the OMB.

It is not only the residents of the Graniteville area who are concerned about the sale of surplus land. When our Honourable Member dared to express his opinion that the City was showing poor planning in selling off its parklands, some councillors expressed righteous indignation. Who is our MP to meddle in local affairs? What does he know about municipal matters? You might even think there was more than one election in the offing next year.

When the City decided to sell off its first Lake Access property there was a murmur of outcry, but after a show and tell that displayed a storm sewer outlet, the access was sold. Recently the Mayor was heard to say that we have over 50 Lake Access properties and up to 30 of them ought to be sold. These are surplus lands that could provide big assessment if a long narrow beachfront home were to be constructed!

Which brings me to the second real estate tenet: “They aren’t making any more of it!” Cited as a good reason to invest in property instead of stocks and bonds, it does seem like good advice. But once our surplus land is sold and its use changed, it will most likely never revert to parklands or lake access property. Perhaps North Bay will never see the population growth that would mean we need more kiddies’ parks or places for the great unwashed to wander down to the lake for a swim or to pretend to feed the ducks. Once our public lands are gone, they are gone for good.

The thing is that we live in an area full of trees and lakes and most of us do have access to the great outdoors that means so much to our much-vaunted lifestyle. Those sleepy little towns around Lake Simcoe also were in the same position we now find ourselves. Barrie and Orillia no longer offer that rustic lifestyle, and perhaps that is what the people want in this age of electronic indoor entertainment. In any case, neither you nor I will likely live so long to see that press of humanity reach our city gates.

One has to sympathize with the Graniteville residents when all they want is an island of green space for their children and their children’s children. The promise that the remaining land would never be developed because it is a rock outcrop is rather meaningless when one visits our sister city to the west. That a rock outcrop is adequate for children to play on may be true – at least they won’t have to yell “Car!” in the middle of a game of street hockey.

I wonder how many of the attendees at the OMB hearing have played only in the streets?