CCFEW'S PRESENTAION TOMORROW AT THE PLANNING, GROWTH AND MANAGEMENT COMMITEE AT CITY HALL

PG16.10 – Preserving Significant Views of Lake Ontario

Good Morning

My name is Brian Bailey and I am the President of CCFEW, Citizens Concerned about the Future of the Etobicoke Waterfront. We are a non profit community group formed in 1989 in response to the development proposals for Humber Bay Shores.

We are actively involved with the City and TRCA in the creation of new parks and in the improvement & maintenance of existing ones. We also provide monthly bird walks, and most recently are promoting and subsidizing nature classes in partnership with the Humber Arboretum in Colonel Samuel Smith Park.

Our main objectives are to:

• Promote a healthy waterfront environment through preservation and rehabilitation,
• To seek maximum parkland through the preservation of existing parkland on Etobicoke's waterfront, and the acquisition of additional waterfront and valley lands for park purposes.
• To promote meaningful citizen involvement in decisions affecting the environment.
• Ensure that any development or redevelopment is compatible with its surroundings in scope and scale

I am here today, representing our membership and the community of south Etobicoke. As many of you will know, David Crombie brought to our attention that Toronto had turned its back on Lake Ontario. A concerted effort was made across the Greater Toronto Area to reverse this situation and in the City of Etobicoke a number of projects and policies were implemented to help enhance and improve public access to the Lake.

We have been fortunate to achieve public access to the lake at Humber Bay Shores, through the redevelopment process, the Mimico Linear Park and Colonel Sam Smith Park. Most of this work was done in partnership with the City and the TRCA. We have also had improvements to
Marie Curtis Park and hope that through the Mimico 2020 work that Amos Waites park will be expanded and enhanced.

We are however concerned and dismayed that the initiative of the City of Etobicoke and the Regeneration Trust to implement and expand the Waterfront Trail has been discontinued. The creation of the Waterfront trail was to educate, inform and appreciate the Toronto waterfront
and to encourage the community to understand the importance of Lake Ontario, and the need to clean up the contamination being discharged into the lake, to support our birds and wildlife and in general have a safe, healthy clean waterfront for everyone to enjoy.

The City of Etobicoke adopted a number of polices to preserve and enhance what we called “Windows on the Lake” along the trail. These windows are for the most part road ends that go straight down to the lake and provide a visual view and access for the general public to the lake edge.

Half of these sites are now identified as significant views of Lake Ontario in the Official Plan's views and vistas policy.

Over the last fifteen years, and especially since amalgamation o Etobicoke into the City of Toronto, this initiative seems to have been forgotten. Over time a number of encroachments have been identified. In some instances it is telephone and mail boxes and utilities. Worst of all
are encroachments by the residents with the fencing off of city property, vegetation and privatization of the road ends.

We are here today because we have written to the City to ask for assistance but we have received no direct response or assistance.
We would like the City to remove the encroachments, expand and enhance the road end allowances (Windows on the Lake) and restore the public enjoyment of the waterfront trail which runs along Lake Promenade from the west to Lake Shore Drive in New Toronto and
easterly toward the Mimico Linear Park.

We know that the road ends are now under the jurisdiction of Transportation Services and we would like the road ends, most of which have sewer outfalls, to be rezoned into public open space, and transferred to the responsibility of the Parks Department to ensure their protection as Windows on the Lake.

Thank you for your time today. I would be glad to answer any questions you might have.