Letters, Feedback, Your ViewsCtte. says councillor's statements false
Dec 12 2011 Re: News Backgrounder: No de-icing airplanes...at an airport?, Nov 24 The Windsor Essex County Environment Committee (WECEC) responds: The below points have been investigated by WECEC and fact checked by personnel from ERCA, the City of Windsor and the Windsor Airport. There are currently no environmental affects to the airport woodlots as a result of de-icing procedures. It is the committee's understanding that the airport follows a de-icing protocol mandated by law to ensure that no negative environmental effects occur. Regional stormwater drainage mapping available from the Essex Region Conservation Authority (ERCA) illustrate that the airfield storm water rainage system does not include the airport woodlots or associated agricultural land. The airport woodlots currently consist of 74.5 acres. The Airport Master Plan designates a 120 meter buffer around the woodlots for their protection. The Plan also states that an additional 70 acres of land has the potential to be used to connect the three woodlots. The land area for the woodlots including the buffer and connecting lands is 269.5 acres total, not 310.5 as stated in the article. Even with 269.5 acres being set aside for natural heritage and open space, the available employment lands on airport property will total over 850 acres. 850 acres is just slightly lower than the actual space reserved for actual aircraft use at approximately 42% of the total airport area. Compared to the approximate 13% reserved for open space land use which incidentally matches the ERCA biodiversity strategy for the Essex Region calling for 12% natural cover, a fact that Councillor Valentinis should be aware of from his tenure on the ERCA Board of Directors. Currently, the airport woodlots are not identified as high risk wildlife areas for the airport. The woodlots have existed on airport property for many years and if they were creating a concern the airport would have been required to create wildlife mitigation plans for the woodlots. According to airport personnel the highest risk species are Gulls and Geese which do not use swamp woodlots as habitat. In fact the closest woodlot to runway approaches is the Devonwood Conservation Area, also a provincially significant wetland. The Airport Master Plan clearly identifies one of the constraints to further development is stormwater capacity with respect to developing all 850 acres ofemployment lands. In fact, if the woodlots were removed, their capacity to mitigate stormwater would also be removed. A stormwater management plan for the airport and vicinity would likely look to the development of a swampwood lands system to mitigate the risk of attracting gulls and geese as typical stormwater retention features routinely do. From recent media on the MRO hangar development at the airport it is fairly obvious the City of Windsor cannot sell the property of the airport. Property isleased from the airport authority to which they publish $3.97/ sq.m for nonaviationland use (the highest rate category). By our calculations, the annual revenue from an acre of land is $16066.59. If the entire open space land area (270 acre) was to be leased at this rate the total annual income would be $4.3million. The notion that land value would be as high as $200,000 an acre is outrageous when in fact the land cannot be sold and it would take at least 12 years for the airport authority to generate that value for one acre. Needless tosay none of this math adds up to $45 million. It strikes this committee odd that the Windsor Airport Master Plan, since public consultation, has been vetted (we would presume) by the Airport Authority, City of Windsor Administration, the Airport Board of Directors, the Essex Region Conservation Authority, Transport Canada, Navigation Canada and finally the Windsor Environment and Transportation Steering Committee prior to being sent to City Council; that we would now require Councilor Valentinis to identify concerns of wildlife attraction and land value from the environmental portion of this plan. Alan Halberstadt Charlie Wright Committee Co-chairs Many reasons to doubt Pelissier St. market
Nov 1 2011Re: Comment: Precedent for market in a parking garage, Nov 1The market just finished its 3rd year. There were 2 former markets run by city-related organizations previously that failed. One of those was...in the Pelissier parking garage. Also we do not have answers to: How far the extension goes (just the sidewalk or into the road because the garage has only 1 exit), how the road closure works, whether it would be available on more than one day, where do vendors who sell out of their vehicles (or drive vehicles too big to park in the garage) go? We were given one option only. The farmers toured the area and it was a really nice day and the street looked great, there are just too many questions and it is a very small space. There are many other areas that have possibilities. Also, the University has yet to commit to the former bus depot so the market remaining there (picture above) would hurt no one and would allow the market to hit its 5th season in one spot, a major hurdle for marketing/loyalty according to Farmers Market Ontario...they say to never move before 5 years or you are starting over." Victoria Rose Downtown Windsor Farmers' Market |
