Morning Brew: April 17th, 2008

The private covenants property developers had with councils regarding clotheslines should be considered null and void.
End-use of one's land should remain the sovereignty of the owner, not the developer.

Imagine if a developer had a thing against barbecues or trampolines or basketball hoops or garden gnomes. That would be more oppressive that the original Flemingdon Park.
Flemingdon Park was developed by EP Taylor who did not like blue roofs.

If public money didn't fund "segregationist" schooling at the CDSBs, maybe those schools wouldn't have to close, would they Dalton?

I agree, 100%. The fact that there are still municipal laws that make clothesline use illegal is, disappointing and embarrassing.

re: school boards low on money, why can't they have a bake sale?

Eating seasonal/local is good for both the environment and the wallet.
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I think that it's a bit of a myth that eating locally is necessarily better for the environment.

Think about this: huge quantities of food shipped in from a developing country, by boat or plane, does spend a lot of fuel. However, a lot of the times the food is picked manually. Once it gets here, it gets put on a truck, travels from a harbor to the grocery store. Ok, that's quite a bit of distance to travel ? but huge amounts of food are traveling.

Now, in Ontario - huge amounts of gas are spent on using tractors, aerial spraying, diesel for trucks carrying food (now, since it's not done in huge quantities like on a giant shipping boat this means multiple trips back and forth on highways), electricity might be spent heating hot houses to get the plants to sprout earlier on, and then machines to plant them. The net result may be that it's practically the same. Factor in that people may have to drive a distance to farmer's markets then you've got hundreds of cars on the road to get to the markets rather than walking or biking to their local grocery store.

In the winter, you've got tons of coal being burned to create electricity for hot houses to grow more local food, cold storage of seasonal foods, etc. Or you can get them from a developing country for less...

Also, think of the benefit that trade will have on the economies of developing countries. The important thing that should be stressed is sustainable harvests.

Don't forget how difficult it would be to feed all of the GTA, well over 3 million people with food grown within our region, year round. You?ll find that a great majority of people who support eating locally are usually in warmer climates with longer growing seasons. Oh, and a lot of great food comes from places outside of Ontario - like coffee, tea, bananas, kiwis, pineapples, melons, oh and I don't know if that much wheat is grown close to Toronto, so maybe even bread...

Re: the broke School board.

Last month, I watched Garden Ave. Public School install a lighted sign on its front lawn, advertising the school. It lights up the whole block. Yes, the several grand this would have cost is a drop in the bucket, but c'mon folks.

Imagine if a developer had a thing against barbecues or trampolines or basketball hoops or garden gnomes.

Or Black people, Hispanics, or students, etc.

Sound extreme? My old landlord is in the process of selling his house after the neighbourhood decided they didn't want him to live there anymore after they found out he was letting...gasp!... students live in their upscale suburban neighbourhood.

Of course, in that case it was the neighbourhood residents and not the city responsible...or was it?

Turns out several council members lived in the area and not only supported their rich friends, but used their power to harass the landlord until he finally gave in.

My favourite part is how they went about it.

They first harassed him with monthly fire marshal visits, trying to find ways in which the building could be a fire hazard. After ongoing visits and countless upgrades to the house costing thousands of dollars, it would be safe to say it is now more fire proof than fort knox.

So what then? The council then decided with all those upgrades the house could no longer be considered a house with rented rooms and was now, in their view, an apartment building. They then pulled out an old, vague bylaw, whose wording could let them outlaw pink bunny slippers if they wanted. Basically they said that an 'apartment building' didn't fit in with the 'character' of the neighbourhood.

And of course it wasn't an apartment building. It was just a house that happened to have a few upgrades that THEY ordered done.

@Ryan L.
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I certainly hope that the property owner takes these people to court and proves their devious scheme and collects big time.

I'd love to know what councillors were involved or--failing that--the nearest main intersection to where this occurred.
This is worse than the foolishness of Mammoliti or Ford or Ootes or Minnan Wong.

My favourite part was when the landlord showed up at the meeting to address his concerns he noticed someone a little familiar. He had seen one of the accusers before. A little while prior they had posed as a student and pretended they were looking for a room so they could get a tour of the house and get any dirt on him.

The landlord of course mentioned this. The 'spy' denied it, asked for proof (of course he had none), and labelled the landlord a liar.

He won't take them to court because he can't afford to. He's spent thousands of dollars upgrading his house to appease the council. Taken countless days off of work to be at home when they send the fire marshal and paid who knows how much on applications and permits.

That's shocking. It amounts to harassment and abuse of power and the councillors responsible should be held accountable. Not to mention pretentious elitists who don't want to live anywhere near young people. Not like a couple of students living in an apartment would have a real effect on property values or anything.

Oh, young people are tolerated. Just as long as they're rich/have rich parents.

I always enjoyed going to the nearby drug store for shampoo or toilet paper and being treated like a criminal. People who know me can attest that I certainly don't look like one.

Name names or shut up. This drive-by smear job makes every councillor look bad.

It isn't my place to give any names. If the landlord wants to take any legal action, he can. I won't jeopardize that by giving any details over an internet blog. Sorry, but that'd be kind of stupid.

Thank you, Ryan.