Letters to the editor

A Clarification on the Clarification

To the editor:

In last week’s column written by Don Wedge, I mentioned that I did not understand where Councillor Patrick Martin had come up with the figures he had cited regarding the value of the Tupper Street lot, a piece of land belonging to Westmount, which was the subject of some debate in the public consultation on our urban plan. Apparently it was Councillor Martin who noticed that the size of the property was erroneously stated as over 400,000 square feet rather than 52,000 which is in fact the case. Therefore his analysis of the value of the property reflected the mistaken information in our own plan. I appreciate that he identified this mistake and it has now been corrected. There were many comments on the urban plan but now it will be up to council to decide whether or not we agree with the ideas in the plan but we will be discussing them based on accurate data.

When it comes to the development of this lot however, council has agreed that we will not be moving forward on this during this mandate since there are many other priorities which are currently being addressed.

Mayor Karin Marks

Westmount City Hall



Soccer complex won't do

To the editor:

In November 2006, chainsaws slaughtered a grove of oak and hardwoods that took a century to grow at Sunnyside Park. The reason? To 'improve' the view for tourists.

Last winter, a sleight-of-the-mayoral-hand plonked the hockey practice rink right in the middle of Westmount Park — complete with a $10,000 ice-resurfacing machine, glaring florescent lights on trees, a crude staircase

leading to the restroom (so the unused restroom may be used: Councillor

Lulham), noise pollution from pucks hitting the wooden boards (audible blocks away) and the possibility of stray pucks braining evening park strollers.

Were residents consulted? What?! Residents... consulted..?!

Spring 'project' 2007: replace natural with unnatural grass in Westmount Park fields. Why? To provide a couple of extra weeks of 'urgently needed' practice to meet the 'unprecedented' rise in socer registrations.

Cost? Seven rising figures.

And now the latest — but not least — from the MKM Horror Show: An eyesore fenced-protected soccer complex in Westmount Park..!

I wish to remind city council and our honourable mayor that the purpose of a city park is to provide quiet, repose and fresh air amid trees in as tranquil surroundings as possible.

And trying to stuff a soccer complex into a pillow-case sized park like our beloved Westmount Park will destroy the reason for which it was created. And residents will fight the proposal with more than the purpose and energy which defeated our honourable mayor's Astroturf project.

Stephen Chin

Sherbrooke Street



Act before damage is inflicted

To the editor:

The City has now filed a new proposal for the southern fields in Westmount Park, although they chose not to present it at Council. After reading it, is unsurprising that they would seek to bury this poorly reasoned report. Although we were promised an outside consultation on the best approach to a natural grass solution, all we are given is an internal reworking of the original, highly unpopular proposal with the twist that more objectionable components have been added.

The title of the original plan was “Finding a Solution for our Soccer Players.” The new plan goes some way to defining the problem – primarily by showing that all the fields in Westmount currently used for sports are overbooked so access to soccer is somewhat limited and wear on the field is higher than what one might desire. However, critically, the plan Council advances doe nothing to solve either problem. Instead Council proposes a completely unrelated plan to 1) Close the upper Melville field, one of the two best soccer fields in Westmount, to soccer for anyone older than five years (by planting flowers throughout the field!), and 2) to expand and enclose with large metal fences the lower fields in Westmount Park.

The expansion and fencing will not increase the available field space for soccer; rather the Council’s plan results in a net decrease in available field space for soccer since the upper field will be closed, and a net increase in wear on the remaining fields since the 40 hours per week of sports use on the upper Melville field must be shifted elsewhere. Thus Council’s proposal does nothing to solve the problem defined in its own document.

The plan creates a number of new and expensive problems that are not addressed in the document. For example, the proposal to expand the lower field to 60m width plus a mandatory border of 5m on each side between the field and the metal fence means that the northern boundary of the lower fields will abut the gazebo and the fence will run where the bike path is now. This will have a number of serious negative consequences including:

• The necessity to fell all of the large trees that currently border the south side of the bike path.

• The necessity to move the grade that currently separates the lower fields from the upper park to north of the current bike path, a move that will necessitate the felling all of the large trees that currently border the north side of the bike path.

• The confinement of all 350 Westmount Park School children and 50 Narnia daycare children into a separate zone at the east quarter of the current field on a surface that is unlikely to be grass since the concentration of all the children into this small space will ensure that grass won’t grow.

• The closure of the field to recreational use by members of the community.

The destruction of what is currently a beautiful, natural and treed setting that draws people from all over Westmount for casual recreation, picnics, and strolls, and which provides an idyllic and natural setting for such popular summer activities as the Shakespeare in the Park program, the Sunday Jazz program, etc.

The proposal conflicts directly with the Council’s own recently released Urban Planning Document. In that document, the Council states a desire to increase the density of children in lower Westmount. Many families in lower Westmount do not have access to a backyard. Thus they use the park for their recreation. The City’s plan to both close the fields to Westmount families and to reduce access to soccer by closing the upper field is unlikely to attract families with children.

The new document says that its initial estimate of $660,000 to renew the southern playing fields must now be considered a “soft” estimate. Experienced readers can translate “soft” to “low” since the initial estimate did not include the cost of re-grading the field, felling the trees, and shifting the entire bike path to some new location since there will be no room for it in the current plan. It also does also not include the more difficult to quantify cost to the community of the loss of a beautiful, treed open space to be replaced by a bald, fenced sports complex for the exclusive use of the six-week soccer program and paying clients. Should we support Council in replacing a beautiful open view with one of six-foot-high black metal bars, replace beautiful mature trees with the tiny stumps of replacement trees that they have already planted in Sunnyside Park (although they’re hard to see). We have already seen what Council can do to a park if they’re left to their own devices.

This time, let’s act before the damage is inflicted.

Gillian O’Driscoll, PhD

Redfern Avenue