Minutes

Wednesday, May 12, 2004
Manor Road United Church
7:00 - 8:30 p.m.

DRAFT MINUTES

Attendance
Present: Joseph Pacitti (Past-President), Harold Pidduck, Josh Cobden, Paul Pelton, Murad Velshi, John Holland, Dan Scott
Regrets: Jim Walker (President), Margaret Walker (Secretary), Wendy Tamminen (Membership Chair)

  1. Minutes of the March 24, 2004 Meeting
    • Approved with minor amendments by the Directors present.
  2. Business Arising from the Minutes for March 24, 2004
      • These items were discussed at the discretion of the Chair:
    1. SERRA accounts year to-date
      • No change in the General Operating Account ($1,413)
      • Three accounts are outstanding:
        • Josh: FoNTRA Membership 2004 ($50)
        • Dan: SERRA Website ($60 US)
        • Patricia Welsh: Paul's Reliable (?)
      • SERRA cheques can now be counter signed either by Jim Walker or Margaret Walker, as arranged with the RBC at Yonge/Orchard Blvd.
      • Legal Fund No Change ($2,053.21)
    2. Spring Edition of the OWL 2004
      • The OWL had been resurrected four years ago as a good means of informing residents about issues in the neighbourhood. It also helped to increase membership in SERRA and occasionally resulted in donations. To carry on as an organization, we need that kind of support, and we need to publish the OWL.
      • While traditionally everything had been left to Patricia, that clearly was not a fair burden. Joe suggested that every board director with a portfolio contribute something for the next OWL (a paragraph, a set of points, even something light-hearted) with an end of May deadline for sending him a draft. The board discussed a number of ideas and agreed on the following responsibilities:
        • Josh: OMB reform, lawn pesticides, SERRA priorities, Walker's environment day
        • John: Proposed garbage limit per household
        • Dan: Crother's woods, SERRA Website introduction
        • Paul: Speed bumps
        • Joe: Past president's address on 'whither SERRA'
      • The board also thought we could email Justin Peters for a list of the major developments in the South Eglinton area for an article that would almost write itself. The idea of an 'electronic OWL' was raised again. Dan agreed to confer with Patricia on getting archived versions of the OWL posted on the SERRA Web site to provide some organizational history, and to try to post the current version in a timely fashion.
    3. Main Focus for SERRA in 2004
      • Membership Campaign The board felt that getting an OWL published and distributed was the most important step we can take in support of our membership campaign.
      • Communications and Public Relations Josh stated, with agreement from the present board members, that we should only write articles when we have something to say - or to add value to FoNTRA and CORRA initiatives with specific implications for SERRA residents.
    4. Reports from meetings of other Member Associations
      1. CORRA
        • Active items were North Toronto Collegiate Institute, Crystal Palace, Official Plan (which Terry Mills is primarily driving). Several public meetings will be forthcoming on OMB Reform.
      1. FoNTRA
        • Josh stated that FoNTRA is putting a ull-court press on OMB Reform. The group has produced a document that, after six drafts, has been ratified by all FoNTRA members and sent to City Council. Michael Bryant asked to attend the last FoNTRA meeting to hear their OMB reform ideas, which is certainly a positive sign. The Minister of Municipal Affairs (Gerritson?) was shocked by the passion demonstrated at a public meeting on OMB reform. A template letter will be circulated for residents to send to MPP's demanding reform; the letter describes both the current problems and proposed solutions.
        • 3 more groups have joined FoNTRA: ABC, Don Mills, and ???
        • The proposal for Dunfield and South Eglinton started at 32 stories, was summarily rejected, and now the developer is back with a proposal for 28 stories.
        • CNIB development: Daniels has taken over Mattami and will hold a meeting on May 17th, 7:30 PM at Northlea
    5. Applications by South Eglinton Residents to the Committee of Adjustment
      • South-east corner of Manor and Mount Pleasant for a restaurant with 206 seating spaces (vs. 200 permitted) and 0 parking spots (instead of 3) doesn't concern Jack Miller from Miller's Shoe Store because he feels it will bring in potential traffic and because it mostly operates at night.
    6. The re-naming of Davisville Park to June Rowlands Park
      • Joe expressed his continued opposition to the proposal. There was no further discussion.
    7. Use of green space in Sunnybrook Park (Crothers' Woods)
      • Dan described a trail-building school that the International Mountain Biking Association held the previous weekend for about thirty participants, including members of the City land managers, Friends of the Don, and the Don Valley Trail Users' Club. As part of the trail-building school, the group closed a poorly designed heavily eroded trail and created a new sustainable low-impact trail in the area just behind Loblaw's on Redway Road.
    8. Limiting garbage bags for City garbage collectors this summer
      • Apparently the City is circulating a proposal for household limits with surcharges for extra bags of garbage. The board felt any such proposal should be dependent on the introduction of a corresponding green bin / wet waste collection system, as in Scarborough, and the limit should be a ratio dependent upon the numbers of people living in that household. Board members expressed some concern that residents would simply dump garbage bags in parks or on other property, but noted that the recent rise in littering fines and the extra garbage inspectors that were hired might discourage such behaviour.
      • Action: John will send Justin an email to find out what the current state of the proposal is.
  3. New Business
    1. "Crystal Palace"
      • David Green's plans for the Yonge-Eglinton Center were presented to a public meeting on April 12 chaired by Karen Stintz. Dan Scott attended and gave a brief overview of the proposal, including a history of the abrogation of the original agreement in 1969 with the City to provide a massive amount of landscaped open space. Most of the attendees of the meeting were not in favour of the proposal, with concerns about what the value of a deal was; feeling that the 'glass box' wasn't the inspirational architectural vision that would justify such a development; overall concern that such a significant development would occur before the focused review of Yonge-Eglinton had been finished.
      • Councillor Stintz asked residents to direct their comments to her or Councillor Walker.
    2. Town Hall meeting on April 13th "Reforming the OMB"
      • Item covered under FoNTRA report from other meetings.
    3. Formulate a SERRA Policy and Procedure for Planning and Development Issues to be applied by this SERRA Board and future Boards
      • Based on the previous discussions about Bethel Baptist Church proposal, Dan suggested that SERRA attempt to draft some set of principles on which we could base our decisions to support or oppose proposals. By-laws enable the board to make decisions via a simple majority vote, however there is no guidance for making those decisions and helping City representatives (or developers) know what we will or will not support.
      • Murad suggested that we try to come up with a set of criteria to consider, such as:
        • Broaden tax base?
        • Benefit to community?
        • Attractiveness / fit with current environment?
        • Environmental considerations?
        • Traffic / parking?

        Action: Dan will post a discussion item on southeglinton.com where all electronically-connected members of the SERRA board (and the community, for that matter) can contribute to the discussion. Done: see (no longer a valid forum link).

        Action: Dan will contact a few other resident organizations (OPA, etc) to find out what they do.

  4. Other business brought to the meeting: Bethel Baptist resolution
    • Be it resolved that SERRA object to the proposed development of the Bethel Baptist Church site into a four-story life-lease 21-unit building.

      Moved by: Paul Seconded: Joe
  5. Date of the next Board Meeting
    • While the originally scheduled date was June 23rd, the agenda stated June 16th. There was some confusion as to which day the Friendship Room was actually booked. Either way it would make sense to send agenda items to Margaret by June 15th.