Opening up.

 I had an interesting day today.

We ran some errands, and decided to stop at  Beach 1 in Wasaga.

The best espresso is available there at Ciao's Pizza.

Pamela walked bare foot along the water's edge as I drank my coffee and lite up a cigarette.

An elderly man looking of Indian decent approaches and asks if it's permitted to smoke here.

"No" I replied.

     He looked confused as he looked up the street were another man was smoking, back at me, and then pointed at the cigarette butts on the ground.

"It is not allowed, but I am smoking anyway" I said.

"Oh" he replied as he pulled a pack out of the pocket of a well tailored shirt.

The wind of the lake made it hard to light a smoke so I gave him my already burning cigarette to lite his.

"Are you visiting from Toronto?" I ask.

    "Brampton" he replies.

"We are in a motel over there, we stay until tomorrow"

We chatted a little more, and I ask him where are you from originally.

      Proudly he answers "Punjab" but goes on to say "Canada is a very good county, many good people".  He offered his opinion that some from India do not appreciate it and do not adjust to Canadian lifestyle.

"I don't think that's true" I answered, "it just takes time". "Before it was Chinese, Italian or Portuguese, and before that Polish and German" 

"Today you cannot go anywhere and see Italian or Chinese restaurants, even Indian restaurants are popping up everywhere". "It just takes time, Canada has always been a land of immigration".

      He smiled and said "you like Indian food?"

"Love it and cook it myself at home". " India is a beautiful country and I would love to visit there one day".

     "Give me your address, I will send you a ticket" he says.

A little stunned I ask "why would you do that?".

     "I am 72 and a very rich man, it would make me happy", was his answer. " I was an engineer working for the military, I get pension of 4 big rupees".

By this point Pamela had joined us and listened to the conversation with obvious suspicion.

I thanked him for his very generous offer but told him I could not accept. "I will visit India one day though".

      We chatted a little more, "That is my wife over there, in the blue". 

"She is very young, you are a lucky man", I answered.

    "No no, she is 75, she was a gold medal discus champion in India" he comments while making the arm motion.

I laughed and said " So she is very strong too, you better be a good man to her".

   "Oh yes, we have 2 sons and a daughter, we still have sex but I need just a little pill" he proudly asserted.

I could not help but chuckle, a cultural difference in the meaning of a "good man".

I shook his had and wished him a good day and safe journey home in the morning. As we walked back to our car, Pamela asks, "Why would you give a stranger our address?"

Not that I did but I said "something tells me this man would have actually kept his word and sent us that ticket".

Sometimes you encounter good honest people when you are willing to open up yourself.

Why the "New World Order" is already a failure!

Why the "New World Order" is already a failure!

Part of the agenda is to move an even greater percentage of the population into large urban centers.

The concept is this will allow larger land masses to heal themselves.

The failure in this notion is as history shows, great urban centers need even greater non renewable resources. A lot of concrete and iron.

In order to achieve the desired density, they must first year down huge tracts of established neighborhoods and rebuild.

These higher densities produce an awful lot of waste.

Huge masses of land and great bodies of water will be needed to digest this.

A hundred years ago when much of North America was rural, there were many small releases of waste, and the land Sun and microbes could deal with it. 

But there is a tipping point, too much and the system gets overwhelmed and collapses.

The other problem is scholarly models all predict that in 40 years the world's population will platue and start declining. Global birth rates have been steadily declining in the last 60 years.

Hind sight will show that one or several unforseen events will knock over the apple cart.

The Black Swan effect.

Mega food producers will have a harder and harder time keeping up with demand.

The general population will become more and more angered.

Many will try to escape urbanization back to the country side to find or grow their own food.

You will get vigilanty groups and or benevolent warriors, much like Robin Hood and his band of merry outlaws.

Because land ownership has been reduced into the hands of the 1%, there will be revolts as people try to lay claim to any small portion.

This whole scenario has played out many times in the world's history.

The other side of the coin is that all of the worlds longest surviving cultures are the ones that are primarily agregarin societies.

These cultures understand how much the land can provide and rarely have great desires for material goods.

A human must start to realize that no matter how clever they are, they are still part of the animal kingdom and part of nature.

Nature has a great ability to get rid of those parts that become too clever or successful for their own good.

The following are some supporting links that are a must read. Copy and paste links in browser on new tab.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projections_of_population_growth

https://youtu.be/oxieVARtZ7c

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/03/why-do-civilizations-collapse/

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.CBRT.IN?end=2017&start=1960&view=chart

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_swan_theory

https://theconversation.com/our-cities-need-to-go-on-a-resource-diet-68984

https://theconversation.com/habitat-iii-is-over-but-will-its-new-urban-agenda-transform-the-worlds-cities-67432

Some years back I attended a public input meeting for our 5 year Town Master Plan Review. A number of dignitaries milled about looking important. They referred most of the questions to their hired engineers.

I was pointed to one of them. He asked about my thoughts. “Well” I said, “I see buildings and streets, major traffic corridors, but I don’t see any people”.

This confounded him, like I was suggesting there should be little stick figure graphics all over his blue prints. It took a good 10 minutes for me to explain my point. As an example I pointed out a few neatly ordered distinct housing groups. They were connected by roads but not crisscrossed with shortcut foot paths. Other than bus stops there were no pedestrian gathering points like a parkette with a bench.

He hmmm’d a little. I went on to suggest that these pedestrian nodes should also be choke points, that would force a little human interaction.

He hmmm’d a little more and then proudly pointed out a few of the large scale community hubs planned in other areas of town. His argument was that they were trying to “put people first” by building these great cathedrals to sports and culture.

I can see that, I replied, but reality is, that these really become nothing more that collection points for masses of unrelated people from all over town, to use for their own individual benefit. Yes the crowds will gather, but do they encourage interaction and community?   “Here” I said, “you show a public square, with 10 or 12 little tables for people to sit”. “Why not replace that with one great long table”?

Fast forward, the one suggestion that did sink in and was eventually acted on, was the need for a community vegetable garden.

Building is strictly a utilitarian endeavour. You need shelter, you build a hut. Architecture is an embellishment. It adds artistic expression, shows off wealth or status, frames a picture, inspires awe and creates a focal point.

All good things, but in that pursuit it is easy to forget humanity’s most primal needs.

Interaction, companionship, acceptance and a need to feel like you belong. Every one of us has either lived or had friends that lived in a high density area, where almost no one knew their immediate neighbours.

Contrast that to almost any older neighbourhood in any city, where most of life played out on the front porches and rolled into the street. You could sit on your stoop and look left or right and see a neighbour on either side.

Somehow we have moved life into the private and secretive enclave of the backyard. Out the front, you may see the guy to the left getting into his car in the morning, but the other side is blocked from view and conversation by a hulking garage.

An other unintended side effect of architecture is the seeming need for order and uniformity. As a result the corner stores, neighbourhood pubs or little bread bakeries have been systematically removed as gathering points in communities. Try these days to strike up a conversation with a stranger at the Super Grocery Mega-center, and you’re viewed with suspicion or thought of as a lunatic.

I recently visited Valencia. I was astounded about the creative and unique architecture and public spaces just up the river from the harbour. One of the buildings was so cleaver in it’s engineering that it seemed to defy gravity. After taking a lot of photos, passing a number of tourist taking lots of photos, I started to get a sensation of loneliness.

I headed back to the chaos and mishmash on the narrow streets in the old part of the city, near the train station. After brushing by and bumping into numerous perfect strangers on these crowed streets, my feeling of loneliness disappeared.

Adding elements into Architectural design that not only encourage human interaction, but leave people no other choice can be difficult to do, but is vital if we are to talk about “walkable/liveable” communities.

While not architectural, one of the most ingenious elements I have seen was that from a little old Lady, re designing her front garden. She had lived in the little house for all of her adult life and wanted desperately to stay. The area had changed so much over the years. All of her neighbours had passed or moved away.

Lot’s of young families and immigrants were moving in. Regularly out in her garden, she tried to engage her new neighbours, with little success. She noticed many of them had dogs. She liked dogs. For fear of earning her ire, they would hustle their dog past the yard to do business in the next ditch.

The situation took a huge turn one day. Her son took her to the garden center. Siting with a host of concrete garden ornaments was a brightly painted fake fire hydrant. Today every dog defies it’s master’s commands and stops at that fire hydrant. She now knows all of her neighbours!

Good Architecture is an extension of the space it occupies, and some of that space is in hearts and emotions of the people it needs to interact with.

 

Why does it always seem that Wasaga Beach is languishing? (not that that's true)

The one thing we keep doing over and over is to look what other communities "have" done. Then we try to emulate that!

This is not forward thinking and leads us into a "Game of Ketchup".

Growth has been phenomenal in Wasaga, but most of that has been controlled by what is know as "cheque book planning".

Wasaga Beach started out on the cutting edge over a hundred years ago, by moving from a resource based economy (lumber) to the infancy recreational tourism industry.

We need to get back on that cutting edge. If we are going to reinvent ourselves yet again, let's look to the newest ideas just moving out of their infancy.

This idea ;  

Degrowth: the Radical (Re)Action Needed to Avoid Total Economic and Environmental Collapse

• 07:00 - 20 December, 2018
 
• by Rory Stott  
• is one of those ideas.

"the concept of “degrowth,” a growing movement to overturn our economic assumptions and establish a managed contraction of our economies and resource consumption, with the eventual goal that society will become calmer, less focused on productivity, and more focused on quality of life. And, as they see it, the architects of this retooled society could be—well, architects."

The interview is a 10 minute read, but well worth it. You may gain some tools to help pollish your own ideas.

https://www.archdaily.com/905546/degrowth-the-radical-re-action-needed-to-avoid-total-economic-and-environmental-collapse?utm_medium=email&utm_source=ArchDaily%20List&kth=4,015,941

Canada's Tourism Vision - Canada's Tourism Vision

I hope Wasaga Beach keeps it's vision to the future. All signs lead towards a long and fruitful economy rising with a growing world wide tourism movement.

Are we aligning ourselves with Provincial and Federal initiative?
Have a read! ;

Canada's Tourism Vision - Canada's Tourism Vision

I was disappointed this year that I did not see any fireflies. I worry that in an attempt to "urbanize" our population, we are creating an "industrialization" of our rural lands. Whether it's large scale factory farming or resource extraction, we have been killing things at an alarming rate with out practices and insatiable wants. 
Everyone recognizes  the loss of our larger more obvious, furry or cute creatures, but the loss of worms, bugs, flying insects, crawly things and even lowly microbes, by the ton, is ten times greater. Those little creatures are the basis for the whole system.

Here in Wasaga Beach, there is a push for more intensive urbanization, improved infrastructure like concrete curbs, sidewalk and buried storm sewers.
This all takes a lot of concrete and aggregate. I took part in the fight against the "mega quarry" just south of us a few years back.
I look at the legislation that pushes and promotes urbanization, only to read, hidden in the middle, that most of the so called protection of our environment is really little more than protection for the "right of extraction" on our all ready overused natural resources.

An excerpt from the 2014 Provincial Policy Statement
2.3.6 Non-Agricultural Uses in Prime Agricultural Areas 2.3.6.1 Planning authorities may only permit non-agricultural uses in prime agricultural areas for: a) extraction of minerals, petroleum resources and mineral aggregate resources, in accordance with policies 2.4 and 2.5; or PROVINCIAL POLICY STATEMENT 26 b) limited non-residential uses, provided that all of the following are demonstrated: 1. the land does not comprise a specialty crop area; 2. the proposed use complies with the minimum distance separation formulae; 3. there is an identified need within the planning horizon provided for in policy 1.1.2 for additional land to be designated to accommodate the proposed use; and 4. alternative locations have been evaluated, and i. there are no reasonable alternative locations which avoid prime agricultural areas; and ii. there are no reasonable alternative locations in prime agricultural areas with lower priority agricultural lands. 2.3.6.2 Impacts from any new or expanding non-agricultural uses on surrounding agricultural operations and lands are to be mitigated to the extent feasible.
2.5.2 Protection of Long-Term Resource Supply 2.5.2.1 As much of the mineral aggregate resources as is realistically possible shall be made available as close to markets as possible. Demonstration of need for mineral aggregate resources, including any type of supply/demand analysis, shall not be required, notwithstanding the availability, designation or licensing for extraction of mineral aggregate resources locally or elsewhere.

When you read the whole thing, it pretty well leaves it up to the discretion of the Corporation, doing the extraction as to what is reasonable and feasible.

The older style family farm or large lot suburban and rural communities, actual did sustain a much greater diversity of wild life, including those tiny creatures. There was no vast mono-culture, that striped the land of almost everything. People are creatures, living things and part of nature. We belong to the land. When we understand and respect that, then we are also the best stewards of the land.

While we 'chew' on those thoughts here are a couple of articles well worth having a good look at!

How the Growth of Monoculture Crops Is Destroying our Planet and Still Leaving us Hungry

http://www.onegreenplanet.org/animalsandnature/monoculture-crops-environment/

Half of Canada's wildlife species are in decline, WWF finds

https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/wwf-living-planet-index-1.4288173

Are we back to Condo dreams already?

A post about the future of Wasaga yesterday, was an “I’m throwing in the towel” rant. It seemed to support the notion that our tourism industry is no longer important and condo development is the future of our town. (https://www.facebook.com/groups/wasagabeach/?ref=group_header) Wed 2;52

“The slightly sleazy, ‘party-on’ beachfront must die. Nobody will retire to the area as it is now. The area must be gentrified.” was a quote from that post.

So here's my rant....

To start with, there have been condo dreams for the beach for over 20 years, and all they did directly or indirectly lead to the destruction and neglect of existing buildings a facilities. Do not bull doze any thing else, till we build something new first or we will end up with nothing.

Secondly, the term “Gentrification” while it has been whitewashed by it’s proponents, is deeply rooted in the classist and racist ideology of the Gentry or so called Noble class of the wealthy aristocrats. It would of course preclude the Government mandate for the urbanization to include low income housing and facilities for the less fortunate. When the Park was created, the statement was made by the government that the Beaches are being preserved for the recreation uses of all of Ontario, so we have to get over the notion that it belongs to us! It does not. It belongs to the whole population of Canada.

I think we need a dose of realism.

First many of the residences here are secondary homes for empty nesters or retirement homes for snowbirds.

No amount of growth will help support year round business if in continues on this path.

So that leaves us with summer tourism.

Big problem is, as many say, they are day trippers and don’t spend any money.

Why is that?

We did it. Since the late 60’s there has been a steady decline in the amount of overnight accommodation along our beaches.

We had a real estate boom all across Canada then. More and more people saw an opportunity to make a fast profit in that game. Wasaga had cheap land and became a target.

We also had the bad habit of electing real estate agents and brokers to our council that had an obvious bias in favour of redevelopment.

They intern, for some strange reason invited the province to come in and take over control of the beach fronts.

Ontario Parks then set about to expropriate and tear down another estimated 30% of our overnight accommodations.

But then we had a little boom in our cottage industry, and land was carved up and sold to build weekend cottages.

That helped turn around our tourism. People came up, often stayed for a week or 2 and spent money.

They also invited family and friends to do the same.

So much so, that the remaining cottage courts and motels were starting to feel the competition. Some took the easy road and sold out to wealthy people to build big waterfront homes. Others quietly chewed on the ears of our local politicians and they used the nuisance complaints as an excuse to regulate private weekend rentals.

That only lead to a further decline in our overnight or week long visitations of tourist.

Now we want our complaint of “day trippers” to become a full reality by allowing the conversion of all of our remaining tourism accommodation to town house and condos.

It is a downward spiral that is getting faster everyday.

In a short 10 years we will have killed almost all of our tourism in favour of retirement homes.

This will kill most of our remaining retail industry. People downsizing need to get rid of stuff not buy more. That demographic does not dine out much, nor do they go to bars till the wee hours of the morning for entertainment. And once again, just look around your own neighbourhood to see, that most of those go south for the winter.

As the person who did the other post said, “commercial lease rates can not be supported with the kind of retail we have”.

So that leaves us with the only choice of relaxing restrictions on zoning, and allowing Mom & Pops to open up a little shop attached to their home.

We had lot’s of these all over the area back in the 50’s & 60’s.

Somehow we fell under the spell of “urban planning” and the need for order and structure, zoning vast areas as “residential only” or “commercial only”.

Can you just imagine how the 2 or 3 immediate neighbours would scream and stomp their feet, if a little variety store was allowed to open along Shore Lane near the entrance to Park 4 or Park 5. God forbid our “day trippers” should be encouraged to buy an ice cream or bag of potato chips.

Now I fully agree that a lot of our full time citizens and many neigbourhoods have been ignored for years. We are a small town (by any standards) so ditches and culverts are common here. They are also problematic, but the solution is not to go into huge expense by replacing them with buried service, but rather just do the required regular maintenance that part of our tax dollars is supposed to pay for.

And then let’s use some of the money the town collects for parkland dedication from builders and developers, to actually build a few parks and playgrounds.

Yes a big brand new library would be very nice. But for the near future what is needed more is a small second library in the west end of town. Doesn’t need to be fancy, just functional and more accessible to residents living out there.

We are fast becoming another Elliot Lake, in a time when many other towns are making the same mistake. It is quite possible that we may never attract a young demographic to live here, but at least we should make it easy for them to come and stay for a while.

Change the zoning back to tourism accommodation for all the areas still operating as such.

Encourage and assist those businesses to improve and upgrade.

When approving new development, ensure that corner stores and small retail is allowed every 2 blocks so things are “walkable”.

To bring back overnight visitors that do spend money, make allowance for B&B’s all over town, not just in one little corner. This would also help ensure that a good deal of the money stays with-in the local population and wealth pool!

Make our Town affordable for young people by encouraging secondary residences and lower the minimum square footage requirements on new builds.

We may never be able to afford and/or support the expense of a large modern double pad  arena, but we can afford to do major repair on out existing one, build a second outdoor ice pad, and put a roof over the existing outdoor pad.

Ask yourselves, is building concrete curbs and sidewalks on every street in Wasaga really that much more important that building up our public transport service?

I agree with the person that wrote that post, the Town had no business buying up land with tax payer money and a lot of mortgage debt, to facilitate our condo dreams.

If we want to see rapid redevelopment of our Beach 1 and Main St. area, the best way of doing that is to bust up the holdings into smaller more affordable parcels and putting them on the open market. Let’s not fall prey a 4^th time to a single persons grandiose vision and sales pitch.

If we really want to buy into the former Liberal Government’s dream of intensive urbanization, then read the “Places To Grow” act and preamble carefully. When you do that you’ll see that the area along Mosely from Schoonertown to 45^th St. is clearly the most ideal and suitable location for such urbanization. Leave our tourist area as a tourist area.

Now it seems, our newly elected council is enamored with the prospect of a local Casino. It will provide entertainment and recreation for our ‘ignored’ retired population. It will also kill what’s left of our tourist orientated hospitality business. They need the support of locals to carry them through the winter months. How will the compete against a subsidized Casino restaurant that sells a fish & chips dinner for $5.95 or has an all you can eat buffet for $10.95.

Next summer when the tourist come up and ask “were can we get something to eat?” we can just send them all to the casino I guess.

Finally go to the planning department website and have a look at our “active development” map and you’ll see that growth in our town is still exponential and does not need further encouragement. We do not have the infrastructure nor the funds to increase services to facilitate much more. We need to stop and do a little catch up.