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Sunday, November 1st, 2009

Ontario Municipal Board hearing Stratford vs. walmart

I will be presenting as a citizen participant before the Ontario Municipal Board on Tuesday, November 24th at 11 a.m. in Council Chambers at City Hall in Stratford. The issue is the protection of Stratford’s downtown core. The city conducted a fair and open democratic process in regards to this issue. A number of public meetings convinced council to vote to uphold the city’s official plan amendment (OPA 10) requiring all new commercial development that can not be accommodated in the downtown core be directed to the west end of the city where new residential development is expected to be built in the future and not the east end that is already over heavy with malls and sprawl. avonwood, the developer for walmart is asking the OMB to enforce a corporate written official amendment that will allow them to locate in the east end and change industrial land use to commercial. This site specific corporate version of the amendment will negatively affect the city’s future development for years and will be, in my opinion,  devastating for the heart of our city, the down town core and the whole character of Stratford. If you are in Stratford come out and show the support for OPA 10 to OMB on Nov. 24th and during that week as members of the City Centre Committee give their important evidence.

Democracy and a community’s right to self-determination or corporate rule?

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