Democracy Caledon “appalled by snow job on” by-laws open house

OUR READERS WRITE

Democracy Caledon is appalled that a public open house originally set to discuss only the proposed new by-law on site alteration has morphed into a snow job that covers a blizzard of five proposed by-laws, all in two hours on September 3.

The Town of Caledon has decided that information displays at the open house will now cover these proposed new or amended by-laws, all between 5 and 7 pm:

Site alteration;

Property standards;

Clean yards;

Tree preservation;

Entrance permit.

In adding four more by-laws to the open house, the Town is violating its own procedural by-law that requires 20 days' notice of a change to a public meeting or open house. The Town back-dated its notice of the change to give the impression it had met the 20-day requirement.

“Heaven help the Caledon resident who wants to truly understand, in two hours, what the Town is planning for even one of these by-laws, let alone people who want in-depth information on several of them,” said Debbe Crandall, President of Democracy Caledon. “We see this as a strategy to divide and conquer by severely limiting the ability of residents to understand the Town's intentions with each by-law.  This is not just public consultation at its worst and its most limited, it's a complete sham.”

Crandall made a comparison to the one public meeting in April 24 on 12 zoning by-laws to fast-track urban development on some 5,000 acres of land in southern Caledon. “We've seen this kind of major erosion of public consultation before – and look where that landed.  Democracy Caledon launched a legal challenge to those 12 by-laws.”

Democracy Caledon calls on the Town to revert to the original plan – devote September 3 to the proposed site alteration by-law ONLY.  This by-law will likely have wide-ranging implications for land use and landscape change across Caledon, for example at “Swan Lake” in Ward 1.  The Town should schedule separate open houses for each of the five by-laws.

Democracy Caledon