Supporting a Car-Optional Community: Planning for People

Why is there so little accountability surrounding the high costs of establishing and maintaining Sandwich South, the 1,000 farmland subdivision that is to anchor the planned new hospital?  A $216,800 pedestrian and bicycle path in a new South Windsor subdivision was unanimously approved during the May 27, 2019 City Council meeting. When built, it will considerably shorten Rockport Street residents’ walk to the nearest existing bus stop for the Walkerville 8 bus route. We’re excited that Council has embraced a plan that puts people before cars. Yet there’s more to this story, and we're writing about it today because it illustrates the lack of insight into the costs of new subdivisions, in contrast to development of existing neighbourhoods with good population density where good connectivity to public transit already exists. The developer’s lawyer (at 7:35) asked if the pathway's cost justifies its future benefit. His client favoured not building it at all. Fortunately Council decided otherwise. Councillor Chris Holt established (at 8:04) that maintenance of the 312 foot (95 m) pathway - mowing and snow removal - will come out of Windsor’s operational funding. This has not been budgeted.  How does this relate to the planned hospital location? The 1,000 acre Sandwich South development (roughly the size of downtown Windsor) is significantly larger than the Rockport subdivision. The scale of the capital and maintenance costs will therefore be significantly greater: Windsor taxpayers will pay at least $220M - more than a fourth! - of the $850M in capital costs for developing Sandwich South and East Pelton, the subdivision to be built beside it. Together, they are expected to house 13,243 people, even though the city's Planning Department expects Windsor's population to increase by just 7,752 through 2036.

These capital costs do not even include the additional tens of millions of dollars needed for public transit and EMS. Additional maintenance and running costs, in perpetuity, are to be paid by Windsor’s operational budget. These future costs have not been announced. The lack of clarity around future costs at a time of modest overall population growth is a key reason for our August 2018 request to defer the approval of Sandwich South. Robbing Peter to Pay Paul? Our future population growth is expected to be modest. It’s safe to assume there will be little appetite for higher taxes. And yet, driving-optional amenities are more important than ever for our aging population. If Sandwich South goes ahead as proposed, uncomfortable choices will have to be made about providing the new amenities to support a healthy and active community. What amenities will be cut back in the absence of robust growth in our tax base? We’re hopeful that Council will revisit its approval of the Secondary South Planning Area. Without public insight into its expected future costs, the decision to develop it was neither transparent nor accountable.

Some recent comments from our friends and neighbours:

"BIAs should not be bullied by the mayor." ~ "It is a bad planning decision and devoid of any real imagination or courage. We should not allow people with so little creativity to lead this mega project." ~ "Everything about the MegaHospital county location is wrong. Others have built next generation hospitals on the same site as working hospitals, while the existing hospital continued to operate. (e.g. Sarnia, after strongly considering a greenfield build)" ~ "Good governance is the key to solving tough problems. This hospital siting process is a classic example of democracy being hijacked by a few hidden powerbrokers. The result is a process which is undemocratic, corrupt, irresponsible and unaccountable. The end result is a hospital site choice which does not serve the needs of the majority of the people, is the highest cost solution, has the greatest negative environmental impact and causes maximum economic harm to the core of the city." ~ "Have we not learned about city bad decisions re location of important  core facilities. WFCU is a prime example, located in the booneys at the time." ~ "Drew Dilkens has proven himself time and again to be beholden to his special friends, and to have no understanding whatsoever about urban planning. He voted to locate the Spitfires outside of downtown, he pushed for the white elephant water park. And now, he wants to gentrify our city centre for who knows what "real" reason. I live in the county, however a city site makes much more financial and common sense, to avoid further de-centralization and urban sprawl. Windsor needs a real business- person, with common sense, to get the city back on track."

We're celebrating: Development Done Right!

Shovels went into the ground at 955 Ouellette this week: this is where a four-storey luxury rental condominium building is going up on a downtown lot that has stood vacant since the 1980's. The project is one of the first major residential city centre developments in more than two decades. It will add 32 units of much needed housing in an area where municipal infrastructure already exists, and where far too much land consists of empty lots. The brownfield project is one of many announcements in and around Windsor since the Downtown CIP (Community Improvement Plan) was adopted in September 2017 to encourage urban residential development. MHBC, the out-of-town consultants who produced the development plan for Sandwich South, determined that 6,900 new residential units will be needed to supply Windsor's housing needs through 2036:

They identified a total potential supply of just 3,255 units (p.63 of this link). They earmarked the development of 1,000 acres of active farmland adjacent to Windsor Airport (to be anchored by the planned single site acute care hospital). This area is expected to provide more than half (3,645 homes) of MHBC's projections for Windsor's new housing needs for the next two decades. It's difficult to believe that these planning professionals were unable to find enough land within Windsor's established neighbourhoods. We have been tracking the formal housing applications and media announcements as they've been coming out: We've catalogued more than 4,000 new housing units - that's already 60% of the total anticipated new housing needs for the next 20 yers! And that's without even taking into account Windsor's new Second Units bylaw that allows the construction of basement dwellings, converted garages and so-called "granny flats".

We're quite certain that many more untapped development opportunities exist within Windsor's existing neighbourhoods. In 2016, the project Vacant Windsor identified some 700 empty or abandoned lots:

On this Victoria Day weekend, we're celebrating the groundbreaking on Ouellette because healthy cities fill in their urban spaces before developing active farmland. Healthy cities make their downtown areas attractive to residents of all income levels. A healthy city is one that benefits everyone.

Isn't May too early for the sound of crickets?   The sound of silence emanated from the local Windsor media following the full page article about Citizens for an Accountable Mega-hospital Planning Processin the May 6, 2019 edition of Canada's national daily, the Globe and Mail.   Why the lack of interest from our local media?  Increasing numbers of informed residents complain that our new hospital needs to be located close to the most densely populated neighbourhoods. They point out that it is unacceptable to replace an acute care hospital with an Urgent Care facility, and that decision makers have also ignored serious environmental concerns. Why is it so hard to report on engaged local citizens who oppose the transfer of 4,000 jobs and all hospital services to an active farmland site adjacent to Windsor Airport? Where is the cost analysis of adding (and maintaining) so much new municipal infrastructure on the outskirts of the city?

Nationally, and even internationally, plenty of people are paying attention to what's happening in Windsor.   Increasingly, they are learning about the failure of accountable and responsible leadership in Windsor-Essex. The Globe and Mail article prompted Garfield Mahood, who was born in Windsor and later inducted as an Officer in the Order of Canada, to write a letter to the Windsor Star. His letter generated hundreds of comments on Facebook.

Mr. Mahood, who now lives in Toronto, spent much of his life fighting to prevent tobacco-caused illness and death. For over 35 years, he has been at the forefront of the very successful fight against Big Tobacco. Clearly not a stranger to controversy, he wrote:

"I only hope that those behind the mega-hospital project will realize that such a large shift in jobs and health services is not in Windsor’s best interests. I also hope they are large enough to concede a mistake and change course."

Some recent comments from our friends and neighbours:

"This decision effects Windsor for years to come! It may be "regional", but it will be Windsor's tax paying dollars that maintain those roads, those sewers, snow removal, bus transportation, etc. The fact is, Windsor is struggling in many of these areas throughout the city, and this only furthers this issue. Locating on the outskirts of the city will be a tremendous mistake." ~ "Garfield, thank you for your letter as we wish the same, except we feel the people pushing the buttons don’t care one bit about people only profit. They already know how huge their mistake is and its still full speed ahead towards the iceberg. The ones pulling the strings have the lifeboats; there will only be room for them." ~ "So many Canadian cities are desperately encouraging infill development (witness the latest issue of Canadian Geography magazine), and here Windsor is ensuring sprawl with its current choice for the megahospital location. Not smart." ~ "Urban sprawl ends up costing a fortune in the mid to long run" ~ "There were and are better choices for this location that support everyone. We have time to make it better."

Will Windsor's new hospital heal the city or do it harm?

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT - - - May 6, 2019, The Globe & Mail: Will Windsor's new hospital heal the city or do it harm?

Who Are We? For those who have used degrading, disparaging or vilifying language in speaking about Citizens for an Accountable Mega-hospital Planning Process, please remember:   We are your neighours, your family, your coworkers: We are all members of the Windsor-Essex community. Everybody deserves accessible and adequate healthcare services. This is CAMPP's mission.

Some recent comments from our friends and neighbours:

"I donated because I have grown tired of the portrayal of opponents of this location as the minority. The location is wrong and everyone with any sense knows it. I am also tired of the bullying and scare tactics by hospital bureaucrats. I can't afford much but I am making a contribution. Enough already."   ~   "I think that the Globe article will increase CAMPP's credibility with the Windsor media... Maybe it would break through the blackout that keeps these concerns away from the average citizen...." ~   "I think about the seniors in Windsor, my dad is almost 94 and doesn't drive. He lives in a seniors place, his own small apartment there and going to the hospital has always been easy. he's had some heart issues the last few years and I've been grateful the hospitals are there for most of the population, which is downtown."   ~   "Great to see all the forward momentum on the hospital issue!"   ~ "I can’t help but think about the increasing amounts of flooding and leaking that people are experiencing in Windsor as the infrastructure of our city ages and becomes inadequate for our needs due to climate change and building/renovation that adds to the over burdened system. Obviously tax dollars and city workers will be utilized to remedy the problem by contracting companies to build new infrastructure and having city workers continue to maintain it, both of these resources have limits. I then start to wonder about the frivolous nature of adding a whole new need for infrastructure in an area where none has previously existed. I hear talk of how the new hospital will attract the need for new housing as well and with new housing generally we can expect some new retail, now the need is growing more and more along with the cost and the maintenance, none of which will be paid for by the Province. So, now I am thinking about what that will look like. Will the City work just not get done because the hospital can’t fail or will Windsor taxes have to be increased exorbitantly to cover the cost of both projects? Neither of those outcomes is satisfactory especially when the chances of my dying on the way to said hospital will have increased exponentially because it will be out in the middle of nowhere."

Have a comment you'd like to share? Please send it to us by replying to this email. We love to amplify our supporters' viewpoints.

In celebration of activist mothers

“There is nobody against this  NOBODY, NOBODY, NOBODY but a bunch of … a bunch of MOTHERS!” -- ROBERT MOSES

“It is very discouraging to do our best to make the city more habitable and then to learn that the city is thinking up schemes to make it uninhabitable.” -- JANE JACOBS

On this Mother's Day weekend, we remember the women (and men), who over 50 years ago challenged the powerful unelected  New York City official Robert Moses, described as "one of the most polarizing figures in the history of urban development in the United States." Moses famously denigrated urbanist Jane Jacobs, who along with other local residents advocated for a rethink of controversial development plans in New York City. He accused them of simply being:  "a bunch of mothers."  What could these mostly regular folks possibly know about what their neighbourhoods, much less their city, needed? However, residents ignored his insults and didn't back down. They ultimately succeeded in preventing the construction of a highway system a half century ago that would have destroyed the character and liveability of much of lower Manhattan. This geographic area, that five decades ago was considered undesirable, is home today to the most socially and economically vibrant neighbourhoods in the city (and New York's most expensive real estate): Soho, Greenwich Village and Tribeca.

“...all our human economic achievements have been done by ordinary people... Yet without understanding this, people are all too willing to fall for the idea that they can’t do this, they themselves, or anybody they know, because they’re too ordinary.” -- JANE JACOBS

Years of Bait and Switch:

BREAKING NEWS - - - May 6, 2019, The Globe & Mail: Will Windsor's new hospital heal the city or do it harm?

Years of Bait and Switch: A Small Handful of Officials are Selling Our Future Short

Both Mayor Drew Dilkens and Windsor Regional Hospital (WRH) CEO, David Musyj are lawyers. Surely both are thoroughly familiar with the legal system. Why are a small handful of mostly unelected officials using the local media to create public fear and confusion? Why are they so afraid of the independent LPAT Tribunal's legal process?

LPAT is an independent provincial tribunal that ensures good governance and transparency Of course, we all support necessary improvements to our regional hospital system. But how can they possibly claim in the May 4, 2019 Windsor Star that CAMPP, after six years of sustained public advocacy and engagement, did not "participate in the process"? In fact, we submitted three detailed reports to the consultants overseeing the site selection process: one in September 2016, another in July 2017, and a final one in August 2018. Furthermore: Over 2,000 local households requested lawn signs demanding hospital services remain accessible to the city's more than 200,000 residents Hundreds of residents have spoken at, or written to Windsor City Council 1,300 signed an online petition asking to keep hospital services in Windsor's city centre 2,500 signed a petition to the Ontario Legislature requesting a restart of the site selection process Countless letters and emails were sent to local MPPs, appealing to them to intervene To date, nearly 300 individuals or community groups have contributed almost $55,000 to our GoFundMe campaign to pay our legal costs for our current LPAT challenge. If this isn't enough, what's expected to "participate in the process"? Remarkably, it was the City and WRH (at the March 20, 2019 LPAT Case Management Conference) who refused the Tribunal's request to participate in mediation. Why? Because CAMPP would not agree to their bizarre terms: Accept the County Road 42 site! Isn't this the very issue on which the LPAT is supposed to rule? "Darn-tootin'!" This week again, more questions than answers! When Windsor’s mayor Drew Dilkens announced to the media on Friday, May 3, 2019 that Windsor City Council unanimously decided to put the former Grace Hospital site up for sale, the story generated more questions than answers. This wasn’t exactly breaking news. More than a year ago, on February 15, 2018, the Windsor Star reported that a high ranking local health official involved in the planning of the new hospital said there were no longer any plans to build the previously announced Urgent Care Centre on the former Grace site. As we wrote to you in our eblast on February 18, 2018:

Windsor Regional Hospital CEO David Musyj vehemently denied the Grace site is no longer in sight. He described it as fiction, saying, "If someone is saying that, they don't know what they are talking about. Unless it's coming from (Ontario Health Minister) Eric Hoskins or (Premier) Kathleen Wynne, they are liars."

Just over a year later, it appears the Windsor Star's source was telling the truth after all! We do think the announcement of the potential repurposing of the Grace site for a mixed use development is a great relief. Windsor needs more housing stock and commercial activity downtown. The Grace site location along the University Avenue corridor could kickstart a long-awaited and much-needed economic revival.   What's the difference between a UCC and a "Satellite ED"? WRH officials now appear to be planning to locate the downtown urgent care centre on the current WRH Ouellette Campus site. However, they are calling it a "satellite Emergency Department (ED)."

"It’s an emergency department, just without inpatient beds. So it’s staffed by emergency room physicians, emergency room nurses. It can handle any type of issue."  -- WRH CEO David Musyj on AM800 on May 1, 2019

Is this an elaborate marketing exercise to sell an unacceptable, and potentially life-threatening reduction in healthcare services to what they think is a gullible public? They suggested we look to Brampton’s new facility to learn about what is being planned in Windsor. So we did. This is what we found on the Peel Memorial Urgent Care Centre website - note that for serious conditions, patients are told to travel to one of two acute care hospitals:

Before believing whether the new facility being planned in downtown Windsor is actually an Emergency Department that can handle any kind of issue, the public deserves to know: Will it treat life-threatening conditions like strokes and heart attacks? Will it be open 24/7? Will it accept ambulances? Will there be ambulatory care clinics and surgeries? Will patients with referrals to see a specialist be able to see them there or will they need to travel to the acute care hospital?

A Message for Mothers

“Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.” -- Benjamin Franklin

For many who oppose the mega-hospital location, the biggest issue is access. If you’re used to driving everywhere, you probably don’t think a whole lot about how the County Road 42 location might affect people who don't drive. What if you can’t afford a car or taxi fare?  For mothers living in poverty, this is a critical issue. According to 2015 statistics: 32.1% of Windsor West children under the age of 17 live in poverty Many of these children live in single-parent (mother-only) households The proposed plan includes the closing of both Met and Ouellette acute care hospitals. Each has a 24/7 ER, ORs and specialists on call. Both are easily accessible by bus with few transfers needed. But the remote mega-hospital site will require several transfers for most riders.  That’s of course if buses are running at all. Imagine being a single parent living in poverty with a child in hospital or with ongoing medical needs. Now, imagine this without a car. The 15-18 km cab ride from the west end to the proposed hospital location will cost approximately $35 (one way). While the City has promised to provide public transit access, you can imagine how long it will take to get to the proposed mega-hospital. And what if you have to get there in the middle of the night or on a holiday? Transit Windsor currently doesn’t operate 24/7 and who knows if it ever will? Some of our county friends like to point out that this is a regional hospital and that it should serve the realities of the region. Indeed it should.

In the community: What people have been writing this week

"LPAT does NOT decide where the hospital goes. They simply decide if WRH and the City played by the rules when making their decision." "The fact that people like Musyj take offence to the group exercising a perfectly legal and valid argument speaks volume about the character of those people. Keep up the good work." "Urban sprawl at its worst, losing farmland, more flooding. Empty the core, we should be developing the core and make the city vibrant. Learn from other smart cities. Develop where the services already exist!!!!" "I admire the passion and purpose of CAMPP. Best wishes for the successful completion of the fundraising campaign."

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