By Elizabeth Bowie
Relocating the Central Canada Exhibition to the Bayview Yards would be a mistake, says Centretown’s city councillor.
Elisabeth Arnold says the site is not big enough to accommodate the Exhibition and has suggested to the its board that it should look for other locations.
Arnold says residents are concerned about traffic and noise disruptions in their neighbourhoods and are worried changes will be made to the Bayview site without public consultation.
“They have concerns about the possibility of paving over that space and making it into a parking lot when people feel that there could be a much more creative and both economically and environmentally appropriate development there, and I agree with them,” she says.
Exhibition board members have been scrambling to find a new home since learning that the city does not plan on renewing its lease after 2002 at Lansdowne Park, where the fair has been held for 114 years.
The city wants to get started on the “greening” of Lansdowne, where the asphalt parking lot would be torn up and replaced by a park.
The Ex has been considering Bayview for its new site but Arnold says there are better uses for that land. She wants to see residential housing and commercial space built, along with ensuring that green space is preserved.
She says her constituents are worried that relocating the Ex is just moving the problem, not solving it.
The land at the Bayview site is contaminated with the remnants of a former landfill and industrial waste.
An environmental consultant hired by the city is currently assessing the contamination and how much it would cost to clean up the site.
But Osgoode city Coun. Doug Thompson, who sits on the Exhibition board’s relocation committee, says the clean up could take years.
“Bayview Yards would take about two or three years, minimum, to get it ready for the relocation of the Ex,” Thompson says.
He says it’s possible the board may ask city council to extend the lease at Lansdowne if another site cannot be found for the summer of 2003.
Thompson says the relocation committee is searching for alternate sites now that it is becoming clear the communities surrounding Bayview are not warming up to the idea of the fair in their backyard.
“The Ex is in a bit of a dilemma now because the board had sent a letter of intent to go to Bayview, hoping that in a couple of years the property would be ready. But subsequently we’re finding that we probably wouldn’t be welcome at Bayview Yards so we have been looking elsewhere to see if we can get a site.”
It is probable the 2003 Ex will be cancelled if the fair can’t find a new site and is not given an extension at Lansdowne, Thompson says.
Residents want to see if moving the Ex to their neighbourhood would bring benefits, such as economic spinoffs for local businesses and restaurants, says Jay Baltz, president of the Hintonburg Community Association. He says more public consultation is needed before the board makes a decision.
“The way to guarantee massive opposition is to do absolutely nothing but move the fair here in a year and a half and then you’ll get everybody pretty irate because we get absolutely nothing but traffic and noise.”
The Exhibition board is expected to make an announcement about its relocation plans in the next week.