Victory for Old Milton, but Questions Still Linger

It's been some time I've posted a comment about our little town. Old Milton residents won a major victory yesterday. I first posted a commentary about this back in November 2006 about the medium sized mall that was planned to be built at the corner of Derry Rd and Bronte St. In a shocking turn of events, the proposal to change the zoning from light industrial to medium commercial was unanimously turned down by town council. Unfortunately I was not able to attend the meeting personally so I don't have the full details in front of me, as the term breaking news doesn't mean much to the local newspaper.

The location indeed was highly inappropriate, with only one known resident voicing support for the complex. Near by residents and developers had been strongly opposed to building the mall. The decision to deny the zoning change simply makes sense because a mall that size would have played havoc with traffic, and would not fit in with the areas overall plan. The idea was to focus Old Milton residents into the downtown without creating box stores in the south within current city limits. The developer who wished to build the mall may still appeal it to the OMB but their case is pretty weak and the opposition is strong. Both Matamy Homes and Fieldgate Homes had opposed the mall as well.

This of course leads to another direction. Oddly enough, with the announcement of canceling the zoning change, what comes up is a plan for Matamy and Fieldgate to help pay for the widening of Derry Road from Bronte St to Termaine through an interest free loan. Now this is owned by the
the region but the timing still seems a little odd to me. Corruption is still there as this is obviously a ploy for some reason as it is extremely rare case that private companies would pay for government projects interest free. Especially for projects amounting to that much money; probably several million dollars worth. Of course, this is all speculation, but something smells off.
Also of note about this particular project is a railway underpass, or rather a lack there of. The loan pushes the widening project start date back from 2009 to 2008. However, the underpass was not slated to begin until 2012. This of course, makes very little sense since they would need to redirect road traffic during construction. The Milton fire department has been pushing for this underpass for years now to no avail. As it stands now, if a fire or accident happens on the other side of the tracks when a train is coming, fire trucks either need to wait for the train or drive down to Main St and back track up Termaine. With the housing going in, this presents a major safety hazard. Milton is one of the few towns that still has level crossings over its busiest roads.