REFLECTION: Vaughan residents fend off sports complex proposal

Story showed breakthrough to the advantage of residents

Yorkregion.com
Jan. 2, 2020
Dina Al-Shibeeb

While many do welcome new innovative development, a recurrent theme in Vaughan, at least for me as a reporter of the city, is how residents at times protest some new proposals in what they often describe as an “already established” neighbourhood.

One of the stories that saw a complete breakthrough this year was the fight that the 40-member South Maple Ratepayers Association (SMRPA) put in order to win the city’s Council vote to reject the Sports Village expansion after a four-year debate.

Years ago, Council received an “unsolicited” proposal to expand the Sports Village by developer Tony Furiato, owner of Mentana.

The 40-year lease agreement with Mentana allowed the developer to operate the Sports Village arena on 2600 Rutherford Rd. in Vaughan. After using 19 years of the lease, Mentana wanted to expand and proposed to buy the area, including the city-owned park, which hasn’t been solicited for sale.

The developer was eyeing to buy a large swathe of 33 acres of parkland, not even declared “surplus.”

This has infuriated the residents, who feared more congestion, noise and devaluation of their homes. They did everything in their capacity to reject the proposal.

My first interaction with the group, who lived near Melville and Rutherford intersection, was at kitchen table belonging to Emilia Rozenblit, the association’s treasurer.

I remember meeting Emilia at around 7 p.m. in her home in early February. It was there that I met the association’s director, Tony Longo, who came fully prepared with documents and enough background information for me to fully decipher the case.

They also had another member who joined us but didn’t want his name on the paper at the time.

I remember Rozenblit describing how the “outdoor amphitheatre that seats 3,000 people, a sunken hockey arena that’s actually an events centre, which is going to seat 6,500 people with a rooftop track with lights” are all would-be harbingers of utter chaos in her neighbourhood.

It was the association that has approached the Vaughan Citizen to speak out about the developer’s unsolicited proposal to buy the public parkland to fight as much as they could to stop this.

I still remember Longo’s bold and clever statement to further simplify the magnitude and the ramifications of the proposal and to put things in perspective.

“If someone in Toronto wants to buy High Park because they want to build a multi-season resort to bring tons of tourists, do you think the city of Toronto will sell them High Park or Centre Island?” said Longo.

The group didn’t only collect 800 signatures to protest the decision and engage with senior residents at Villa Giardino nearby, but the proposal also made them feel a bit uneasy on how they viewed the city of Vaughan.

To find out about this unsolicited proposal, the group filed a Freedom-of-Information (FOI) request in August to decipher and unearth components of the city’s agreement with Mentana.

After their FOI was rejected, their appeal was leading somewhere. On Feb. 5, the association’s vice-president said the city agreed to release the agreement, but it gave Mentana's group 30 days to appeal the process.

The whole situation also brought some citizen engagement with their own local government and camaraderie as they had a public meeting on Sunday, Feb. 17; I couldn’t attend as I had to go home that weekend.

But I remember Rozenblit, Longo and Laura Rinaldo, president of SMRPA were all interactive and co-operative enough to get me information so I could get their story published. I definitely spoke to Furiato to keep the coverage balanced, but I remember through the information he shared, the association remained unconvinced.

While their public meeting with Furiato lead to even more questions as they couldn't get the full convincing details out of him, the silver lining came on March 19 when the Council rubbished the proposal.

“This decision sends a very strong message to the citizens of Vaughan,” Mayor Maurizio Bevilacqua said in a statement, following the vote Tuesday, March 19.

“We listened. We appreciate your input,” he added.

The story shows the full collaboration between media and citizens. And shows the government's understanding of its citizens’ needs despite the former’s desire to further develop and lure in more investment.