This is the letter that will be distributed to BIA members:

January 30, 2010

Dear Dundas West BIA member,

Please join us at our BIA AGM on Feburary 23rd at 6pm at Lula Lounge (1585 Dundas West.) We expect this to be an important meeting for the Dundas West BIA.

Over the past year, BIA board members and community volunteers have expended a great deal of energy fighting to preserve off-side rush hour parking in our area after Councillor Giambone brought a motion to Community Council to rescind these privileges. This package contains an explanation that struggle to keep our parking and how we came to this current situation — which for most merchants in the BIA is even worse than what we had before rush hour parking was granted.

We know that this loss of parking will lead to  financial hardship to many members. Given these financial pressures and because the planned sidewalk construction will be postponed for the forth consecutive year, the BIA has decided to recommend that BIA members approve a lower budget for the coming year.

Please find enclosed in this package  (or on our website):

1) the agenda for the AGM on Feb 23

2) the draft minutes from last year’s AGM

3) the audited statements for 2008

4) a detailed breakdown of the audited statement

5) a statement of the actuals and proposed budget to 2010

In the interest of saving paper, we have posted information about our activities over the past year on our website. We encourage you to visit dundaswestbia.ca for descriptions and photos of the work done at Teresa’s place, Samba on Dundas and other projects.

The AGM presents an opportunity to discuss the effects of the loss of parking and to

Dundas West BIA Annual General Meeting Agenda

6 pm, Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Lula Lounge, 1585 Dundas West

SCHEDULE

6:00 Registration/Reception

6:30 Call to Order/ Introductions

Address by councillor Adam Giambrone (to be confirmed)

Agenda:

1. Review of prior year’s minutes.

2. Treasurer’s report - approval of 2008 audited financial report

3. Appointment of auditors

4. Report on work undertaken in 2009

5. Proposed activities for 2010

6. Approval of 2010 budget

7. Nomination and election of new directors to fill open board positions

8. Presentation of avenue study by Chris Hardwicke

9. Parking discussion

10. Other Business

11. Adjournment

(These minutes must be approved by members at this year’s AGM - Feb 23, 2010)

Lula Lounge, 1585 Dundas West, Monday, September 29th, 6pm

Board Members in attendance:

Lubo Brezina, Carlos Dornelas, Tony Rainho, Sylvia Fernandez, Roger Silveira, Jose Ortega, John Merli, Silvia Jung, Marina Tavares. Also in attendance were Ron Nash and John Kiru of TABIA

Sylvia Fernandez called the meeting to order. Sylvia introduced BIA Vice Chair Marina Tavares. Marina introduced the BIA board and John Kiru who was appointed chair for this Annual General Meeting.

John Kiru, the Executive Director of TABIA gave a short background of BIAs in Toronto.

Kiru asked if anyone had a conflict of interest with anything to be discussed today. No conflicts were registered

Review of previous years AGM minutes.

Roger Silveira moved to accept the minutes from the 2007 AGM of last year. Lubo seconded.

Kiru asked all in attendance if any one wished to request an amendment or deletion or to comment on the 2007 AGM minutes. There were no such requests. Motion carried.

Treasurers’ Report

John Merli presented the 2007 audited financial report. Tony moved to accept the Treasurer’s report. Seconded by Lubo.

Discussion of report: The member representing 1478 Dundas West expressed concern about expenses. Chair Kiru asked the member to hold his question until the discussion of  item 6 in the agenda.

Belinda Leitoguinho of  629 Dundas west asked for an explanation of the program expenses on page 8 of the handout.

Sylvia Fernandez explained that the $27,000 spent includes $16,000 in consulting but we received a grant for a large portion of this of this.  We raised our budget by applying for and receiving grants from other sources. For example the mural grant covered all of the expenses associated with the mural. Capital matching from the city also paid for some of the capital spending. We also received a community festival grant.

Vote taken on acceptance of Treasurers report. Carried.

Appointment of auditor

Jose Ortega moved that the BIA use the same auditors as last year. Berman, Loftchick and Lum. Carlos seconded the motion. Carried

Report of work Undertaken in 2008

Members were referred to the written outline and various board members and volunteers reported on the accomplishments of the BIA during previous year.

Paul Menzie asked about the Duwest Arts Centre. Sylvia explained that we had hoped to hold onto it as a community space but didn’t turn out to be financially feasible. Mr. Menzie also questioned whether aesthetic compromises were made in the selection of materials for the Teresa’s Place project in order to save money. Fung acknowledged financial considerations did limit our choices but did not feel that the design was significantly compromised.

Councillor Giambrone addressed the meeting, discussing work that had been done in our BIA and stated that he would work to ensure that the planned boulevard reconstruction goes ahead in 2009. He congratulated the BIA for their track record in getting projects off the ground and described plans for the Dufferin jog.

Giambrone said that he was still working with TPA to find offsite parking although so far it had been difficult to find a location for Green P parking.

Giambrone took questions from the audience regarding TTC service details.

The membership to applauded the councillors’ support in the BIA’s success in obtaining rush hour parking.

Proposed programs for 2009/2010

Members were referred to the handout describing plans for the coming year which will include murals, an avenue study, events, area marketing.

John Merli presented and moved to accept the 2009 budget.

The member representing 1478 Dundas West asked why our spending was higher than we had proposed in our previous year’s budget. Sylvia explained that we had not included in our expenses any amounts that we hoped to offset with funds from grants and fundraising since we would not spend this money if the grants were not received.

Jose Ortega seconded the motion to accept the budget. Carried.

Other Business

Marina announced the coming fundraiser in support of the development of Teresa’s Place.

Adjournment

AGM draft agenda

Draft minutes of the October 2008, AGM

2008/2009 Audit Financial report

2009/2010 Proposed budget

Report on past activities

OPEN LETTER

To:  Councillor Adam Giambrone

        Deputy Mayor Joe Pantalone

        Members of  Toronto and East York Community Council

        Members of City Council

        Members of the Dundas West Community

Re:  Rush-Hour Parking – Dundas Street West

Dear Councillors

After much confusion about what happened on item # TE22.16 Amendment to Parking Regulations on Dundas St. West between Bathurst and Dovercourt we were finally able to see the posting of the decision made by Toronto and East York Community Council  on Jan. 13, 2009.

We are flabbergasted to say the least by this decision.  While we firmly believe that rush-hour parking is a necessity all along Dundas including Ward 18 and 19, we cannot understand how you could vote to rescind our currently existing parking privileges effective Oct. 1, 2009 during your Nov. 18, 2008 meeting  and then shortly thereafter  vote to give these same priviledges to the neighbouring ward.

As pointed out by John Barber in his Jan. 14, 2009 Globe and Mail article “anybody who expects a simple resolution to this dispute would be wise to stick to weightier matters”.  To us this is a “weighty matter” and we are trying to figure out what to make of these contradictory decisions and the changing roles of the community council players involved.

To refresh everyone’s memory on this issue we hope you indulge us by reading just what has happened on this issue over the past more than 2 years:

During the September 2006 community council meeting Councillor Adam Giambrone first proposed a motion to grant us the rush-hour parking.  We spent all day at community council and then the item was deferred.

Feb. 13, 2007 this  item again came up for discussion.  We collected 948 petition signatures of patrons of Dundas Street West, most of them from members of the hard-working Portuguese construction trades in just a few locations.  We obtained 29 letters from individual merchants, letters of support from a neighbouring BIA and Mayor David Miller.  We presented maps showing that similar size streets with streetcar traffic such as Roncesvalles, College and Queen Street have as far as anyone remembers enjoyed the very parking conditions that we were asking for.  In all we submitted 54 pages of materials and an appendix with pages of petition signatures.  We again attended at community council, visited all councillors prior to the meeting and delivered information and made deputations at community council.  In spite of  vehement and vocal opposition from deputy mayor Pantalone the decision was in our favour.

Then our  item went to the March 2007 meeting of City Council.  Again we attended.  The deputy mayor referred the item back to community council for additional staff reports.

We prepared additional letters and handouts, principally showing visuals of  chronically empty storefronts in our BIA area, again visited all councillors’ offices and again made deputations at community council.  Once again during their Sept. 10, 2007 meeting community council voted to grant us the parking privileges on a one-year trial and requested that a report be made by City Transportation on the effect of this parking on local streetcar operations and also from City Economic Development on the causes of  the economic downward spiral in our area.

Finally during their Sept. 26,27, 2007 meeting City Council voted on this recommendation and granted the one-year trial period with a vote of 22 to 5.  Along with this recommendation came the institution of various left-turn prohibitions during rush-hour along Dundas.  At that point Deputy Mayor Joe Pantalone was quoted in a Globe and Mail article by Jeff Gray as the decision being “hypocritical” and being “flabbergasted” and leaving that “council meeting depressed”.

During this  one-year period  our area experienced an economic upswing, we observed no problems with TTC operations,  and we even heard from TTC staff that there appeared to be no problem created by the parking.  We assumed, that since no problems had been reported to us and since the TPA was unsuccessful in securing alternative parking ( despite us having been made a priority by our councillor and a specific letter from Mayor Miller dated Feb. 12, 2007), that the present parking arrangements would easily be extended or made permanent.

Much to our surprise we learned with only days to go to the Nov. 18, 2008  community council meeting, that there was a negative report, dated  Oct. 20, 2008  from City Transportation based on a study prepared by TTC in Sept. 2008.  We again quickly mobilized, forwarded letters and materials to the councillors, had a large crowd attend the meeting and made deputations.

We had received assurance from Deputy Mayor Pantalone that he was no longer opposing our request and he was quoted in the Portuguese press as supporting similar parking privileges in his ward.

However we learned prior to this meeting that we had a much larger problem, since now our own councillor Adam Giambrone in his capacity as chairman of the TTC was now moving a motion to rescind our parking based on the TTC report.  

We managed to present  strong evidence that there were some problems with the TTC report.  It was comparing data from their CIS information system comparing similar periods of March 2006 and March 2008.  We presented evidence that March 2006 had the mildest winter in many years, while the period in March 2008 had record snowfalls that crippled all of the city’s traffic for days during the study period, yet all of the TTC delays were attributed to our rush-hour parking.  We further presented that March 2008 was a month of serious labour strive within the TTC, specific incidences of delays we observed (bunching of several streetcars during rush-hour at Lansdowne for coffee breaks – a shelter that has not been moved to the new location of the actual stop) and last but not least the fact that the left-turn prohibition signs were not installed until Sept. 2008.  Therefore the benefits derived from this part of the original motion were not reflected in this study.

The report requested from Economic Development was not tabled for this Community Council meeting.  We have seen the report and it does indicate that the lack of parking in the area is a hinderance to economic development.  We have not received any answers to our questions as to why this report was not considered. We on the other hand presented pictures and lists of new businesses that located in our BIA area during this one-year period.  Our commercial vacancy rate has dropped from 19 to 12% during this period. 

Despite our strong showing at the Nov. 18, 2008  meeting community council voted to rescind our parking effective Oct. 1, 2009.   Our own councillor  made a strong case for not supporting our position.  Deputy Mayor Pantalone said he would not oppose the request.  We wonder if the vote might have been different if he was present when it was taken, if Councillor Gordon Perks, who declared a conflict of interest in every other meeting leading up to this decision since he lives in our area had continued to do so and if our own councillor had conceded that his role as chairman of the TTC puts him at odds with the wishes of his constituents in ward 18.

On  Nov. 28, 2009  at 8am our parking committee consisting of 7 members of our board met with our councillor to try and come up with a solution.  He assured us that alternative parking solutions could be found if we worked together and that these could be presented to the April City Council meeting and that he would ask that the parking be left in place until these solutions are implemented.  He also promised to ask the TTC for a report on a different study period.

We agreed to work with the Councillor and the relevant City departments in an effort to come up with an alternative parking plan for April.  We retained the services of Chris Hardwick of &Co Architects, who is presently preparing an Avenue Study for us, to assist us and the City in this process.  We are committed to participating in these discussions, however know that finding suitable land will not be easy, since there is no vacant land and that any solutions will have a large price tag attached.  TPA had been supposedly been working on this as a priority for the past 2 years with no results.. We still do not understand why the on-street parking simply cannot be maintained, since it appears to work and would not put any additional financial strain on the City’s budget.  Furthermore parking lots would take available land out of circulation in contradiction to the preliminary findings of our marketing and avenue studies that advocate for higher residential density in our area.

Based on the agreement we reached on  Nov. 28th  Councillor Adam Giambrone obtained a deferral of our parking item during the Dec. 1 – 3, 2008  City Council meeting and asked for the item to be heard during the April 2009 council meeting.

So far so good, however we now seriously question how you could now approve this request for the newly-established BIA’s  directly East of us and still have on record that our parking will be rescinded. 

We shudder to put a price tag on what it has collectively cost our members in unpaid time, lost business opportunities and frustration to carry out this more than 2 year battle to-date, but let us assure you it is significant.  In the a December 10, 2008 article by Dave Nickle in Inside Toronto Councillor Adam Giambrone is quoted as saying “we’ve worked on this for a long time, and now the residents are realizing that we’re serious about taking this off”  We’d love to know who the “we” is since we’ve been working to retain the parking and did not realize that someone was working  for a long time to take it off. Even our former opponent, Deputy Mayor Pantalone is quoted in the same article as saying: “Those people are having a great deal of grief and uncertainty is not the best way to run a business or a business improvement area”….”and the world won’t fall apart if this parking’s allowed”

Despite of  our  grief and preoccupation with this item we have managed in our short period of existence to revitalize the Dundas-St.Clarens parkette, receive the Mayor’s Clean and Beautiful City award, create a green space on land brokered from TCHC, install banners, hold 2 successful “Samba on Dundas” street festivals,  install 4 large murals over the last 2 years, participate in running a children’s art program during last March break, create an arts centre that we spun off to 6 young artists, attract countless new businesses including 3 art galleries, commission branding, streetscaping, marketing and avenue studies, obtain grants not only from City departments, but also foundations and corporations, hold several successful fundraisers to fund our activities, attract tremendous media attention to our area.  See the Globe and Mail article by Deirdre Kelly of Nov. 22, 2008 - entitled “Dundas West: Cooler than New York” and other postings on our website  HYPERLINK http://www.dundaswestbia.ca www.dundaswestbia.ca.  What else do we have to do to be taken seriously?

In the same Jan. 14, 2009 article by John Barber, Deputy Mayor Pantalone is quoted as saying “what’s good for the goose is good for the gander”, “the extra parking has created a new reality on Dundas” he added  “and erasing it won’t be easy”.  In the same article  Councillor Adam Giambrone is quoted as saying “I’ve served notice publicly that we’re taking it off in April”.  So it sure sounds to us like someone is intending to kill the goose in favour of the gander.  We do realize that everyone has left themselves an out however in point 3 of the Jan. 13, 2009 decision by requesting a report should the City Council rescind the present alternative parking west of Dovercourt and “how these recommendations need to be changed to achieve consistency”.  We wonder how you plan to achieve this consistency, is it  by simply letting us retain the parking privileges now that you have recommended them in the neighbouring ward, or by taking them away from ward 19 as quickly as they got them, or maybe one could consider roving streetsigns depending of who is in support of  their constituency in any given month.  Like John Barber we are left to scratch our heads about the politics involved here.

During a Dec. 18, 2008 meeting of our parking committee with Councillor Adam Giambrone we queried why we could just not retain the on street parking until such time as the City is prepared to take it away from other areas such as “Little Italy”.  His response was that removing it from other areas is part of his agenda and it might come up as early as the April council meeting.  So we are wondering if our negative TTC stats will now be applied city-wide to threaten on-street parking everywhere.

Why is it that some councillors understand that we are trying to create a destination and that increased vitality brings with it larger numbers of people (and cars) visiting our area.  So even if a different study period  should show minor delays they may not be such a bad thing.

We therefore would like to ask you to please consider the following:

That City   Council  approve the on-street parking for our fellow BIA’s to the East in ward 19 during their February meeting

That TTC be asked to present statistics for a different period than the March vs. March period, preferably for the months of Oct. 06 vs. Oct. 08.  We were told that a whole new study would need to be done now.  However the TTC study clearly shows that this data came from their CIS system logs that monitor the passage of transit vehicles at signposts located along TTC’s streetcar routes in a database.  So if this database was able to produce a March report why can it not be used to prepare an October report? 

Given that we raised serious doubt about the results of this TTC report we ask that you not use and re-quote these negative results until they can be proven to be representative.  A re-examination of this report was asked for by Community Council and  a report for a new study period was promised to us a part of our agreement with our councillor.

That during your April City Council meeting you agree to leave our current parking conditions in place.  On-street parking is favoured by our merchants who are mainly small family stores that rely on members of  mainly the Portuguese community to make quick-stop purchases.  We have no large franchises and malls in our area.  We ask that you leave our parking in place so that we can look for long-term other solutions without a gun to our heads.  We will gladly give up our fight if and when you are prepared to take it away from other areas that have enjoyed these privileges for years.  We are prepared to take our chances on this along with Little Italy.

Don’t condemn us to going back to being cut off from the outside world for 4 hours of each business day.

Yours truly

Dundas West BIA

Sylvia Draper-Fernandez, Chair

Click the picture above to see more great photos from Samba on Dundas!

Click here to see photos from Jornal Brasileiro

Check out the video to see part of the festivities from the recent Samba on Dundas Festival, held on August 17, 2008. Below is a second video, from insidetoronto.com

Samba On Dundas

Rush Hour Parking on Dundas Not Permanent

By Debbie Pacheco

Twenty Dundas West community members wearing bright yellow “We Need Rush Hour Parking!” stickers were bitterly disappointed on Tuesday after community council did not make the rush hour parking project reviving their neighbourhood permanent.

“We know having this parking made an incredible contribution to the revitalization of our area,” said Sylvia Draper Fernandez, chair of the Dundas West BIA, the main group working to get rush hour parking on Dundas West for over a year.  ”[O]ur commercial vacancy rate has dropped from 19 to 12 percent during this period.”

The one year pilot project approved last fall allowed off-side rush hour parking in a section of Dundas West’s Little Portugal between Dovercourt Road and Sterling Road from 7-9 a.m. and 4-6 p.m.  A recent TTC report recommended removing the rush hour parking pilot project due to delays of about one minute in the 505 Dundas streetcar’s travel time.

The Dundas West BIA says the TTC report does not consider the late installation of left hand prohibition signs that ease traffic for streetcars, and the possibility that increased public transit ridership and traffic due to new businesses in the area may have also caused TTC delays.

“We don’t want to go back to being isolated from the outside world for 4 hours a day,” the BIA wrote on their website.  They say parking made their neighbourhood a destination and not a throughway during rush hour, and put their commercial strip on equal footing with College Street, Queen Street and Roncesvalles Avenue who have permanent rush hour parking.

Councillor Adam Giambrone (Ward 18-Davenport), who voted for the pilot last year as a short-term solution for this section of his ward, said voting for permanent rush hour parking would be “hypocritical” after council adopted the Sustainable Transportation Initiative last year that supports alternative transportation.

“This [permanent rush hour parking request] is a small micro example of what we will have to deal with across the city if we are serious about encouraging pedestrianism, cycling and transit,” said Councillor Giambrone.

Fernandez is not optimistic about the solution voted by community council to extend rush hour parking along this section of Dundas Street West until next fall, when the community will have a parking lot Councillor Giambrone said.

“[A] site that’s been talked about [by the city] we know has a minimum of a two million dollar price tag,” said Fernandez.  ”So they’re going to spend two, three million when the street is already there?  It doesn’t make sense.”

Mike Wdowiak, who couldn’t resist the exposed brick and pine floor of his Dundas West business, opened Grains Curds and Beans four days ago.  Wdowiak didn’t know the rush hour parking on the street in front of his store was temporary.

“So far, we get most of our business between 4-6 p.m. when people are on their way home from work,” said Wdowiak.  ”We plan on also advertising outside of the neighbourhood, but it will be hard to get people if there will be nowhere to park.”

Carlos Dornelas, secretary of the Dundas West BIA, says many of the traditional immigrant owned businesses along the Dundas West strip also depend on attracting members of their communities from other areas.

In the early weekday mornings, Dundas West is lined with vans parked in front of the Brazil Bakery, where mainly Portuguese and Brazilian construction workers from various neighbourhoods gear up for the day with their fix of coffee.  The Brazil Bakery is located in the section of the rush hour parking pilot.  Marisa Casanova, an employee of Brazil Bakery, says their busiest time is from 6-8 a.m.

“If this access is not available, they will be forced to buy at the Tim Hortons’ of this world that provide parking or drive-through facilities,” said Dornelas.  A Tim Hortons with parking recently moved into the area a few blocks away.

Councillor Adam Vaughan (Ward 20—Trinity-Spadina), who voted to make the rush hour parking permanent, says the TTC needs to “get over it” and that delays are not big enough to undermine the activity that has returned to the strip.

“For the longest time we were told we couldn’t have it,” said Barbara Carvalho, a member of the newly formed Little Portugal BIA just east of the Dundas West BIA and  whose business is in the pilot area.  ”Finally, because of the Dundas West BIA, we got the trial for one year. It’s made a big difference.  If they’re going to take it away from us, they should take it away from Queen and College too.”

After fighting for over a year, Fernandez doesn’t know what the Dundas West BIA is going to do next.

“We need to decide whether we have any energy left to try and influence [the final vote at city council] and see if it will even matter.”

DUNDAS WEST BIA

c/o 1569 Dundas Street West, Toronto, Ont. M6K 1T9

November 10, 2008

Councillor Adam Giambroneand Members of Toronto and East York Community Council

Re:  Agenda item TE20.65 – Parking Regulations – Dundas Street West – Dovercourt to Sterling. One-Year Review

Dear Members of Council,

As you will recall we worked very hard to obtain the off-side rush hour parking privileges we presently enjoy in our neighbourhood.  We were shocked to find out that there is a staff report that indicates that these parking regulations have caused a delay in TTC travel time.

Given that alternative parking sites do not appear to have been secured by the Toronto Parking Authority our previous arguments still hold that this parking arrangement is necessary in order for our district to thrive.  When we read in a recent Sol Portuguese article that Deputy Mayor Joe Pantelone had stated that he was requesting the same parking arrangement to take effect on Dundas Street in his ward we assumed that we could count on the same parking arrangement for the near future (since the Deputy Mayor was the most vocal opponent of our attempt to secure offside rush hour parking) 

At our April Board meeting we complained that several of our members had observed  2 or 3 streetcars holding up traffic at the intersection of Dundas & Lansdowne around 5 p.m. every day in the rush-hour lane of traffic while the drivers were getting coffee at that corner.  We wanted to make sure that these delays were not attributed to our parking arrangement.  At that time I received a call from Mr. John Chamberlain, Superintendent of Street Car Traffic to discuss these incidents.  He assured me at the time that there was nothing on record that indicated that our parking arrangements had a detrimental impact on streetcar operations.  So this report based on findings of March 2008 has now come as a complete surprise and left us with little time to react.

We understand that the TTC research compared 2006 statistics to 2008 research findings.  We would like to know how the fewer rides reported along Dundas were established and if it is at all possible that they might have been caused by other obstacles along the 505 route (such as construction in the A.G.O. area) or how it was established that our parking set-up was the only contributing factor.

We have for the last year closely observed the traffic on our street.  The left-turn prohibition signs were posted much later than the changed parking signs and we are not convinced that the obvious benefit of not having cars turn in the streetcar lanes were reflected in this study.  We have also observed that currently fewer or no cars park illegally now in the rush-hour lane of traffic which was a big problem prior to the change. This again should help and not hinder TTC operations.  Extremely heavy ticketing and frequent towing was the order of the day here before the change and we wonder if any statistics are available on the marked decrease we have observed in illegal parking activity.

We were also surprised not to see a report from Economic Development.  One of the councillors had requested that this department have a look at the factors that contribute to an area experiencing a downward spiral and suggest what may contribute to this phenomenon and report back to community council.

At our end we commissioned a Marketing Study for our BIA.  It was completed about the same time as the parking regulations changed.  This study identified the lack of parking as a challenge in our area.  It also showed a commercial vacancy rate of   19%.  We are pleased to report that things have somewhat turned around.  A recent calculation shows that the new businesses that have moved into our area since September of 2007 have reduced our vacancy rate to 12% and the two most problematic licensed establishments have closed.  In speaking to owners of the new businesses it has been clear that the more favourable parking regulations have helped in their decision to locate within our BIA.  

We also took serious the advise received from Councillor Adam Vaughan and turned one of our long-term empty storefronts into a community arts centre (Du West Arts Centre) which is now used by a collective of 5 young artists.  In addition 2 new galleries, several upscale stores have located here (including an organic food store, a cheese shop, 4 new coffee shops & restaurants etc.)  The fact that artists are moving in has sparked the interest of the Globe and Mail and there will be an article in this Saturday’s Globe “Dundas West – The new cool” outlining the moving in of art galleries and the successes of our BIA.

We had an extremely successful “Samba on Dundas” festival in August.  We recently also completed the creation of new parkette for the public on land provided by Toronto Community Housing Corporation, made possible through grants from Evergreen Foundation and City Clean and Beautiful Secretariat and a successful fundraiser in the Portuguese Community that has raised closed to $ 12,000 for the parkette.  We have generated a lot of interest for the area which is reflected in many newspaper articles done on our festival and other activities – all available on our website www.dundaswestbia.ca.  In addition to the branding, streetscaping and marketing studies undertaken last year, we are in the process of  having an Avenue Study completed.

As you may be aware the sidewalk and boulevard construction that was planned for last year, then this year and now hopefully next year was to bring the improvements desired by our membership for the area.  We come under extreme criticism at each AGM for not having provided more visible improvements to-date but so far have been able to offer our membership the improved parking conditions.  If these privileges are rescinded we fear for our survival as a BIA.

We are not sure how the statistics shown by the TTC report compare to other areas that have been enjoying rush-hour parking all along such as College Street, Queen Street and Roncesvalles Avenue.  These are similar size streets that also have street car operations and large concentrations of  immigrant-owned businesses.  Again we find it difficult to explain to the mainly Portuguese merchants in our area why they should be at a disadvantage compared to other areas of the city that rely on their community members accessing the area from other parts of the City in their vehicles.

We hereby request that you please re-examine the TTC findings, look at all of the factors that make up a vibrant community and consider extending the rush-hour parking rules presently in effect to continue to help our area to improve.

Yours truly,

Dundas West BIA

Sylvia Fernandez, Chair

416-534-7567 Ext.24

sylvia@progressiveaccounting.org