{"id":14786,"date":"2016-07-20T11:05:21","date_gmt":"2016-07-20T15:05:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=14786"},"modified":"2016-07-20T11:05:21","modified_gmt":"2016-07-20T15:05:21","slug":"mayor-concerned-mavrinac-park-development-is-too-territorial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/mayor-concerned-mavrinac-park-development-is-too-territorial\/","title":{"rendered":"Mayor concerned Mavrinac Park development is \u201ctoo territorial\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

A nearly $1.1 million plan to transform a vacant six acre parcel of land on Mavrinac Boulevard into a neighbourhood park was approved by Council last week, amid worries voiced by Mayor Dawe its development had become a \u201cterritorial\u201d issue.<\/p>\n

Council signed off on the plan, which includes extensive green space \u2013 including picnic areas \u2013 along with a full-size basketball court, two tennis courts, two pickle ball courts, a playground, shade structures, and significant plantings.<\/p>\n

Gone from the picture are parcels of lands which were originally proposed for community gardens, as well as a proposed washroom facility and fitness trail, both of which were nixed by Council as part of last Tuesday\u2019s direction.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am so glad to see we are finally at this stage and the neighbourhood is going to have a park,\u201d said Councillor Wendy Gaertner, adding her voice against the fitness trail and washroom as those are not normally features in a smaller neighbourhood park. \u201c[A fitness trail] would be lovely, but it is just an increase in service level. I don\u2019t think it is wise [or] fiscally responsible.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Council generally supported the elimination of a bathroom facility, Councillor Michael Thompson questioned whether a fitness trail, similar to fitness stations and equipment scattered throughout the Sheppard\u2019s Bush Trails, should be eliminated as Council aims to become the \u201cfittest community in Canada\u201d by 2020.<\/p>\n

\u201cCouncil as a whole has made a commitment to physical activity and trying to achieve some lofty goals around sports and recreation,\u201d he said. \u201cBy putting in the fitness trails and the equipment to go with it, it supports some of the strategic objectives we\u2019re trying to achieve around sport activity and getting more people from our community out and active.\u201d<\/p>\n

Others said their objection to copying that particular feature in Sheppard\u2019s Bush was based on personal experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have never seen anyone use it,\u201d said Councillor Harold Kim. \u201cMy kids have used it, but they really don\u2019t use it in the way it should be used, so for those reasons I can\u2019t support the fitness equipment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Added Councillor Tom Mrakas: \u201cIt is just going to be sitting there. Maybe upon occasion, someone is going to jump on it to see what this thing does, but at the end of the day, if this is how we\u2019re going to promote fitness, are we going to be putting this in every park in Town?\u201d<\/p>\n

One area of fitness, however, that has shown a demonstrated need is pickleball for older Aurorans. The sport, which is best described as a combination of tennis and badminton, is hugely popular in the senior community and many courts have been provided in and around Town.<\/p>\n

Whether or not these two courts should be provided in Mavrinac Park remained a bone of contention.<\/p>\n

\u201cPersonally, I don\u2019t mind having pickleball [here] but from what I remember, the majority of residents didn\u2019t seem to want it,\u201d said Councillor Gaertner. \u201cI think we should go with what the residents want and that is my personal view. I understand the rationale, but this is a neighborhood park and the neighbourhood didn\u2019t want pickleball and I think by putting pickleball in here, we might be bringing in people from outside of the community to use the park and we don\u2019t want to do that. This truly has to be a neighbourhood park.\u201d<\/p>\n

Councillor Sandra Humfryes later made a motion to remove pickleball courts from the overall park plan, but this motion was voted down by the rest of Council. <\/p>\n

The debate surrounding it nevertheless earned a sharp response from Mayor Dawe, who said while this was indeed a neighbourhood park, it is a neighbourhood park for the entire Aurora neighbourhood.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reason I am against this is becoming very clear with this discussion, because this park has become very territorial,\u201d he said, before finding himself on the losing side of a 7 \u2013 2 recorded vote in favour of the plan. \u201cIt has become \u2018my park in my neighbourhood\u2019 and nobody else can use it. What would happen if a school had gone in there? How many people would be coming from outside the neighborhood to use that school? Many. We don\u2019t put in parks that are simply for someone in a specific area. We put facilities in the Town for everyone to use. <\/p>\n

\u201cI am very upset by the concept that it is territorial so it is simply \u2018my park.\u2019 I just think that is wrong, quite frankly. I can\u2019t support spending more than $1 million on this.\u201d<\/p>\n

The other vote against the park plan came from Councillor Paul Pirri, who reiterated the opposition he has had to developing this land as a park since the outset.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have been opposed to this from the get go,\u201d he said. \u201cI continue to believe it is a waste of money. It is a superfluous park, it is not needed, and it is not identified in any of our master plans. I don\u2019t have anything else to say. I look forward to voting against this because I don\u2019t think it is in the best interests of the Town of Aurora.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A nearly $1.1 million plan to transform a vacant six acre parcel of land on Mavrinac Boulevard into a neighbourhood park was approved by Council last week, amid worries voiced by Mayor Dawe its development had become a \u201cterritorial\u201d issue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-3Qu","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-22 19:25:41","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14786\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}