{"id":20916,"date":"2018-06-14T00:07:14","date_gmt":"2018-06-14T04:07:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=20916"},"modified":"2018-06-14T00:07:14","modified_gmt":"2018-06-14T04:07:14","slug":"inside-aurora-field-of-dreams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/inside-aurora-field-of-dreams\/","title":{"rendered":"INSIDE AURORA: Field of Dreams"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Scott Johnston<\/strong><\/p>\n

Now that the election\u2019s over (insert collective sigh of relief here) one of the big topics of conversation in Town is what to do with the Hallmark lands.
\nThis property became available to the Town not too long ago as the greeting card industry continued its trend of shifting from cards being made from ink printed on wood fibre, to ones being more often composed of pixels on our electronic devices.
\nLocated near Vandorf and Industrial Parkway South, this good sized chunk of land covers around 13 acres. To put that into perspective, you could fit the Queen\u2019s Diamond Jubilee Park, Canine Commons and Town Park into it, with enough space left over to add most of the Aurora War Memorial Park, as well.
\nIt will be one of the bigger parks in Town.
\nWhat makes it a topic of controversy these days is that our local sports teams, specifically the baseball and soccer crowd, are currently in a heated battle over its use.
\nAccording to a recent delegation at Council there are about 7,500 registered soccer and baseball players in Town.
\nIt sounds hard to believe, but apparently even being accessible 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, the 18 baseball diamonds and 69 soccer pitches currently in Aurora aren\u2019t even close to meeting this local demand for these sports, and both groups are lobbying for more.
\nTown staff advise that there\u2019s enough room on the Hallmark property for two playing fields, either two baseball, two soccer, or one of each. Building these could cost as much as $3,000,000.
\nPrice tag aside, I found that interesting, as two similarly sized parks into Town, Confederation and Machell, have two soccer and baseball fields each, as well as other features, such as basketball and tennis courts, playgrounds and outdoor ice rinks.
\nSo it seems strange that more sports fields won\u2019t fit on the Hallmark property, or that other features have not been suggested.
\nPerhaps it has an odd shape, like an hourglass, or a big patch of poison ivy in the middle of it, or some other thing that reduces the usable area.
\nOr maybe there is room for other things, but Council can only handle dealing with one set of special interest groups at a time.
\nIn any case, the experts say we can have two fields, so which two?
\nThe Town\u2019s Parks and Recreation Master Plan says both types of sports fields are needed, although it doesn\u2019t clearly prioritize one over the other. With no immediate other level source of available land on the immediate horizon, and arguments being made for each option, it\u2019s a big decision.
\nJust to add some spice to the debate, one councillor suggested turning the property into employment lands, but that was quickly shot down. I guess we have too many employers and jobs in Town already, for this to warrant any further discussion.
\nUnlike the decision around Library Square, Council plans to spend less than 15 years determining the future of the Hallmark lands. Maybe the pending election has something to do with it, but a decision is supposed to be made by the time you read this.
\nSo, it will be interesting to see how this goes.
\nBut even if all 7,500 baseball and soccer players are positively impacted by the outcome, that still leaves almost 90 per cent of Aurora\u2019s population who don\u2019t participate in either of these sports.
\nHopefully, Council will set aside a bit of space on the Hallmark lands, and some funding, to include some features for them to enjoy, as well.<\/p>\n

Feel free to e-mail Scott at: machellscorners@gmail.com<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Scott Johnston Now that the election\u2019s over (insert collective sigh of relief here) one of the big topics of conversation in Town is what to do with the Hallmark lands. This property became available to the Town not too long ago as the greeting card industry continued its trend of shifting from cards being […]<\/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":[29,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columns","category-opinion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-5rm","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-06 00:41:09","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\/20916","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=20916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20916\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}