{"id":31919,"date":"2022-09-15T13:27:11","date_gmt":"2022-09-15T17:27:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=31919"},"modified":"2022-09-15T13:27:13","modified_gmt":"2022-09-15T17:27:13","slug":"aurora-votes-2022-ward-1-candidate-ron-weese-focused-on-affordable-housing-downtown-core","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/aurora-votes-2022-ward-1-candidate-ron-weese-focused-on-affordable-housing-downtown-core\/","title":{"rendered":"Aurora Votes 2022: Ward 1 candidate Ron Weese focused on affordable housing, downtown core"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Ron Weese, through his work as founder of Sport Aurora, knows the value of volunteerism and community building \u2013 and this is something he wants to further and highlight at the Council table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Weese, a familiar face in the local sporting community for more than 15 years, is in the race to be the next Council member for Ward 1, an unusually-shaped ward which covers diverse density and terrain in the community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The geography of the ward might be a challenge, but its multifaceted diversity has, in his view, underscored a multitude of issues he\u2019d like to advocate for as the community\u2019s representative at Town Hall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve lived in Ward 1 for 38+ years and\u2026I am very interested in the unique nature of this community,\u201d he says. \u201cWe\u2019ve got different challenges, geography, as well as socio-economic issues and there\u2019s a lot of diversity in terms of challenges and interests. I like what is happening with the Ward System. I think that, if it is done right, we can lay a foundation for a lot of community involvement, which I think is really important in the Council chamber.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking specifically at Ward 1, Weese says he would like to see further community input on landmarks within the area that are \u201cunique cultural and historical\u201d assets of the \u201cOld Town\u201d area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPreserving heritage and culture is a priority for me and it\u2019s a priority for a lot of my neighbours \u2013 and I have been working recently with the Town Park Area Ratepayers Association [on] this new [multi-unit] development on Berczy Street [which] has the potential to be a very disruptive circumstance on this part of Town with construction, with a variety of things that are not probably acceptable to many of the people in Town. However, on the other hand, development is necessary given the priorities of the Provincial government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe GO Train separation is another one that has a lot of disruption and I think protection of this community around Town Park is going to be of interest and require a lot of community input.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the community emerges from the pandemic, Weese sees some previously lost opportunities that could be back in play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The historic Aurora Armoury, now home to Niagara College\u2019s Canadian Food & Wine Institute, has, he says, got \u201coff to a rocky start\u201d and \u201cdeserves some attention by the people in this community because it has the opportunity to\u2026become a very exciting community hub.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s important that the people in these neighbourhoods are involved in how the Library and Town Square is going to be managed because that is on the table and people are looking at it right now, but I haven\u2019t seen a lot of consultation in how that\u2019s been done. Similarly with the Armoury, we haven\u2019t seen traditional post-secondary activity that was expected out of there, but that is probably a COVID-related issue and I think as we come out of that you want to try and make the Armoury a great success and it definitely has the potential to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beyond these community assets, Weese says he\u2019s been listening to his neighbours on issues ranging from train whistles to development \u2013 citing the Shining Hill development on St. John\u2019s Sideroad as a \u201cpretty good example of how the community has rallied around to make sure that development occurs in the proper direction \u2013 as well as the importance of social housing in an affordability crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy children can\u2019t afford to live here, for example, and the availability of affordable housing is a difficult and tricky thing to manage, but I think if we don\u2019t get affordable housing here either for owning or renting, then younger people will not be moving into this Town and we have a chance that this may become a retirement bedroom community for people who are simply wealthy. I don\u2019t think that\u2019s a healthy thing for any community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow would the development of that happen? I understand, of course, it is not the purview of our own local Town Council. It has a lot of influence from the Region but there are some things that can be done to encourage that type of thing so it is not disruptive to neighbourhoods and it\u2019s integrated. Most of the people that are experts in the area of affordable or social housing understand that integration is a key as opposed to segregation. That is something that is of interest to me because I have worked with the All Kids Can Play program, Welcoming Arms, [and] I am acutely aware of some of the needs of people who are less financially fortunate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs someone once said, \u2018The quality of any community is judged by how you take care of the most vulnerable\u2019 and I am not sure that\u2019s being done here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A further priority, he adds, is fostering \u201csignificant development in diversity, equity and inclusion\u201d strategies so Aurora is a leader for other communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt starts with awareness. It comes through capacity building. The results are\u2026having sustainable programs that are inclusive. They just need help to get started.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ron Weese, through his work as founder of Sport Aurora, knows the value of volunteerism and community building \u2013 and this is something he wants to further and highlight at the Council table. Weese, a familiar face in the local sporting community for more than 15 years, is in the race to be the next […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":31907,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_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},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/2022-09-15-07.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-8iP","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-14 13:40:49","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\/31919","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=31919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31919\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}