Barrie waterfront plan could sink natural oasis: naturalist

The Brereton Field Naturalists’ Club invited city council for a walk through the Gables before they approved a new waterfront master plan this week.

But city councillors skipped the walk and approved a plan that could see the urban wilderness park developed with a dog park, a covered pavilion, office space for parks staff and a day camp hub.

“Stop and listen. What you don’t hear is the city and you’re in the middle of the city,” said Al McNair, the field naturalists’ conservation chairperson.

“There’s no other place in the city where you have wildflowers mixed with some that escaped from the gardens (of the former Gables estate) to create an incredible landscape.”

McNair, who is also a professional land-use planner, said integrating that park into a more active waterfront will risk the natural, unique beauty of the Gables, a 17-hectare (42.3-acre) site on Tollendal Mill Road, just off of Hurst Drive.

“You’ll have kids on bicycles and have kids building jumps in the woods,” he said.

“If you run dogs up and down through here, you’ll have written off all the natural flora and fauna.  They’ll let their dogs off to run and (into) the water and they’ll basically kick the hell out of the (shoreline) bank. It’s not the dogs’ fault. It’s not the right place.”

In 2008, the city created a master plan for the park and designated it an urban wilderness in an effort to protect a mature maple and beech forest, a conifer plantation, an open meadow, a mature woodland forest and estate gardens gone wild, as well as a shoreline featuring red oaks. The city rejected suggestions for day camps, as nearby Tyndale Park is a day camp hub.

But that’s all changed with the waterfront plan, put on hold while the city spent months on telephone and in-person surveys in an attempt to get a sense whether or not the public wanted the waterfront to remain open and passive or have more services, stores and events. Survey results were evenly split.

“The plan they adopted was from September 2013 because it kept getting referred back,” said McNair. “We never had a written response to the comments we made, so we didn’t know whether they liked them or not or what they’d incorporate.”

McNair also suggested using the Allandale Station as a restaurant and commercial hub near the waterfront, rather than erecting a new commercial building on the Sea Cadets site.

“They think they should build a marina building with a restaurant and commercial uses. Why would we want (the city) to become a landlord on the waterfront to compete with businesses at Victoria Square, in Allandale and downtown?” said McNair.

“Will it kill someone to walk from the transient boat slips up to downtown, where there’s tons of great restaurants in all price ranges?”