Good afternoon Scarborough Councillors, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Helen Jankul and I live in the Skygarden complex on the east side of Warden, across the street from the Bridlewood Mall. We, the residents of Skygarden are very concerned about the Bridlewood Mall proposed project and the future ramifications on our community. I want to emphasize that we are not opposed to development on the Bridlewood Mall property if it will enhance our community, however, the magnitude of the proposed project is what concerns us. Adding approximately 1370 units with an average of 3 people per unit means dropping about 4100 people in a very small space in a community where the infrastructure and the resources are already taxed to the limit with the present population. We, the residents of the L’Amoreaux community, are here today to present the many different aspects of our concerns.
I will focus on our youth, present and future, and the services in our community that are available to them, the main and most important one being their education. All the schools in our community, except for one, St. Aidan Catholic School, are full to capacity, some are over capacity, which means, of course, that no more students can be accepted. St. Aidan Catholic elementary school, kindergarten to grade 8, can potentially accommodate an additional 80 students. I won’t bore you with the numbers that both the Public and the Catholic Boards have given me because I know that you will also receive them shortly. Looking at the data presented by the developer, there will be 595 – 2 bedroom units and assuming that there will be an average of 1 child per unit, this results in about 500 students who have no community school to attend; that is 500 students when we take into consideration the 80 or so who could attend St. Aidan. Where do these 500 children go?? Due to declining enrolments in Toronto, there is very little funding, if any, forthcoming from the Ministry of Education, the only source of money available to Toronto, for building new schools. Instead of dropping 4000 people into an educational desert, let us fulfill our duty to our youth by supporting, guiding and helping them to become contributing members of our society through proper access to education. Another concern relating to this issue is the safety of our children which should be paramount in everyone’s mind. It is our duty, as adults, to make sure our children are safe at all times. Of late, the media has once again brought to our attention the lack of safety for our school children in our society.
As recently as this past week, there were 2 school lockdowns in a neighbouring community, an area where safety was always taken for granted because it always was safe for students. I know. I worked at George S. Henry for many years.
A week and a half ago, anyone watching “The Agenda with Steve Paikin”, was reminded of the Falconer Report on school safety or lack thereof.
Are you, Scarborough Community councillors, prepared to allow a project of this magnitude to proceed and thus place hundreds of our youth, your children and mine, at risk by having to travel farther afield to get an education and unable to participate in extra-curricular activities, integral of their education, due to this extra travel?
Furthermore, once they arrive home, what will these children do? There is no community centre and/or adequate green space nearby where they can attend after school programs until mom and/or dad come home from work, because work they must in order to make ends meet. So where do these children go to be safe? Will they “hang out” at the mall and potentially get into trouble? All of these concerns must be considered when a development is being planned. I don’t believe this has happened in this case !
Furthermore, will potential Bridlewood Mall Project residents be informed that their children cannot attend the school in their community due to lack of space? I think not! ! People are only told the location of local schools, not whether the schools can accommodate additional students. You tell parents that and they don’t buy! The only thing in which this developer seems to be interested is to make a very healthy profit from this development.
I beseech you, Councillors, to please send the planners of this development back to the drawing board to rethink their concept and include solutions to these crucial concerns. Let us work together to plan a scaled back development on the Bridlewood Mall property so that it enhances and fits into our community, with manageable and sustainable services. Do not let our youth down ! ! They are tomorrow’s society on whom we depend !