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Minutes

Windermere Village Community Liaison Committee (Working Title)

Re: Swansea Stelco Works Development
Monday, October 29, 2001, 7PM - Swansea Town Hall

Chair: Councillor David Miller

Attendance:
Community members: John Leeson, Norm McLeod, Ron Braun, Lawrence Horsley, Bill Roberts, Jamie Bell, Peter Chown, Tony McGrath. City of Toronto: Barry Brooks, Paula Gallow (planning student at University of Toronto). REON: Don Richardson, Bob Willes, John Davies. Absent with regrets: Judith Wahl, Michael LeGresley, Paul Didur.

Minutes as taken by Don Richardson:

The meeting began at 7 PM.

Councillor David Miller welcomed participants and explained the City of Toronto's and REON's interests in working with a group of interested community members to help keep Swansea residents informed about progress with the re-development of the Swansea Works site and enable the City and REON to remain informed about community interests.

Discussion of Agenda Items

1) Introductions - Councillor David Miller

• Community members of the WVCLC include: Jamie Bell, Ron Braun, Peter Chown, Paul Didur, Lawrence Horsley, John Leeson, Michael LeGresley, Tony McGrath, Norm McLeod, Bill Roberts, Robyn Sorys, and Judith Wahl
• Several committee members expressed concern about the name "Windermere Village" and suggested that REON look at another name for the project. John Davies said that the name is a working title and that suggestions to come up with an alternative name will be taken seriously, including Bill Roberts' suggestion of a local contest to determine a name.

2) Terms of reference for the WVCLC

• The purpose of the WVCLC is to facilitate communication between community members, City staff, Councillor David Miller's office, and REON team members regarding the Windermere Village development on the Stelco "Swansea Works" site.
• Councillor David Miller refined the terms of reference for the Committee as: "The Windermere [Village] Community Liaison Committee is constituted as a forum to enable detailed and ongoing public input and comment, for information and communication from the development process at Windermere [Village]. This committee is intended to supplement other public processes and to help coordinate information on Site Plan, Construction, Demolition and related matters (i.e. keeping the community's finger on the pulse of the development).
• Peter Chown said that the committee should be able to identify strategies to educate the public to get the public to understand the issues, while also bringing residents' concerns to the table. The committee can assist REON in designing newsletters and factsheets, communicating with condo boards, etc.
• Lawrence Horsley said that community members of the committee could express the concerns of the groups with which members work and help keep those groups informed.
• Councillor Miller's office will also be able to take calls from community members and their raise concerns/issues with this committee.
• Barry Brooks expressed the City's desire to continue this kind of public dialogue on each phase of the work. City departments will be receiving and reviewing various reports from REON. While it is up to REON to share those reports with the committee and the community, John Davies and Bob Willes noted that over the last year, all reports requested by the community were provided. They agreed to continue this commitment to share reports, as requested by the committee, noting that some reports will be of a highly technical nature and may require interpretation for lay people.
• John Davies said that REON is here to continue to work in partnership with the community. He noted that there may be things that REON will say that some people will not agree with, however, REON will not withhold information or patronize residents.

3) REON's approaches to community communication

Community Liaison Committee

• The Committee will be brought together at reasonable intervals (typically no more than once per month), and as issues arise they can be dealt with at this Committee immediately.
• Outside of face-to-face meetings, communication among committee members can take place by email, fax and phone.
• John Leeson volunteered the use of the World19 website for communication purposes - posting of minutes, factsheets, newsletters, etc.

Windermere Village Communication Line - 1-866-442-REON (7366)

• REON has established this phone line to provide recorded weekly updates about what is happening on the site, as well as take calls from community members so that REON can respond promptly to suggestions and concerns.

Draft FACTSHEETS

• Draft factsheets on specific site activities were distributed. Working with volunteers from this committee (Jamie Bell, Peter Chown and Bill Roberts), REON will produce specific "factsheets" on various site activities to help community members gain a better understanding of those activities. Factsheets will include photographs and graphics whenever possible. Factsheets will be distributed in the immediate vicinity of the site and will also be archived at the Swansea Town Hall, David Miller's office, and the World19 website.

Newsletter

• REON will produce a comprehensive newsletter every few months. The first newsletter will be delivered before Christmas. The newsletter will appear as a 2-page spread in the Villager and Gleaner newspapers, and will also be distributed directly to residents in the immediate vicinity of the site - condos, Swansea Mews and the residences along the Queensway

Meetings with individual community organizations (e.g. Condo boards) on request.

• John Davies expressed REON's continued willingness to hold specific meetings with community organizations on request.

4) Update on demolition and clean-up activities - John Davies, Bob Willes

• John Davies explained that current on-site activities today include installation of monitoring wells and ambient air monitoring equipment.
• Demolition will likely commence in mid-November, followed by remediation work. Demolition will likely end in late February. Site work, including demolition will generally take place during normal working hours. Demolition will include the old administration building, the passageway across Windermere and the main building on the west part of the site.
• All work on the site will be managed by Richard & BA Ryan (a leading Canadian construction company in business for over 100 years). Demolition will be undertaken by Priestly Demolition Inc.
• There is concern about traffic and access during demolition, clean-up and construction. John Davies said that this is an important concern and that REON will work to minimize the impact and communicate with the community in advance.
• It was agreed that REON would produce a graphic timeline of demolition, clean-up and construction activities to help residents "see the big picture" or a "road-map" of activities on the site.
• Some items from the site, as recommended by Norm McLeod and Jamie Bell, will be preserved and may be used in landscaping, public art, or community displays, including the round iron support columns in the main building, historically relevant bricks, and a small representative piece of flooring from the old office building.
• REON agreed to notify the committee, area schools and the Villager about the timing for the demolition of the overhead crossover on Windermere in case people are interested in watching this historic event.
• A sales building will likely be placed on the west site once an agreement is reached with a builder.

5) Update on measures for monitoring/mitigating impacts related to air quality, noise, vibration and ground water flow - John Davies, Bob Willes

• Bob Willes explained that significant efforts will be made to reduce noise and dust from demolition activities.  Demolition will include unbolting of large steel beams that will be will be taken apart and taken off by truck.  This steel is very valuable and will be recycled.  It is anticipated that no more than 2 or 3 trucks will be removing steel from the site on any one day.   Dust will be controlled with a water spraying system.  Smaller steel members may be used for shoring and piling.  Any noise related to demolition will be the result of engines and excavation equipment.  REON does not anticipate any blasting or pounding.  When the building superstructures are removed, the concrete foundation slabs will be used as a clean-up and construction staging area, with bio-remediation piles placed on the slab.  The concrete foundation slabs will eventually be crushed.  Concrete crushing will not likely take place for at least another 12 months and this will be on the west site.  Crushing will last from 4 to 6 weeks and the community will be given a good deal of advance notice.

• Bob Willes explained that REON team members have a great deal of expertise in bioremediation.   Bioremediation uses naturally occurring microorganisms to degrade various types of wastes.  As explained in a draft Factsheet, these microorganisms are capable of breaking down wastes to obtain food and energy, typically degrading them into harmless substances such as carbon dioxide, water, salts, and other innocuous products.

• Bob Willes explained that REON's ambient air monitoring system has been in place for one month to collect baseline data.  The system will be in place until the last construction phase.  The system monitors particulate material and dust.  Data goes to the Department of Public Health, Environmental Section.   The data can also be tabled to this committee if requested.

• With regard to noise levels during construction, REON does not anticipate the need for any pile driving.  Caissons will be bored and filled with rebar and poured concrete.

• Data from groundwater monitoring wells will be sent to the City and reports will be tabled to this committee.  Committee members agreed that circulation of information on ground water monitoring is important to the credibility of this project.

6) Update on processes for integrating landscaping, streetscaping and public art within the site plan

• John Davies explained that REON is starting to advance discussions with potential building partners.  Each partner has its own view of what they would build within the constraints of zoning.  The basic criteria set by the City and discussed with the community over the past year.  The building partner will have significant input to the site plan application.  Regarding discussion of possibilities of minimizing the height any buildings, John Davies responded that over time the building footprint changed substantially as a result of community input.  The volume or number of units remained the same, but the agreement with the community to utilize a point form style increased height and this arrangement was deemed to be acceptable to participants in the built form meetings.  There will be further opportunity to talk about aesthetics, landscaping, streetscaping, etc., all of which are important issues for community input.  As well, the Queensway is scheduled to be rebuilt providing opportunities to integrate site aesthetics, landscaping and streetscaping with that work.

• Barry Brooks said that the City is likely to receive a site plan application in the next 4 to 6 months and that there would be meetings to discuss architectural issues.

• Committee members asked to see REON's report on landscaping and streetscaping.  Barry Brooks agree to arrange this with Don Richardson.

7) Other business/next meeting

• Jamie Bell said that the CD-ROMs that REON provided previously were very useful and he asked that REON produce an updated CD-ROM to coincide with the production of factsheets and newsletters.

• At the request of Norm McLeod, REON will archive digital photos taken in the course of site activities and provide those on a CD-ROM to the Heritage Society.

• Barry Brooks agreed that at each meeting he would provide the committee with a memo detailing the reports that the City has received related to the site.

• The next meeting of the committee is scheduled for Monday, January 7, 2002 at 7PM - Swansea Town Hall.