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LETTER: Resident peeved about fenced 'compound' at Sunset Point

Sunset Point resident laments losing so much parking and park space to the construction zone for water plant expansion
Letter to the Editor
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The fenced construction zone at Sunset Point cuts off the east end of the park at Raglan Street for the next five or so years.

CollingwoodToday welcomes letters to the editor at [email protected] or via the website. Please include your full name, daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication). The following letter is in response to the fencing put up around the construction area at the Collingwood Water Treatment Plant at Sunset Point. 

Visitors to Collingwood's waterfront this summer might think we’re getting a new tourist attraction. But no, we’re not getting a zoo.

Over last weekend contractors installed hundreds of meters of ugly two-meter-high chain link fencing around the eastern quarter of the park and parking area. I’m told this is to provide delivery and staging area for the construction of the water filtration plant expansion project.

It is extremely unfortunate that we will lose about 1/4 of the park and parking for the next five or six years as this project proceeds. As well, the bike trail is closed for the duration.  

Every Collingwood resident is already painfully aware of the parking shortage in Sunset Point.

I fully understand that the contractor will require space for machinery and material storage as the project proceeds. However, the space allocated looks to me to be far beyond what is truly necessary.

The limited amount of green space in Sunset Point Park should have been sacrosanct.

I really believe that town officials need to revisit this issue and radically reduce the space allocated. They should relocate their ugly fencing 100 yards or so further east into the unpaved, gravel area nearest to the existing water plant.

I am confident that the contractor could, if pushed, devise workarounds to minimize park wastage and prevent the sad loss of valuable and scarce park and parking space. For example, they could lease industrial space on nearby Sandford Fleming Drive and stage materials and equipment there, to be called in as necessary.

Sunset Point Park is quite small, given the heavy demand and usage in it, particularly on summer weekends in July and August. We can ill afford to lose about a quarter of our already limited green space and parking, bearing in mind that this will be the situation for about the next five years.

Please, council and town officials, I urge you to revisit and correct this travesty.

John Megarry
Collingwood, Ont.