SHUT THE BARN DOOR BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE...OOPS, TOO LATE

Dates on which citizens expressed grave concerns to their elected officials regarding the demolition of houses in Melancthon by Highland Companies:

August 2008; June 2009; July 27, 2009; August 13, 2009, November 25, 2009. Action taken by Council –NONE.

What did Highlands continue to do-demolish home after home after home. To date they have taken out 17 burn permits.

What could Council have done to stop this? As they were advised over and over and over again they could simply pass a bylaw under section 33 of the Planning Act, which in a nutshell states, that prior to receiving a demolition permit, a building permit must have been issued. In other words if you take something down you have to replace it with something else.

But suddenly at their December 17, 2009 meeting of Council, they decide to take a look at passing a bylaw under Section 33 of the Planning Act. They are asking for comments to be submitted to them on or before January 4, 2010.

Lets review, shall we?

Council had the option to pass this bylaw months and months ago BEFORE Lowndes demolished just under 20 homes, and in fact residents were BEGGING them to. It seemed almost as if Council waited until Highlands were done with their seek and destroy mission before passing the bylaw.

I believe in their minds they think they have managed to keep everyone happy. They can say to the ratepayers see, we passed the bylaw that you wanted. And they can still rest assured that by putting off passing the bylaw that Highlands is happy, because by delaying the passing of the bylaw, it gave Highlands the time to demolish houses on everything they own, without having to comply with the pesky bylaw to stop what they were doing.

Don't worry about picking up the pace Johnny and Mikey enjoy your Xmas break. By the time this Council gets around to actually passing the bylaw you should have everything single home, barn, outbuilding, tree and stick on your properties long gone.