GECA Early November 2018 Update

Parks

In our continuing efforts to manage our expenditures it’s been decided to have removed 5 GECA maintained garbage cans in & around the Gleneagles Landing green spaces as well as one island on Gleneagles View. The cans around Gleneagles landing will be replaced by a single bin of a style that the Town is currently using and the town will be responsible for emptying and maintaining the bin going forward. This change should be occurring within the next 4-6 weeks which allows the Town time to obtain and install the new bin before removing all of the old ones.

The benefits of this include:

• elimination of costs for having to retain a contractor to empty and maintain the bins,
• avoidance of any conflicts and the ongoing discussion around the Town’s zero waste management strategy,
• the replacement bin will repositioned for dog walkers and the associated pet waste,
• the replacement bin will have a lid for controlling odours,
• duplication of costs between your GECA fees and your municipal taxes for maintaining the bins is also eliminated.

In other conversations with the Town Parks department some of the discussions currently underway include: Grinding the stumps on Gleneagles View in the traffic calming island and replacing with grasses or shrubbery, adopt-a-park options, self watering flower islands/pots to reduce future irrigation costs, as well as potentially returning some of the maintenance of other green space areas back to the Town (subject to community approval).

Jones Estate

It’s almost over. Maybe. At a recent Council meeting Town Council instructed staff to rewrite Bylaw 25/2018 to allow only a single residence on the Jones Estate lands. Once that comes back to council for 2nd and 3rd reading this issue should not come up again. The reality is that we will have to be vigilant and diligent until this is passed. The developer’s proponent that brought the latest proposal forward has issued a strict “no comment” to the media regarding the matter. A “Tip of the Hat” needs to go to Councillor Patrick Wilson for proposing the idea and Councillor Alex Reed for withdrawing his motion which enabled the current approach to move forward.

As always, if anyone has any questions or ideas, please feel free to email me at president@geca.ca or my work email at rondouglas@royallepage.ca .

Ron Douglas

President

Gleneagles Community Association