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Me first
The headline was familiar. “County to demolish old DukeDome for affordable housing.” Clicking on the link produced no more information—an empty regurgitation of the headline’s assertion.
Though it read as imminent, the headline might have been written many times over the past 14 years. And was. Plans were drawn up to tear down the Wellington rink before the ice came out in 2010—while the Dukes still skated under its crumbling roof, and blankets reserved bum rights on the wooden benches that served as seating.
You could buy a house in Wellington for under $300,000, then. Rent an apartment for less than $1,000. Folks had choices. We could live on a modest wage in the village. Raise a family.
That is mostly gone. Choosing to live in Wellington today means arriving with wealth accumulated elsewhere. It is an attractive lakeside community within an easy drive to several large urban centres. So many make the move here. But we haven’t built any more homes to accommodate them, apart from a few dozen yearly at Wellington on the Lake. And now they are done. No more homes will be built there.
Lacking a sufficient supply of new homes, newcomers bid up home prices, long-term residents cash in, and they move on. Wealthy folks displace families.
But this trend was understood in 2010. The patterns were clear—the sheer demand of folks to live here was likely to make life harder for those on the margin. But that demand would surely help boost my property value. Three developers—including Kaitlin—were preparing to respond to the housing supply gap by promoting plans on the village edges in 2010. Lots of folks didn’t want change—didn’t want Mississauga coming to the County. So we resisted. Urged caution—if not outright hostility.
A former council member confronted your correspondent at the Wellington Grill one morning. Red-faced, he got to his feet and implored me to stop promoting new home building in the village in these pages.
“When is it all going to stop?” spluttered the council member, making a bit of a scene in the café. That was in 2010. Thirteen years later, it hasn’t started yet.
That brings me to the public meeting last week featuring County planners hosted by the Wellington Residents Association. About 100 folks had come out this February night to learn what’s in store for this village. The first quarter of the meeting was given over to an explanation of the planning process, governing legislation, rules and such. The next bit was an overview of a sampling of Wellington subdivision plans currently on their desks. Only one of the subdivisions discussed— and at least one that was omitted— has any prospect of building homes in anything resembling the near future. But I suppose from a planning process point of view a file is a file is a file.
To be crystal clear, our community needs good process folks—folks who make sure the rules are followed and that the infrastructure bits connect seamlessly. We have difficulty hanging on to these folks, so their effort—and willingness—to explain themselves before a room of agitated residents is praiseworthy.
But we also need folks with a vision of what is possible, what is desirable and what is consistent with the values, traditions and aspirations of this community. Folks who are steeped in the village’s defining document—its Secondary Plan. People who don’t diminish it as antiquated and irrelevant. These folks weren’t at the mic on Tuesday at the Legion.
Sadly, it wasn’t until the very end of the meeting that a young woman stood up to ask for a definition of affordable housing—and what levers the County could pull to ensure at least something approaching affordable might emerge from the ground north of the Millennium Trail.
She didn’t get much of an answer. The Planners pointed to the old Dukedome and the prospect of affordable homes soon. Well…maybe. However, as of this week, the rink still stands as a sullen monument to good intentions wading through molasses. Folks pinning their dreams of affordable living in Wellington may have a long wait.
Meanwhile, a developer looking to build 96 townhomes at the top of Maple Street is stuck. So too, is the developer hoping to build 225 mostly townhomes north of the Legion. So too, is Dr. Tucker, who wants to see a 20-unit apartment on Prince Edward Drive, constructed at the entrance to Wellington on the Lake. They are blocked because they can’t get waterworks connected to their projects. Shire Hall’s deal with Kaitlin prohibits new development in Wellington—until new plants and infrastructure is built.
But there is another force working against affordability in Wellington. Many folks don’t want change. They moved here for the village it is today. The prospect of tracts of new homes spreading rapidly north and east of the village has—once again— aroused fears of the Mississaugization of Wellington. The fear is expressed in many ways but is—at its core—a desire to maintain property value. Apartments, townhomes, and denser lots are perceived as a threat to this value.
As was evident last Tuesday, in a contest between retaining property values and providing affordability of life in Wellington, affordability remains an afterthought. It’s a sentiment likely not lost on Shire Hall planners.
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