Raise the Hammer

so, we can make exceptions for stuff like this: http://www.sachem.ca/news/article/209427

but not for community facilities that exist for more than just making money?

I realize that some people will say "Pearl doesn't pay taxes as an arts organization". Ok, fair enough. How much tax money will be spent over the next decade sending police, ambulance, fire and bylaw to this building if it reverts back to it's former use as a squatter building with fires, crack, prostitutes, crime, fights etc...... Furthermore, the surrounding neighbourhood has benefited positively from this facility. Homes are cleaning up, crime is down, drugs are down, people from Ancaster, Burlington and Toronto have come to this area of the city for arts events and the Art Bus and had a great time.

One could argue that taxes are all that matters. I disagree. No Tim Hortons anywhere in the city can do for Lansdale what the Pearl Company has been doing. We talk about James North and our creative class and becoming a hub for creative jobs but do we really mean it or understand it?

I could digress into a whole rant leading from this topic from the negative effects of amalgamation where a majority of the city and it's administrators are suburban to the social aspects of revitalizing a city that are far more intangible, yet more real than the effects of a drive thru fast food chain.

I'm not meaning to demonize Hortons. We need those jobs and that service industry in our city.
I'm merely pointing out the complete lack of understanding and of priorities when we can bend the rules for one, but not the other.

King West in Toronto would still be a post industrial ghetto had zoning officials and city officials not thrown out the rule book and allowed the street to be reborn in an organic manner.

News Flash! Boardroom zoning bylaws with their designations all neatly separated from each other, connected by nice big roads and highways doesn't work in OLD, URBAN, POST-INDUSTRIAL neighbourhoods looking to revitalize.

When will we learn??