The Urban Village Is Dead, Long Live The University/Urban Village

Have Windsorites been badly misled?

Only a few months ago, on January 27, to be precise, it was claimed after Mark Boscariol "lambasted city hall for foot-dragging on several fronts:"

"As for the urban village, Francis said a report to council in February will enable the city to issue a request for proposals and there are strong indications of developer interest. "

Today, months after the RFP was to have been issued an excuse is offered putting the Urban Village on hold indefinitely.

The story being circulated is that the Urban Village is to be replaced by a huge University of Windsor initiative. The word is that it is focused around the University's new Engineering complex. Impressive isn't it until we read:

• "Right now we're just exploring all kinds of options," said U of W president Ross Paul. "And how that will end up, I don't know. We have lots of needs and we're spending lots of time trying to raise money both privately and from government and that will be a big factor in what we do."

Clearly time will be needed to work on this since the Province will have to put up millions of dollars if this is to move forward. So that should be worth a year or two of Urban Village delay or more. And then when that idea dies out, Administration would have to gear itself up for a new RFP. As the Mayor said on Monday to keep Councillor Halberstadt quiet, you know how busy Administration is right now.

Is this story true or another smokescreen for inactivity? Who knows!

All I know is if it was true, my top-secret University mole would not have said:

• "I am not in a position to offer any information."

Hardly. He would be shouting about the major urban development to deflect the horrible reputation that the University has earned for itself as the destroyer of Windsor's history by demolishing the Grad House on the week-end!

Unless the University Administration has been keeping important matters from the Board, my tenured moles in the academia world know nothing about the University getting involved in a 50 acre development. As was said to me:

• "Not one word of this has been told to the Board"

If the City cannot do it themselves, if what Councillor Postma says is true (see below), if the University needs cash for its ambitious program already and has to raise tuition dramatically, if the President is leaving soon, how can this 50 acre deal be taken seriously by anyone!

Oh well, at least the DWBIA got to hear the Mayor. Here is what he said to the Construction Association, I am told, through one of his assistants. I guess he was concerned they would be mad at him about the arena deal and his lack of work for them with the Urban Village delay:

• "On behalf of the Mayor, Eddie Francis he thanks you for the personal invitation to attend the dinner for the Heavy Construction Association of Windsor. Regretfully the Mayor is not available on Thursday, May 17th and unable to attend your event at Ciociaro Club. However, the Mayor extends his best wishes for a successful and supported event and greatly appreciates the invitation. All the best.
  
  Respectfully,
  
  Nora Bertram Romero
  Office of the Mayor"

This whole matter is childishness and the handling of it is amateur hour. Tell us about "the potential for a “significant project” which could encompass most or all of the 50 acres" but refuse "to divulge details."

Stall, stall, stall! We all knew the Urban Village was never going to happen. Heck, it was Councillor Marra's project anyway. As the Mayor said

• "We've got to be careful about the signal we're sending to outside investors."

Here are this month's signals if anyone is concerned:

• keep Burger King guessing
• tell "interested developers" the urban village is on hold
• turn down a billion dollar investor deal
• do not even talk to developers to learn their plans but read about them in BLOGs
• get rid of economic development people who win prizes for us
• lamb dinners are tasty

Now we are getting the truth. The Urban Village was on life support for a long time. Isn't that the reason why we are getting this new DREAM? Where was the RFP? How could the Mayor talk about an Urban Village in front of the downtown business people with no RFP?

I read part of his speech as quoted in the Star. Here is the part of the speech that must have been cut from the first draft. Unfortunately, it seems that Councillor Postma was out of town and did not know this quote was no longer part of it when she said the following:

• Postma said the decision to postpone issuing RFPs for the urban village in favour of considering the education alternative was agreed to by council because "there's no other projects" that have been proposed for the area.
  
  "No one's really come forward with any ideas yet," said Postma, whose ward covers the property in question. "There really hasn't been much interest from anyone else at this point."

That seems totally inconsistent with what I quoted at the outset. Now to explain the two different statements and to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, let's agree that we were not lied to. So what happened in two months that chased away all of the developers from Windsor?

My only conclusion:

• No developer will work with a City where two of its finest families are chased out of town by a Mayor and Council on the type of deal that the Mayor said he wanted for an arena when he was first elected.
• No developer will work with a Mayor and Council that is so anti-development that they will not even talk with a Company that has already invested and wants to invest another $500 million in a project to revitalize the Community and make the border work.
• No developer will even come to a community where nothing is happening even with $300M in BIF money sitting around waiting to be spent for almost 5 years, with the highest unemployment in Canada, with a dead downtown and falling housing prices when there are lots of other places to invest where the economy is booming.

I am so glad to see how Councillor Hatfield has made the transition from hard-hitting journalist with Percy's Panel to politician so easily and so quickly:

• "Coun. Percy Hatfield would neither confirm nor deny the involvement of one of the local post-secondary schools."

Frankly, Ross Paul is going to have enough trouble raising money for the Medical School and Engineering building from businesses and people who are hurting financially. He and the University Board better understand that blue-skying in the media is not the way to start fundraising!

The University President had his chance to accomplish his goal after his 2004 Star Guest column and 2005 State of the University Address and it did not happen. His term of office ends in July, 2008 as the search committee looks for a replacement. He had better stick to his new job of

• "enhancing the profile and reputation of the University of Windsor on a national and international basis [and recruiting] students and faculty from around the world, and [encouraging] interest in the University of Windsor as a hub of research and development."

Putting the thought of "University" in front of urban village is a complete disservice to the Community!