Waterfront Resident Against Airport Expansion

It is not just Island residents that object to further expansion. It is a growing movement and it is almost everyone who lives on the Waterfront who is against it. This is a regional facility. TPA effort should be spent mitigating the disaster already there, and adhering to conditions in the Agreement,instead of bulldozing expansion.

The Tri-partite Agreement that opened the way for Commercial flights was drafted 27 years ago, when almost all the land south of the tracks was vacant. There are now about 50,000 residents on the Waterfront;
In any developed country, any expansion would require a major Enviromental Assessment carried by out by experts, in consultation with all three levels of Government, AND the community;
There are major issues of noise, health, safety, traffic and air and water pollution that are not being addressed. We heard at a meeting of the Toronto Board of Health, that toxic de-icing fluids are infiltrating the city's water system, and may also be flowing directly into the Lake.
The issues relating to Airport Security, to bring it in line with USA requirements, has probably not even been discussed, and the physical barriers and traffic chaos that will entail are still to unfold, slowly, as have all the other announcements in connection with this airport.
There is a childrens park and playground almost abutting the fence of the TPA ferry dock; as well as a major school and a community centre a hundred meters or so away;
The use of the of the Music Gardens is all but lost, due to the noise. If you walk along the water's edge some mornings, you can smell kerosene fumes; residents complain of layers of grit on their balconies; others already talk of spouses being nursed behind closed windows, because of respiratory illness and cancer.
Please help wake up our larger Community to what's ahead, because of one stupid decision.

I personally do not know of any other airport in a major city with this proximity to a residential area; nor of any developed country that will sacrifice a major resource such as what Waterfront Toronto are in the process of developing, ironically with the funds (taxpayer's money) from three levels of Government.

Finally, I want to say how disgusted I was at the bullying tactics displayed by the TPA officials, at the so called 'Public Meeting'. People were expected to drift around some complex panels stuck around the wall, and ask individual questions. There was no Chairperson, no seating, no microphone. There was however, an incredible display of arrogance, almost sneering, at the thought of having to put up with 'Community', and having to respond to serious questions, raised by a number of concerned residents; of course there seemed to be no credible answers from the CEO and MD of TPA.

We have hundreds of young men coming home on a regular basis, draped in flags; and thousands of others wounded. They have been sent to teach 'Democracy' in Afghanstan. Please let us start by more civility and a display of Democracy at home, by our Federal Agency at the TPA.

Thank you for raising this issue for public discussion.

Written b: Braz Menezes, Urban Planner and Resident