Have your say on the Howard Bouffard Secondary Plan
Thank you for providing this avenue for us to further the conversation on Howard Bouffard Secondary Plan, LaSalle’s candidate lands and the Ojibway National Urban Park.
With this being such a large conversation and a tremendous opportunity for LaSalle’s community members to voice their opinions, we wish to explore how we can utilize this platform to reach more people prior to the closing date for submission, Sept 25, 2023.
Although the process will extend into early 2024, this round of consultations up to September 25 may be critical, as it will form the basis of the “Emerging Preferred Plan”, which will become more and more difficult to change subsequently. These outreaches will be documented and cannot be overlooked as they bring attention to public concerns that are not focused on through the developer’s lens and perspectives. The Secondary Plan options presented are biased from this developer’s lens and are displaying an outdated assumption that what is best is to maximize development and minimize/eliminate natural habitats for monetary gain.
John DeMarco and I have been connecting and communicating with members of council, those working directly on the NUP and Howard Bouffard projects and even the mayor of LaSalle, Crystal Meloche.
We are members of various, non-profit, conservation and restoration groups that have shown support to our vision of a more balanced LaSalle where we still have the significant land/space to be leaders and a model for restoration projects that are either included with or complimentary to the NUP.
They all have advised- gather a communal voice to be heard and utilize this secondary planning window to propose alternative options. The current options are proposed without a dedication to restoring an effective amount of land to help our unique diversity of non-human species exist and in the future thrive!
The housing densities, in the proposed options, are essentially suggesting developing a town within our town. This should not be treated as a routine planning project. This requires more adequate timing for public input and consultation that matches the scale of this.
This area CAN have it all- we just have to voice what type of developments benefit human development/recreation, environmental concerns, non-human species and the future generations who will call LaSalle home. We have a say and these options are from a developers lens and perspective.
Rachael Mills
A concerned, but optimistic LaSalle community member
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