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Originally Posted by UptownJeff
While I do agree that in all likelihood this will move forward, we are dealing with a privately owned company and a city that has been plagued by disappointment. It's about time that the silent majority spoke up loudly to say we are open for business. The rally and petition will send a strong message to business and will give us citizens a much needed shot in the arm.
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This isn't some private company from afar that hasn't had dealings with New Brunswick and Saint John before. You're speaking about the private company that effectively owns the city and province, for all intents and purposes. They already know what they're dealing with.
Quote:
Originally Posted by UptownJeff
This whole mess has done 2 very important things in my opinion. It has rallied the citizens around a common goal and it has exposed flaws in our heritage bylaws. Heritage in a city like ours must be more pragmatic - as the rules exist now, most people cannot afford to do the exacting work required; so they do nothing. A crumbling, decaying stock of buildings serves no one!
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Flaws in the heritage bylaws were already known when owners of residential properties couldn't repaint their buildings without applying to do so. Windows, roofs, all had similar issues.
I appreciate your enthusiasm for the project but I never thought i'd see the day where citizens would be rallying and signing petitions for Irving. This is the same company that took massive advantage of the city via the tax break at LNG, the same company that thought they could build a statue of their CEO in an historic graveyard, the same company that routinely fleeces and bullies their way through the local and regional economy with no respect or regard for competition; and now you're rallying for their cause? I appreciate their importance to the city but this all seems a bit dramatic to me. They don't need
your support; they'll do whatever they please with or without it, and they have a track record of doing so.
NBers and SJers need to get over this silver bullet notion that a single project is going to rejuvenate everything. Big projects help, but lots of smaller projects help, too, and creating the necessary environment through strong local and provincial legislation to do so is more important than large brick and mortar projects, IMO. Uptown has seen a large revival of sorts in the past five years and that has had nothing to do with Irving's new HQ development.
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Originally Posted by kwajo
I agree. Frankly the original timeline put out by Irving Oil was incredibly optimistic (you can see my comments to that point further back on this forum), for a project in any city not just Saint John. The fact that they went public with a design only a month and a half or two before they wanted to start construction, and did very little pre-design public consultation left the door open for complications like this. I still think it will go ahead - and it should - but we're seeing a pretty normal project plot as far as I am concerned.
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The entire timeline reeked of a company that knew they could get whatever they wanted and could rush and breeze through any process or hurdle. It's true that they can because the City is in no position to turn down large-scale developments (unless you're building an eco-mall in a flood plain), but to come in so ham-fisted expecting everyone to bow down to your proposal is tedious at best.