Being A Naysayer

I trust that the Ward 2 Councillors will not be too angry with me now.

I confess. I live in South Windsor. But it's not my fault. No one told me when I first moved to Windsor that living in this part of the City was verging on a crime and would "tag" me forever. I just liked the house, that's all.

I read an interesting comment the other day that came from someone who should know better. "People do not bad mouth the West end and quite frankly if they do they live in South Windsor and are ignorant!" So there!

So daring to feed the stereotype, I will again risk losing friends by saying that Ward 2 Councillors Postma and Jones have made a big mistake by trying to make Sandwich a heritage area. It will mean that 2,616 buildings will become part of a huge bureaucracy that will impact property owners every time they may want to do something significant with their buildings.

But more importantly, they will lose for Sandwich a lot of good-will from other parts of the City.

Today's Star reported:

• Heritage owners may see tax dip
  Lee Palser, Windsor Star
  
  ESSEX - Kingsville owners of heritage properties should soon be eligible for an added break on their residential tax rates.
  
  The County of Essex will likely approve a recommendation from its corporate services committee that it reduce taxes for such properties by 40 per cent of the usual county levy, matching the town's own reduction.
  
  Kingsville's bylaw affects eligible heritage property owners, who are required to make annual applications to receive the tax reduction.
  
  The town's chief building official confirms the eligibility of the property.
  
  Eligible owners within the industrial-commercial or multi-residential property classes are able to make application for reductions annually for a maximum of five years...
  
  Kingsville has identified 14 eligible heritage properties for 2006. If county council adopts the bylaw and all eligible heritage property owners applied for the reduction of the county portion of their taxes, it would mean lost revenue of about $3,900."
  
  

I have no idea how property taxes in Kingsville and Windsor compare but just using the Kingsville numbers, taxpayers in the rest of the City may have to pay almost three quarters of a million dollars for that historic designation in Sandwich every year. I do not think that will go over well in the east, south and north Windsor, never mind the rest of Ward 2.

No one argues against making Sandwich an area where investors should come for new development purposes. No one argues against making Sandwich an area where tourists should come to learn about its history. No one argues against designating key buildings in Sandwich as historic. But everyone should oppose a proposal that makes little sense.

In reality, and no matter how much it is sugar-coated, it is merely another misguided tactic in the border war since properties are impacted where a Twinned Bridge might be built one day. It is that obvious as well.