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So Let’s Be Clear: Our Stand On the Jaffari Village Development

• webmaster
• June 6, 2014
• Publications

The Preserve Thornhill Woods Association would like to be very clear on where we stand on the Jaffari Village Development application and where we hope negotiations will take us. Over the next few weeks, we will be scheduling a community wide information meeting to bring the entire community up to speed on the latest status of the application and to answer all your questions. In the mean time, we felt it was important to provide the following statement:

A small (and anonymous) group of people who oppose our efforts against the Jaffari application keep trying to label our community as “racist”. Many of you have noticed that we were forced to delete a number of Facebook messages that were posted to divide our community and to deliberately provoke racial arguments on our Facebook page. The people posting these messages are not members of our community. They are individuals and companies who stand to make a massive amount of money from a large construction project on the Jaffari lands. Their goals are to divide our community and to disrupt the efforts of the Preserve Thornhill Woods Association while quietly pushing the proposal forward for approval. Its all about financial gain. Yes…you heard what we just said. A number of people stand to make a huge pile of cash developing this land and it isn’t necessarily the majority of the members of the Jaffari congregation.

So let’s be clear. The Jaffari Village has been located on the corner of Bathurst and Ner Israel Drive for many years and they are a part of our neighbourhood. Had Jaffari met with the community and addressed the parking overflow issue a few years ago, their relationship with the community would be better. Had they approached the community with their preliminary plans to develop their lands and asked for public input and support on what would be acceptable, they probably could have avoided spending a fortune on numerous consultants who are eagerly lining up to take the Jaffari congregation’s money.

So let’s be clear on where the community stands and lets hope that this message of goodwill gets through to the Jaffari congregation.

Thornhill Woods and the surrounding neighbourhoods are made up of people from many religions and from many ethnic backgrounds. Many of them came to Canada to find a better way of life. All are welcome to live together in peace and are certainly welcome in our community. After all, this is what makes both our community and Canada a great place to live. Openness, tolerance, inclusiveness and respect for diversity are all pillars of life in Canada. Anyone who shares these uniquely Canadian values is welcome.

So let’s be clear. The community has no issue with Jaffari developing their lands. All that we ask is that the lands be developed in accordance with the city’s newly approved VOP 2010 plan which establishes clear guidelines for how the Jaffari land can be developed. The city spent millions of dollars creating a long term plan for our area to ensure that any future development was thoughtful and doesn’t negatively impact the existing residents of our community. All we ask is that Jaffari respect these plans and revise their application accordingly. Please drop plans for high rise towers and stick to the current zoning. The Jaffari land is currently zoned for low density development which includes single family homes and town homes up to 3 stories in height. The zoning also permits expansion of the Jaffari school and the inclusion of parks, recreational facilities and a low rise seniors home. There is already a 3 story seniors home called Hesperus Village located directly adjacent to your property. If the Jaffari development application included a similar seniors facility, we doubt that anyone in the community would object.

So let’s be clear about the message we are trying to send to the Jaffari Development Board: We expect them to come back with a proposal which adds value to the community as a whole and doesn’t create problems for the rest of the neighbourhood. If they work with us, instead of focusing their efforts on working around us, they will find that they’ll receive a much more positive response. However, as long as the proposed development application remains completely out of sync with the city’s planned use for these lands the united residents of Thornhill Woods, led by the Preserve Thornhill Woods Association, will challenge the Jaffari application at every level of government, at every meeting and by utilizing every resource at our disposal until the application is revised to the community’s satisfaction. We love our community and we will continue to do everything we can possibly do in order to preserve Thornhill Woods.

So here is our community’s offer to the Jaffari. The choice is yours. The sooner your Development Board comes back with a revised plan that satisfies the community’s concerns, the closer you will be towards realizing your dreams for Jaffari Village. Its that simple. Our community looks forward to a positive response from you…

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