|
Great Lakes
Article:
Toronto starts work on $1.5B waterfront
06/23/2002
London Free Press
TORONTO -- Work has begun on a $1.5-billion
project to wrap the city's waterfront in a 46-kilometre
bank of parks, shops and hotels, producing what the city's
mayor says will be the longest developed waterfront on
the planet.
"It will be 46 kilometres to be proud of," Mel Lastman
said at a news conference yesterday to launch the project.
"It's going to be the largest waterfront
in the world."
A portion of the Lake Ontario harbourfront is now lined
with million-dollar condos, and was once a vacation spot
for Diana, the late Princess of Wales.
But there is another more desolate section of Toronto's
waterfront known to locals as Tent City, where squatters
are camped on land contaminated with PCBs, arsenic and
lead.
Officials want to clean up that and other industrial areas
of the waterfront, saying it will beautify the area, attract
film and television productions and create jobs. They
are also hopeful a revitalized waterfront could play a
role in winning a future Olympics, should another bid
be launched.
All three levels of government will pay for the project,
but at least one city politician says that is misguided.
That kind of money would be better spend building shelter
for the homeless, than on pretty building bandshells and
lavish shopping concourses, says Coun. Michael Walker.
|
