The city hopes to solve the tram dilemma by moving the location

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After landing in a “tight spot” on the location vehemently opposite Windsor’s restored 103-year-old streetcar, the city is launching a new riverfront site a kilometer to the east.

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“Listen, we want to move a project forward and there is no point in getting stuck in the mud at one site,” Mayor Drew Dilkens said Friday of a report to be sent to council on October 4. Recommends rolling back the plan to build the “Celestial Beacon” at the foot of Askin Avenue, where a Riverside Drive neighbor had screwed things up by successfully appealing to the Local Planning Appeals Court, and instead built the “Legacy Beacon. ”To house the No. 351 streetcar, as well as other amenities at the foot of Caron Avenue, west of the Caron Avenue Pump Station.

The beacons are two of the park’s five pavilions, or beacons, recommended by the 21-year Central Riverfront Improvement Plan, so the mayor sees this change simply as a change in the order in which they are built.

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The beacon would have a glazed tram gallery, restrooms, bicycle rental, terrace and cafeteria. Due to the more challenging ground conditions, it will cost about $ 1 million more than the $ 7.4 million price tag approved for the Celestial Beacon by the council in 2020 in an 8-2 vote. If the change is approved by the council, construction could begin next year, the mayor said. He said that due to the building’s location on the Caron site, it will comply with a city regulation that requires that no structure on the north side be taller than the Riverside Drive crown.

At the Askin site, the building that houses the tram would have been two meters above the crown, due to the restrictions of the floodplain and the height required to house the huge tram. It would have blocked view of the river for nearby residents like Mike Cardinal, who appealed to LPAT when the city’s adjustment committee agreed with the city that the seven-foot overreach was a “minor variation.” The city decided not even to appear at the LPAT hearing, so Cardinal won his case, leaving the city with the dilemma of what to do. Officials had talked about approving an amendment to the Official Plan to remove the height restriction for the entire river bank for the beacon to be built. The streetcar, restored at a cost of $ 750,000, has been in storage for several years.

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Dilkens said that in recent years there have been multiple examples where structures built along the riverbank were erected on the crown of Riverside Drive. “But I understand that the person across the street from a proposed project certainly has a concern.” He said the council received “inappropriate advice” from the city administration when it was recommended to go the adjustment committee route.

“And then the council is in a bind on how to proceed on that site.”

It turns out that Caron’s location “is an even better site” than Askin’s location, Dilkens said. The report to the council notes that the location was previously a rail yard, and the Legacy Beacon will be designed using authentic streetcar rails as rail tracks and will have concrete stamped with a railroad pattern to speak to the history of the area. The popular playground at the site is nearing the end of its useful life, so it will be replaced by a new playground to the east of the pump station.

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“All we’re doing is taking this project that was approved for the Celestial Beacon site and moving it one kilometer east to the Caron Avenue area.” He said the Celestial Beacon could be finished in a few years, with its bathrooms replacing the old-fashioned ones on the western edge of the riverfront park.

Reached on Friday, Cardinal remains frustrated by the city’s efforts to locate the trolley anywhere on the riverbank.

“The bottom line is that they’re still trying to cram a 12-foot size into a size 9 show,” he said, arguing that the best spot for the tram is a glass-enclosed addition on the west side of the city’s Chimczuk Museum.

But the idea of ​​placing the tram at one of the riverfront beacons addresses the city’s repeated goal of bringing more people, and not just bicyclists and walkers, to the riverside, Dilkens said. Windsor Works’ recent plan to diversify and grow the city’s economy speaks to the riverfront being one of Windsor’s best-selling features.

“We are not talking about building hotels and condominiums on the riverbank and creating this whole commercial operation,” the mayor said. “It is creating amenities for the people who live here, that invites them to one of the best features we have in the community and gives them something to do when they are there.”

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