Keeping Track - Sikh Temple issue column
My March 10th Mercury column addressed the contentious issue of the proposed Sikh temple in Guelph's Westminster Woods neighbourhood. I am neither for nor against this proposal, mainly because it is not my place to state where such an institution should go, nor is it my neighbourhood.
Temple issue must be decided on the right reasonsIf it were up to you, would the Sikh community be permitted to build a temple on Clair Road?
If you were one of Guelph's 13 city councillors, that question would be at the front of your mind daily as you read the wide array of commentary on the topic.
Is it a simple matter of esthetics and parking, or are there deeper, darker issues at play? The real challenge for council is to separate cultural undertones from legitimate issues, and make the right decisions for the right reasons.
With the farce at Trafalgar Court, where several apartment buildings share enough visitor parking for a small bungalow, it is not hard to imagine that area residents will be deeply cynical any time anyone says anything about any parking anywhere.
Add to that a sense among nearby residents that the stated capacity of the building at 400 people is unrealistically low, given the size of the structure, and we have a recipe for a truly objective complaint about what would seem to be a very routine proposal.
While some residents have implicitly threatened councillors with defeat in this fall's election if they vote in favour of the zoning change that could lead to the construction of the Sikh temple at 410 Clair Rd. E., others have accurately pointed out that councillors do not have the liberty of voting for or against the proposal based only on their opinion. Their decision is subject to various provincial acts, the applicants' charter rights, and various means of appeal including the dreaded Ontario Municipal Board.
Capacity, occupancy limits, and parking are legitimate concerns. The applicant has stated that by the end of construction of the second phase of the temple, the building will have a design and fire code limit of 400 people.
At least one presenter last week suggested that, mathematically, the temple could hold 3,639 people. By the same math, my fairly average house could hold 232 people. The question that residents want answered is not how many people it is designed to hold, but how many people can it hold, how much parking will actually be required, and what effect it will have on the traffic along Goodwin Drive.
The potential to expand the building on to the unused portion of the lot has some residents concerned. A large strip of the land is being rezoned in the application and some argue that the temple will some day expand into that plot.
The only way out of this is a permanent size cap as a condition of approval, and the conversion of the remaining property into a parking lot, adding years to the timeline before parking becomes a problem, or the turning over of the remaining land to the city to become a park.
A bigger concern at an esthetic and traffic level - one that is seldom discussed - is the type of structures that can be built on the several acres between the proposed temple and Victoria Road.
Beauty, as they say, is in the eye of the beholder. The architecturally interesting, bright, well-kept buildings that are the Sikh temples - at least the ones I have seen - belong in residential neighbourhoods rather than in commercial, industrial, or agricultural areas. So, can this temple be made to fit in with this particular residential area?
Every member of the Westminster Woods community must pay a monthly fee to a property management company and are contractually obligated to have their homes conform on brick type, height, colour and style.
While the proposed temple is outside Westminster Woods, it does directly border on the condo complex and any co-operation would have to come from the good will of the applicant.
There is no doubt that good will exists. A recent article quoted Amarjit Furmah, president of the Guelph Sikh Society, as saying: "We've talked to the city and said, 'Give us your requests and we'll follow them.' We don't care what colour is the brick or stone. We'll do what they want."
But the trouble here may not be the colour of the brick - rather that Westminster Woods, like most of Guelph and, indeed, Canada, is a very cosmopolitan community.
There may be an underlying concern that the inclusion of a Sikh temple in a community will challenge rather than enhance that intercultural diversity by causing one particular ethnic group to be over-represented in the neighbourhood.
If that is the issue, then the question comes back to one posed by many a letter writer and columnist over the past few weeks: If this were a Christian church, all else being equal, would that concern still be present?
Before our councillors cast their votes, the challenge will be to determine exactly what question we are trying to answer.
Is the issue one of parking, traffic, and esthetics, or is it about the cultural structure of our city?
And can the two be reconciled into one right decision, whatever that may be, for all the right reasons?
Posted at 18:11 on March 27, 2010