This sweet, immaculate home can be a getaway from the big city craziness, a starter home for those looking to raise a kid or two in a less-harried environment, or a home for a retired person wishing to putter in a garden or walk down to the harbour for a chinwag over a coffee with the locals. The house’s history is still evident in the floorboards, doors and more. While the windows, plumbing and wiring have been upgraded, they were done in such a way as to best preserve the authenticity of the old place.
First, the history: As the current owner’s son describes it, “In the decade before 1800, a public building was erected near the city of Boston, Mass. It was well used, but after many years it was deemed no longer necessary and was deconstructed. The remnant pieces – large hand-hewn timbers and wide linen-fold boards – were loaded onto a schooner and sailed north to P.E.I.” The house was destined for the schooner captain and his family. “Those beams and boards formed the historic and unusual framework for [the] house that still stands in Murray Harbour North.”
Once again Montague town council is throwing salt in wounds of its own creation. Monday during Committee of the Whole, Councillor Daphne Griffin attempted to have the flag policy reversed. She was supported by Councillor Debbie Johnston.
But their common sense argument was rejected by the remainder of council who stood by a policy dumb in nature and bigoted in public interpretation. The only thing the policy achieves is a few minutes of work for maintenance staff.
To the shame of Montague town council, the Village of Cardigan is showing more leadership. It picked up a flag on Monday night and raised it. It knows that the raising of flags is symbolic of communities that care.
And what taxpayers should care about is the repeated ignorance of this council to see the big picture.
The average age in Montague is 47. It needs to attract new residents to sustain itself. Businesses rely on council to help build the infrastructure necessary to make the community attractive. Part of that ‘infrastructure’ is building the perception that the community is welcoming and inclusive.
Montague town council repeatedly fails this basic requirement of leadership. Be it the Boys and Girls Club fiasco, the decision to abandon and then rejoin regional cooperation discussions, or the Clark’s Building silliness, Montague town council can’t seem to get out of its own way. It’s actions are negatively impacting our ability to attract residents, which will have a direct impact on the viability of local business.
Over the years, residents in the east end neighbourhoods of Leslieville and the Beach have complained about everything from breweries to music festivals and even a mysterious hum only some can hear.
But the region’s latest grievance – that toddlers playing in a park are too loud – has some wondering whether the east end doth protest too much.
“NIMBYism at its worst. This is why the Beach has such a bad rep in the city,” wrote one member of The Beaches Facebook group. “Give me a break, get a life. Let kids be kids,” wrote another.
“It’s probably just our demographic here,” said Beach Village BIA director Jessica Wright. “We’re bringing in some younger people but at this point it’s still a little bit of an older crowd.
“They’re used to kind of a sleepy neighbourhood a little bit.”
Canada’s housing agency says there is evidence of increasingly “problematic conditions” in the national home market, prompting it to upgrade its assessment of the country’s troubling signs from weak to moderate.
One of those signposts has been planted just down the road from Toronto in the neighbouring city of Hamilton.
A third-quarter report from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. (CMHC) on Wednesday said overvaluation in Hamilton was similar to that of Toronto’s property market.
That means home prices are higher than would normally be explained by factors such as population, employment and income.
There’s no specific data proving Torontonians are moving west on the QEW in search of cheaper housing, said Abdul Kargobo, CMHC analyst for the city of about 520,000 people.
“But if we look back to 2013, we do see that Hamilton is attracting some buyers that are priced out of Toronto because Hamilton is relatively affordable,” he said.
The economic development department in Hamilton recently reported its average home price of $451,000 was nearly half that of Toronto’s $940,000.
When Sean Solowski saw his 27-square-metre apartment for the first time, he was struck by the huge windows and the flood of natural light. It was 2009, and Solowski had just moved from Ottawa, where he had been studying, back to his native Toronto. The apartment was on the second floor of a building dating back to the early 1900s near Dundas and Gladstone, and even though it was considerably smaller than most studio apartments, it was perfect for the 33-year-old.
In Ottawa, where he received his graduate degree in architecture from Carleton University, Solowski lived in a 51-square-metre apartment, and sizing down meant getting rid of some of his belongings. “It really makes you think, ‘What are the essentials of life?’” he says. Because the apartment only has one closet, he put many of his possessions on display. Two shiny motorcycle helmets are perched on the wall above an orange swivel armchair. A streamlined and expensive-looking Cervèlo road bike hangs from another wall. “Plan for things to have more than one function,” says Solowski, who made the best of his tiny pad with a futon couch that folded into a bed at night and a work desk that doubled as a dining table.
Solowski isn’t the only Torontonian purging his belongings and sizing down into a tiny apartment. Today, condominium developers are turning to micro condos to satisfy a growing need for downtown real estate.
In the last year alone, the number of micro condos in Toronto’s new housing market has risen to 11 per cent, up from five per cent, according to a study from Urbanation. Micro condo units appeal particularly to the younger crowd—people in their late 20s and early 30s who want to live and work in Toronto’s vibrant downtown core. The condos are smaller, cheaper, and easier to clean and organize, ideal for a young person who has recently landed their first professional job and may want to find a beginner’s footing in the city’s expensive real estate market.
We finally know who Rob Ford was referring to when he said he needed just “10 f***ing minutes to make sure he’s dead.”
The late Toronto mayor was looking to get in the ring with none other than Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, according to a report in the Toronto Sun.
During Ford’s four tumultuous years as Toronto mayor, shocking cellphone camera videos of the mayor became almost commonplace.
The video shows a slurring Ford ranting and raving that he wants to “murder” someone and “rip his f***ing throat out.”
But it wasn’t intended to be taken seriously, one witness to that night in June 2012 told the Sun’s Joe Warmington. Instead, it was Ford, who was a big pro-wrestling fan, joking around WWF-style that he wanted to fight Trudeau.
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