The inevitable weekend garbage dump.

A disgrace for Waterloo - homecoming souvenirs

So that's what Project Safe Semester means!

Today's BBQ on Hickory Street

This article from the St. Catharines Standard

Brock students trying to cook up better relations with neighbours


Posted By KARENA WALTER STANDARD STAFF

Posted 3 days ago

Brock students hope more longtime residents attend their next community barbecue after an inaugural meet-the neighbours event Tuesday.
The free community barbecue in Montebello Park brought together students, firefighters, politicians and other invitees, but failed to attract many neighbourhood residents.
"Based on this we'll probably re-evaluate and see how we can get the message out by Thursday," said Rob Lanteigne, referring to a second community barbecue in Thorold.
Hosted by the Brock University Students' Union, the Montebello Park event was the first of three barbecues this year to build positive neighbourhood relationships.
Lanteigne, the students' union vice-president of university affairs, said the new initiative was a success, bringing together students with other sectors of the community.
St. Catharines firefighters helped flip and dish out burgers with students while others mingled in the crowd.
"It's a good initiative to bring students together with their community," Lanteigne said. "Start the year off in a positive light."
The idea is to get university students to meet their neighbours before problems arise.
Last week, for the second year, 15 teams of students paired with community leaders went door to door in student- heavy areas handing out kits on how to be good neighbours and roommates. They also asked longtime residents to go to their student neighbours with concerns before calling the police.
While the community hears reports about student noise and parties, Lanteigne said those complaints are disproportionate to the number of students living off-campus.
The students' union has 16,000 students under its wing and only 2,300 live in on-campus residences, he said.
Third-year student Andrew Natale attended the barbecue and said students causing problems give everyone a bad reputation.
"It's a very small percentage, but that's the percentage you hear about."
There's so much more to students, he said.
Community barbecues send a positive message from students, said city councillor Andrew Gill, who sits on the student housing liaison committee.
Gill said the student and city relationship is two-fold.
The city welcomes students with open arms into the community, he said, but there are problems in the south end of St. Catharines that will not be tolerated.
"Students are a great benefit to our city but I do have longtime residents affected by student housing and we have to find that balance," Gill said.
Students' union president Jody Thomas, who campaigned with the idea to hold the relationship-building events, said the barbecue was also about trying to create a community atmosphere for students.
He hoped students and residents would get to know who's on their own streets.
It's an effort supported by Mayor Brian McMullan, who said students may be more inclined to live in the city after graduation if they put down some roots.
"We also want them to consider St. Catharines-Niagara as a place to stay," McMullan said, adding he hoped the community barbecues would become annual events.

And the goal would be????

From Saturday's Record:

Waterloo welcomes students with neighbourhood event


September 13, 2008 Record staff
WATERLOO
A free neighbourhood barbecue welcoming university students to the city will be held tomorrow. About 400 people are expected at the Welcome Students Community BBQ at 112 Hickory St. from 4 to 7 p.m. The rain date is Sept. 21.


the bbq started out as a way to have students meet the permanent residents so they created relationships that would help students recognize their neighbours and create responsibility and harmony in the neighbourhood.
Now the city doesn't even pretend that is what it is.
It is merely a bbq to welcome students to the city.
If this bbq is about welcoming students to the city - then they should have it on campus, or at the city hall, or in Uptown Waterloo.
No wonder this neighbourhood is so overwhelmed by students who think they "own" it.
They already feel more than a little welcome in the neighbourhood - it is the permanent residents who feel that the city doesn't care about them.

Another Saturday morning surprise...

There is no more pleasant way to be greeted on your Saturday morning walk...three deposits on your front lawn.

That neighbourhood preservation model is working well.

The city can be truly proud of their initiatives.

Interesting article from the Record

Wednesday September 10th 2008


Street barbecue for Doon residents



KITCHENER—Students and homeowners in the Doon Neighbourhood around Conestoga College are invited to a street barbecue that will be held today from 5 p.m. until 7 p.m.
The barbecue will be held on Orchard Mill Crescent near the college.
The event is organized by the Kitchener Conestoga town and gown committee in a bid to improve relations between the thousands of college students and homeowners living in the suburbs around the college.

Record staff

This evening the Waterloo Police went door to door handing out flyers and asking if there were any questions that we had. The flyers were: Thank you for being a good neighbour, Hello Neighbour and a Letter to student residents. Hopefully this will have some impact on behavioural issues. This was the contents of the letter.

WELCOME TO WATERLOO
September 10, 2008

Letter to student residents

Greetings!

Welcome to the City of Waterloo. As your neighbours and fellow Waterloo residents, we want to wish you the very best as you set out on another year of great experiences at Wilfrid Laurier University and the University of Waterloo. May you take full advantage of all of the educational, athletic, cultural, and social opportunities this community has to offer.

Whether you are a new or returning student, we hope that you will look on this community as your own. We take great pride in the enthusiasm and accomplishments of the students in our community, and hope that you will take the time to get to know some of your neighbours as well as your fellow students.

The Waterloo Regional Police Service, the City of Waterloo By-law Enforcement Staff and the City of Waterloo, Fire Rescue and Prevention Staff are responsible for public safety, law enforcement and for maintaining good order in our community. These officials are available to assist you at any time you are in need.

On very rare occasions, the actions of a few students have adversely affected the reputation of both the universities, and of all students. Both universities support the Police Service and the City of Waterloo in their efforts to maintain order in the community, and in dealing with unlawful conduct or conduct that interferes with anyone's rightful enjoyment of their property. Please be a good neighbour, and encourage others to do the same — especially in group situations where the conduct of others may unfairly reflect on you.

For more information about how the Waterloo Regional Police Service, the City of Waterloo By-Law Enforcement Staff and the City of Waterloo Fire Rescue Staff can assist you, please contact them at 653-7700 or visit City of Waterloo website at http://www.waterloo.ca/.

We wish you every success in the year ahead!


Wilfrid Laurier University Dr. Max Blouw President/ Vice-Chancellor

University of Waterloo David Johnston President / Vice-Chancellor

City of Waterloo Mayor B. Halloran

Waterloo Regional Police Service
Matthew A Torigian Chief of Police

How you know you are living in a " Waterloo universities neighbourhood"

You've awakened to find people passed out on your lawn.
They were unhappy when you woke them up at 7 a.m. as you left for work.

The ambulance had to take one of them away to hospital at 3 in the morning.

You've seen a couple having sex on a major Waterloo street.

You've seen young people, male and female, urinating in full view, day and/or night..

You've had the neighbours next door come to your property to urinate while having a party at their house, in spite of having two bathrooms inside their own house and a very large backyard of their own.

You saw this happen once, mere steps off the sidewalk at 4 in the afternoon when WCI school buses could have driven by.

You have witnessed a group of 10 men break into 3 smaller groups and urinate simultaneously on 3 successive lawns on Albert St. at 8 p.m. mere steps off the sidewalk.

You know what a UHonk and we'll drink party is.

You've swept up broken glass over and over and over, and so have the 80 year olds living in the neighbourhood.

The mayor doesn't reply to your emails.

You can hear WLU's PA system, word for word, at 1 in the morning.

You can hear UW's PA system from their new football field all afternoon.

Your neighbours sit on upholstered furniture on their front lawns, drinking alcohol, and leave the furniture there in the rain.

You've witnessed a party where students emptied one round of beer, buried the beer bottles in the lawn neckdown, then threw the rest of the bottles they emptied at the buried bottles, trying to break them.

Garbage lies on lawns and boulevards for weeks on end and the bylaw enforcement dept. doesn't do a thing about it.

Bylaw officers have told you they are afraid to approach or charge lawbreakers in your neighbourhood. They refer to it as "taking their lives in their hands."

You have witnessed them being treated this way.

Your neighbours think The City doesn't know what the term "Neighbourhood Preservation Model" means. (see the Student Accommodation Report.)

The schools and churches in your neighbourhood have been rezoned for mult-storey apt. buildings. (WCI - MR4; St. David's - MR6/12; St. Michael's Church - MR6; Pentecostal Assembly - MR25.)

700 charges were laid by the police in your neighbourhood - IN ONE MONTH!!!
You wonder why London students are such underachievers.

You've been told that you have no business living in the neighbourhood by university students, even though you've been there for decades.

You can't use your own driveway because the girls next door find it more convenient to use yours rather than their own - after all you've shovelled and they haven't.

You ask someone to move their car out of your driveway and they refuse and stay there.

Even when the students are warned in a personal visit from the police that they aren't to park in your driveway, they persist.

Your neighbours set off fireworks so close to your property that the fireworks shower over your fence.

You are regularly awakened in the wee hours of the morning by one or two fireworks being set off.

Your neighbours are moving out before they can even sell their homes because their quality of life is so bad.

A single mother raising a 12 year old son moves out, in spite of loving her home, saying the "neighbourhod isn't fit to live in anymore."

The city rezoned the border of your two - block wide neighbourhood for apt. buildings designed to house only university students (5 bedroom units) while saying that they want to encourage famlies and young professionals to move into the houses inside this border.

There was a policy in place of not charging the majority of the residents of your neighbourhood (a very specific demographic) for breaking laws and bylaws, even when police/bylaw were called to the same address repeatedly in the same night.

YOu have watched a house of able-bodied university girls park their cars blocking the sidewalk for 3 years forcing people in wheelchairs out into busy traffic, and nobody did a thing about it no matter how often you advocated for the wheelchair bound residents.

When people were breaking the law in your neighbourhood you were told that it was your fault for not giving them welcome bags, making them muffins, or inviting them to dinner at your house.

When you were begging for help The City called it "bitching".

In 6 years there have been 5 beatings and two people stabbed (known of) within 3 blocks of your house - several of them severe.

Your neighbourhood had a brawl involving 35 people at 5 a.m. on a Sunday morning in the summer.

Several nights a week you are awakened by drunken people going up your street yelling at the top of their lungs.

The majority of people living in your neighbourhood, zoned SR2, are people who arrive for 4 or 8 month terms, then leave, subletting to new people.

People in other parts of the city feel sorry for you, saying it's a shame what has happened to your neighbourhood.

You know from experience that Animal House wasn't fiction.

You regularly see people walking with open beer bottles, and find empty kegger cups all over the streets/lawns.

You have seen young women staggering drunk up your sidewalk alone late at night.

The sidewalk cable boxes on your street are destroyed as if on a schedule.
You have actually lost phone service as a result of this behaviour.

Your neighbours routinely light fires in their backyard, sometimes using neighbouring fences for fuel.

You have had boards removed from your fence so students don't have to walk so far to school and can cut through your property.

You are over 75 years of age and have been threatened with being beaten up by students who wanted to cut through your property.

You and/or your neighbours have had your blue boxes, yard waste, and/or garbaged dumped into the street.

You have watched a whole family of skunks rip open and rummage in the garbage for a week on Albert St. while bylaw did nothing about it. (proactive? hmmm. let me look that up.)

Your fence has been broken down over and over and over.

You have had items stolen off your property.

You have had someone damage your swimming pool by throwing a glass topped table into it, forcing you to replace the liner.

You have witnessed parties with more than a hundred attendees.

You had a party across the street from you with dozens of attendees last for 24 hours, and even though dispatch was called 3 times nobody showed up.
Then you were blamed for not calling soon enough, even though you reported the party before it started when you saw the keg arrive.

You have watched garbage rot in the driveway of a licenced lodging house for weeks with nobody taking it away, and nobody being charged.

You were promised proactive/zero tolerance enforcement and got no enforcement, as a policy.

You were named the Universities Neighbourhood - nice branding, handing ownership off like that, without consulting the residents.

The Town and Gown committee was reorganized so one of your neighbours who sat on it was excluded and no residents were privy to what went on there. (what part of "town" don't they get?)

They rejected your suggestions for how to help the area, only to have the suggestions adopted by other university cities.

You have no fewer than 3 "bottle collectors" who traverse your neighbourhood collecting empties from front lawns, front porches and even going into backyards for empties.

Stores tell you they don't deliver flyers to your neighbourhood because "it's all university students up there."

When you call dispatch for help they ask if you are a landlord. You say no. They say, well, it's all students up there. (You have lived there for 30 years.)

You find a website where people advise other non-students not to live in your neighbourhood when they move to town to take their dream job.

People regularly abandon shopping carts on your street. There are two in the backyard beside your house.

People honk their horns in the middle of the night because they are leaving their friends' house.

People honk their horns in the middle of the night because they are arriving at a friend's house.

People honk their horns in the middle of the night because they are driving past a friend's house.

People honk their horns in the middle of the night because they have a horn.



Feel free to jump in, residents of the "universities neighbourhood."

Hey students. Isn't it enough that you have to hoot

and holler on the way home from the pub at 3am

in the morning without smashing bottles on the way?

Who is going to clean the glass up. If you are lucky

you broke a bottle in front of a permanent residents

place and they will clean it up. You have to be pretty

lucky to do that as there are very few permanent ones

left. Otherwise it just gets shuffeled to the side.

 Did you ever go barefoot as a youngster? Ever

step in some glass? That is what you are doing to

anyone that might be walking in bare feet or sandals.

I guess your judgement is clouded by the alcohol.

Will they end up on kijiji?

Another sign you are living in a nice family neighbourhood - NOT!

Stained, vile mattresses lying at the curb - this one was so bad even the guys who picked up the other left it behind. Yuck.

You would wonder how there can

be so much garbage in one house