Resident speaks out on Northdale - Chronicle Letter

D'Ailly needs to answer for Northdale

Letters

Oct 20, 2010

I just wanted to let you know that Mayoral Candidate Jan d'Ailly made a difference in Northdale, too.

In fact, if I could place the blame for the disaster that Northdale has become on one person's shoulder's — it would be on Jan d'Ailly.

Jan d'Ailly was chair of the finance committee that failed to give the funds to implement the Student Accommodation Report that was meant to preserve Northdale as a mixed family and student neighbourhood. And as you probably know, Northdale went on to became an almost 100 per cent student-occupied ghetto with rampant crime.

Jan d'Ailly sat on Town and Gown while a policy of not charging students was in place from 2000 to 2007. Just to clarify — students were not being charged for breaking the law in Waterloo despite the fact that the residents of Northdale were promised proactive zero-tolerance bylaw enforcement in the Student Accommodation Report of 2004.

He tried to stop us from getting a land use study for Northdale to figure out how to fix the problems. We finally got one but only after Mayor Halloran and several councilors intervened.

And now Mr. D'Ailly's website says that he "championed a comprehensive land use study" for Northdale. That couldn't be further from the truth. He tried to prevent us from getting a Land Use Study.

Jan fought us every step of the way as we tried to get help for Northdale.

I believe Jan d'Ailly was the worst councilor that Northdale has had in the 14 years that I have lived in here.

Can you imagine what he could do with all of Waterloo to manage? I bet he could make a "big difference" in Waterloo too.

Christine Carmody
Waterloo

What's been tried besides enforcement. A reply to Erin Epp.

1) Make nice - residents take muffins, butter tarts to newly arrived student neighbours, welcoming them and offering to be available if they have questions about the city, or even about maintaining their homes. (garbage day, etc.)

2) Loan them snow shovels, garden tools, ladders, blue boxes, and more. (sometimes we never see these things again.

3) Residents take in student garbage cans, sweep up broken glass, hose down vomit to keep the neighbourhood looking good and safer.

4) Residents hand out welcome bags - again as a way to introduce themselves to the new neighbours.

5) Residents sit on student/resident interaction committee for years.

6) The door knocker program was done for years - to no avail.

7) Year after year residents hosted the commuity bbq for incoming students - even after it got ridiculous because the neighbourhood was over 80% student occupied and the bbqs led to no improvement in behaviour or quality of life.

8) One member of the neighbourhood sat on the Town and Gown committee until the T/G comm. reorganized and decided they didn't want residents on it anymore. So we lost our input into that committee.

9) The residents lobbied for safer streets for students - that went nowhere - we suggested improved lighting, security cameras (after the severe beatings - 2 of them - at the corner of Albert and University. Again - rejected.

10) Mediation - where permanent residents are asked to sit down with people who break the law to decide to what extend we will allow those people to destroy our quality of life and destroy our propety values. (lawn parking, trespassing, drumming at all hours of the day and night...)

Student tenants turn over way too often for them to care about forming any kind of friendly relationship with their perm. resident neighbours, plus, it must not be overlooked that a lot of the students who choose Northdale over other neighbourhoods do so simply because they believe that they can get away with the very kind of behaviour that makes them bad neighbours and they would never participate in the community building you have spoken of.
Jan D'ailly held 3 meetings that were supposed to be about community building - what came of that?
Nothing.
Plus, it is not absentee landlords screaming as they go though our neighbourhood, and fighting, and puking and breaking glass (all over the Northdale sidewalks) nor trespassing through seniors' properties to get out of crescents because they are too lazy to walk around, nor breaking down fences and hedges to cut through, nor burning mattresses on huge bonfires, nor ripping the doors off their properties to burn in bonfires, nor throwing empty bottles over our fences where they smash on our patios, nor building revolting headless female anatomically correct snow sculptures across from seniors (think grandparents), nor throwing keg parties with hundreds of drunk people at them...Landlords are not the biggest problem in Northdale.
NO amount of "community building" will solve this.

Female Jogger assaulted in Northdale (the Record)

Woman reports being assaulted while jogging in Waterloo

October 05, 2010

By Cherri Greeno, Record staff

WATERLOO — Police are looking for three men after an 18-year-old woman was assaulted while jogging in Waterloo early Tuesday.

Waterloo Regional Police say the teen was jogging in the area of Hickory and Hazel streets around 12:20 a.m. when she was assaulted by three unknown men.

She was able to fight off her attackers and run home, where she called police.

The teen was taken to hospital and treated for a sprained wrist and facial bruising.

“This is really shocking,” said Wilfrid Laurier University student Eleisha Salmon, after hearing the news. “I’ll definitely be taking foot patrol now.”

Salmon, 20, lives in the area where the assault happened and said she experienced a similar situation last summer when two men tried to grab her on the street. She was able to hit them with her keys and run away. Because it was dark, Salmon says she didn’t get a good look at the men. She never reported the incident to police.

Wilfrid Laurier student Leanne Metsa, 20, said she is also shocked by the incident.

“You don’t expect that from this area,” she said.

Katrina Weyer, 21, also a university student, said she makes sure to walk with a friend or use campus foot patrol when out late.

“It’s just not worth it. It just needs to happen once,” she said.

Police are continuing to investigate. No descriptions of the men are available.

Anyone with information is asked to call police at 519-650-8500 ext. 3399 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS or online.

How is this not a ghetto??? A week curbside on Albert.

Unpleasant site for a week's worth of passersby.

"Do Not Take - Bed Bugs" - but they were nearly picked up by a couple of guys in an SUV (after dark). Finally someone from the house told them not to take them. But they'd picked them up, and handled them, turning them over, checking for dampness first. Picking up mattresses curbside is a frequent occurrence in Northdale.

How about where you live????

Sunday morning surprises on Albert