Letter To City Officials
Blocked storm creek in Bridletowne Area
Resident - 3131 Bridletowne Circle
ref: Sep-03/08 "Chronic Basement Flooding Consultation"
and: Sep-10/08 "Community Consultation Meeting" regarding the Bridlewood Re-zoning Application.

Dear City Officials,

Bing a resident living in the Bridlewood Area, I would like to thank you for providing a opportunity to the local community and neighbourhood of communicating about our concerns of our local area. I especially appreciate the opportunity to meet with you in the Sep-03/08 "Chronic Basement Flooding Consultation" meeting and Sep-10/08 "Community Consultation Meeting" regarding the Bridlewood Re-zoning Application.

The attached are some evidences why the whole community have such a huge and anxious concern regarding the sewer system that the potential development at Bridlewood Mall can further worsen and adversely affect.

1. Many sections and storm sewer collection branches have been over-loaded. It does not have the capacity to handle extreme weather conditions. That's exactly what happened in the summer of 2005. The huge summer storm caused storm sewer backup into the entire underground garages, recreation facilities and swimming pool at 3131 Bridletowne Circle & 3151 Bridletowne Circle. Many cars parked in the underground garages flooded. The two condo corporations had to spend more than 3 months and thousands and hundreds of dollars for cleaning, repair and renovation. It caused significant financial burden and living inconvenience to the entire residents. I have put comments in the first two slides of the attached file. The storm water collected from the upper areas around the Beverly Glen Blvd. is always jamming into a narrow storm sewer in the Beverly Glen Park then to the underground storm sewer under the property of the First Alliance Church. The study by the City's hired consultation company, which was presented in the Sep-03/08 public consultation meeting also confirm with such problems in this area.

2. The open creek starting from Finch Ave. East at Bridletowne Circle (west) down to Pinemeadow Blvd., then to Collingsbrook Blvd., then to Warden Avenue are extremely blocked by fully-grown trees and bushes. While the designed/calculated capacity may mean a "perfect" number for developers, the actual blockage (especially with lush leaves in the summer and fall seasons) is hidden disaster for the entire neighbourhood and the City. You also need to add considerations of the accumulated debris/garbage/dead branches/twigs flowing in a huge storm flows. Luckily we survived a chance in the summer 2005, and the incident happened on Finch Ave. West in the west side of the City didn't occur in our community. But I believe if the condition is not changed/improved, the recurrences of roads and bridges collapsing in this area is just a matter of time.

3. With more intensified land construction and development, I believe the current limited buffer salvage will be eliminated on the open space of Bridlewood Mall. While the developer only focus on their own land, the City must take initiatives to ensure the whole area is not adversely affected by any future unreasonable development projects because none of the local community group, land developer, residential owner has the capability/territory to deal with such a commonly shared concern/issue.

I have copied this message to both Councilor Mike Del Grande and Councilor Norm Kelly for their awareness.

Please don't hesitated to contact me.

With regards,
Resident - 3131 Bridletowne Circle

Attachments:

• Picture Gallery (fastest)
• as a slideshow (3.4M)
• as a .pdf document (3.7M)

Notes to Attachments:

1. The current storm sewer systems have been over-loaded, not able to handle the emergency issues such as the flooding in the summer in 2005.

2. When a troubled storm sewer system is over-flooded, it can extend into the low sections/areas/roads and cause cross-connection into the sanitary sewers, which result in more flooding and back-up into basements from either storm sewer, or sanitary sewer, or both.

3. Any additional land development in the affected area can be flooded just as the existing buildings were. So it doesn't mean storm sewer cannot affect the land development projects because high condo building and low underground garages can be threatened unless they build with sump pump systems.

4. Over land development and construction can cause erosions and sediments, soils and sand accumulated in the storm sewer systems and bring out adverse impact to the existing troubled systems.

5. Blockage of fully-grown trees and bushes are hidden disaster for the community and neighbourhood because it can cause road, bridge, bank to collapse in extreme flooding conditions.