Officialdom has decreed (without debate) that the Artscape Development (artists' live work spaces, artists' studio spaces, non-profit community group spaces, the rehearsal space component, the Stop food bank component, the Foodshare retail component) should supplant a public park.. We will never know whether this flight of fancy could have survived critical inquiry.

This rather ambiguous state of affairs is brought to you, courtesy of procedural flim flams that only Councillor Mihevc & his erudite comrades could have fashioned.

An election intervened and a left leaning Council led by the telegenic Mayor Miller was elected. One of the first orders of business was to balance the books which was of course impossible for a host of reasons, not the least of which was the left Council's appettite for insolvent causes. No-one should be surprised that Councillor Mihevc & the new Council kickstarted his pet Wychwood Barns Artscape project to the tune of $100 Large & designated Artscape to be managers of the compound.

"Arms length" Artscape, an estimable organisation to be sure, seems to be officially empowered take money from the City in order to raise development money while at the same time using City imprimateur to seek zoning relief from the City for its projects. A developer that's clearly inside the box and in an enviable if not exquisite position

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HISTORICAL CONTEXT

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City Staff's most recent Report on Artscape's proposal for the Wychwood Barns was presented to the July 2, 2003 Administration Committee meeting without prior notice, as usual. The mandated notification to all interested parties was either innocently overlooked or deliberately ignored in an effort to fly the project under the radar.

The report states that the proposal is unacceptable in its current form because Artscape cannot come up with the money for its project and expects the City to pick up the initial tab of $2.3 million plus development costs, infrastructure costs etc. The report then asks the Committee to ignore Artscape's inability to meet the Request for Proposals requirements, and allow Artscape & the City to seek alternate funding arrangements.

Due to lack of notice, the matter was put off to September.
Thinking that a deferral could be taken literally, those critical of the project left, at which point Mayoral candidate Miller reopened the issue. The Committe then instructed the staff to investigate alternate funding arrangements with Artscape. In an elegant democratic flourish, The Committee both deferred and accepted the report.

It should be noted that staff and Councillor Mihevc touted Artscape as an organization that could leverage funds from other levels of government where the City was constrained; particularly insofar as the City could not afford a park.
Incidentally, during a Midtown debate, Councillor Walker said that if his colleague was unable to "leverage" money for something as simple as a park from the City, the Councillor was not doing his job.
In any event, if Artscape is thus far unable to demonstrate any fund-leveraging expertise, aside from a shakedown of City coffers: if Artscape is unable to meet the conditions of the RFP which it co-authored with the Councillor, why is the discussion ongoing?

The logical basis for this morass is that Artscape won the RFP fair & square, being the only developer who had the vision, courage & inspiration to apply. Upon receipt of the Request for Proposals other developers heaped equal helpings of derision & scorn onto it, since it was entirely unworkable and obviously written specifically for Artscape.

As we can see, the shining path project proceeds, though it should soon lose its lustre, if not for the shady backchannel process, then due to large scale external economic situations that should logically sideline vanity enterprises.