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Slight majority of Chautauqua survey responses opposed to Project Niagara Posted 10 mins ago

A survey distributed in the Chautauqua area shows that 43 residents, or 57 per cent of those who responded, are opposed to having a music festival as a neighbour.

Of 225 households in the area, 75, or 33 per cent, returned the survey.

Buddy Andres, president of the neighbourhood association, says he believes the results and the comments will be helpful in discussions with Project Niagara representatives and politicians when they ask how the community feels about the summer concert series that is being planned for the Parks Canada property on Lakeshore Road.

Chautauqua residents, particularly those who live on Shakespeare Avenue, will be the most affected by the concerts, a joint project of the Toronto Symphony and the National Arts Centre.

Of those who responded to the survey, 33 per cent support the project and 10 per cent said they were undecided.

Those in favour listed the economic benefits as the main reason for their support. Others endorse the use of the property for concerts and the jobs that will be created.

The vast majority—91 per cent—of those opposed cite traffic and parking as the reason for their objections.

They also have concerns about noise and the cost of the project, and expressed unease for the ecology of the area.

In summarizing the survey, Andres said, “it is clear to the executive that the majority of Chautauqua Residents Association members and residents of Chautauqua are opposed to Project Niagara for a variety of reasons. The CRA executive does not believe that Project Niagara is a "done deal" and we will be conveying the position expressed by our members and the accompanying concerns to whomever and wherever necessary.”

Tom Braybrook, a Chautauqua resident and outspoken project supporter, says the only conclusion that can be drawn from the survey is that 43 residents need to be appeased

There are no statistical grounds for drawing conclusions regarding the community as a whole—only that 57 per cent of the 33 per cent who responded are opposed, he said—the sample is not representative of the population.

“You can only draw valid conclusions, make assumptions, etc. if the sample is representative - a term applied to a random, unbiased sampling of a population of a specific number of a population—which this survey wasn't.”

He also questions the way the survey was distributed and collected—residents were asked to return it at the annual neighbourhood picnic on Labour Day or to the home of Andres.

He questions what might have been said to people as the survey was distributed.

And since most people in the neighbourhood know how Andres feels about the festival—he has said he is trying to remain neutral, but has some real concerns about traffic and parking—neighbours supporting the survey might be reluctant to hand it to him at the door or at a family picnic, Braybrook says.

He faults a “biased executive” for not including information to educate people about the project, and for not having the survey conducted by an unbiased third party.

In the past, the residents association executive has stayed away from politics, Braybrook says.

“They’ve been happy to work with council and let council look after the issues,” he says.

“This executive is drifting toward a political stance and based on an invalid, deeply flawed survey is taking a position contrary to that expressed by council.”

Andres, who was meeting with the executive of the association last night to discuss the survey, said he has talked at length with Braybrook about the way the survey was carried out, including the lack of educational component.

“We’re simply a little neighbourhood association. But we’re going to be living beside this giant project, and we wanted to get a pulse of what the neighbourhood feels about it,” says Andres. “That’s all we did. How can anybody criticize that?”

Andres said the executive will discuss what to do with the information in the survey now that they have it, but he expects it will be made available to politicians, the media and anybody else who wants it, including Kari Cullen, spokesperson for Project Niagara.

And a 33 per cent response, to anybody who knows about polls and surveys, is a great return, he says.

“I think it’s a pretty good result. How we interpret that is up to our executive to decide. But I think we did the best we could with the resources we have.”

While Braybrook understands some of his neighbours, especially those on Shakespeare, might have concerns about the impacts of traffic and parking, he also trusts the town and the proponents of the music festival will be able to mitigate any impacts.

And he isn’t buying Andres’ assertion that it is just a “little neighbourhood association survey” —not when it’s likely to be used to battle Project Niagara proponents as representative of Chautauqua neighbourhood opinions.

People are opposing the project based on “supposition and speculation, not on facts or evidence,” he says.

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