Present: about 65 people attended the meeting.

Opening remarks were made by Chairman Dick Watts to welcome everyone to the meeting. A history of works done by the association over the past three decades was shared with those in attendance. Introductions of visiting guests and special members included: Caroline Invaldsen (Head Librarian, Dufferin/St Clair Library), Alexandra Bravo (Chair, St. Clair West Village Residents' Association), Mike Foderick (executive assistant to Councillor Caesar Palacio), Nancy Byers (life member and co-author of "St.Clair West in Pictures") and Patsy Agard (Principal of Oakwood Collegiate).

Patsy Agard welcomed everyone to OCI. She expressed her thanks to RHRA for the help given OCI in developing the gardens and benches surrounding the school. The president of their eco club has successfully organized the planting of cedar trees on the north side of the school to beautify the main entrance in time to celebrate the upcoming centennial anniversary of the school. Cars parked illegally in the OCI parking lot are being ticketed and arrangements are being made to have them removed.

St. Clair West BIA / My St. Clair.com: Tony Bolla announced the following events and projects:

• The Sunflower Festival hosted by the BIA, local schools and residents’ association will be held on June 11th. Volunteers are welcome to help with the planning of the festival. The next meeting will be on Thursday May 19th at Lorraine's café 163 Lauder Avenue.
• The BIA is planning a summer concert series with different performers each weekend in efforts to revitalize the area and bring people onto St. Clair Ave.
• An art week display will be repeated again during the latter part of September.
• An informal survey of local merchants will be done next month to determine interest in extending the BIA from Glenholme to Winona Ave. Feel free to encourage your local merchants to become part of the BIA and their efforts to make St. Clair West a pleasant place to shop and stroll.
• MyStClair.com is a website that can be checked on a regular basis for updates of current events happening in our neighbourhood.

Regal Road School Portico
Harry Lay reported that efforts are being made to have the eroding pillars at the entrance of the school stabilized.
A City of Toronto Heritage Fund grant programme is expected to be instituted to enable this project to be funded later this year.

Street Beautification

Florence Watts and Marla Percy reported:
• Gardens – RHRA has been developing and maintaining several community gardens with the assistance of local residents who plant and maintain them. They include: Rosemount gardens for which Wendy Fletcher and Gord Hart are the principal "keepers", the Springmount gardens, the Dufferin / St Clair Library garden, Daffodil Hill (along Davenport by Regal Road school), and helping the OCI Environment Club to establish gardens at the north entrance to Oakwood Collegiate . Please enjoy all the gardens. Contributions from your own garden of perennials that you are dividing up are always welcome. A big problem we are having is with dogs that are allowed to run through the gardens. Dog owners are encouraged to keep their dogs on a leash and to "stoop and scoop". Owners that allow dogs to run unleashed or who do not scoop up after their pets can be reported to the City at 416-338-7297. A city official will speak with the owners and give them a warning.
• Graffiti - there are three kinds of properties that graffiti is found on. 1. On city property – if reported the city will arrange to have the graffiti cleaned off. 2. On private property – if reported to the city at 416-CLEAN a by-law officer will visit the owner and charge him/her with the job of having the graffiti removed from their property. 3. on corporation property - e.g. mailboxes, phone transformer boxes. The corporations are expected to have their own system in place to address graffiti problems. In many cases it is much quicker to clean these boxes ourselves. Volunteers in our neighbourhood have "adopted" some of the mail and phone boxes and clean them regularly. Usually it comes off with a little bit of elbow grease and lacquer thinner. Help keep our neighbourhood looking nice by adopting a box.


John Keating reported:
• Street Trees – several mature trees in our neighbourhood have been removed over the past couple of months. More are expected to need removal in the coming years. Many of these trees are Norway Maples that are prone to longitudinal splits in the tree trunks during cold snaps. This causes them to be at risk of causing injuries and damage should they fall unexpectedly. In hopes of maintaining a good tree canopy in our neighbourhood, John Keating has volunteered to spearhead another canvassing effort to have more trees planted . A tree planting kit has been developed to assist volunteers going door to door to invite homeowners to have a tree planted on the city portion of their property. It is free and will be maintained by the city although it would be helpful if the owner watered it regularly to help it get established. Volunteers to canvas Westmount, Lauder, Springmount, Glenholme and Alberta have already stepped forward. More volunteers are needed to help either on the already mentioned streets and the others in our area. Canvassing must finish by the end of June to ensure the applications are complete and in to the city for the deadline of July 15th. Please speak to John Keating if interested in volunteering.(tel:416-658-5298)
• Litter – our community annual clean up day was a cold and rainy Saturday morning. Thanks to those who came out and braved the weather to collect a significant pile of garbage to make our neighbourhood a cleaner one. Thanks to Mike Foderick for being a liaison for us with the City and for providing cleaning supplies and arranging garbage pick-up on that day.

Communications and Website
David Shanoff reported that we have a website: www.regalheights.ca where meeting minutes are posted as well as news of current events, a history of our area and links to other organizations. Members with e-mail addresses receive announcements of news and upcoming events as well as the minutes. Those without e-mail have the minutes of meetings hand-delivered by Severino Centritto. Thank you Severino!

Special Events

Mike MacConnell reported:
A Canada Parade in our area will be held on Friday July 1st beginning at the northeast corner of OCI at 11 am. The parade will wind through the streets of Regal Heights and end at the Regal Road Public School with popsicles for participants. Residents are encouraged to invite their new neighbours who may not know of this event. Bring noisemakers, flags to wave and wear red and white to celebrate Canada Day.

Brian MacConnell reported:
Our annual Carol Sing, which began about 9 years ago with a very small group meeting to sing carols around a small evergreen that we planted in the northeast corner of OCI. The event has grown into a large gathering with the Salvation Army band leading us in song, a couple of mounted police in attendance, hot chocolate and a visit from Santa. As the evergreen keeps growing, so too we hope this event will grow.

Planning and Zoning

• general comments –Dick Watts reported that applications to carry out renovations that do not conform with the zoning by-laws must be reviewed by the Committee of Adjustment and if appealed, must be reviewed at an Ontario Municipal Board hearing. While these issues are sometimes brought forward as a concern at executive meetings, RHRA does not get involved as an association. Several individual members from the RHRA executive have had experience in these dealings with the Committee of Adjustment and the OMB and act on an individual basis when assistance has been requested.
• Mount Royal Parkette – Dick Watts and Rick Suvanto reported that, at the request of local residents, Councillor Palacio has arranged for a new design concept for the parkette. It is underutilized by the children in the area and overly soiled by dogs. At a public meeting held last week to discuss this issue, it was agreed to have the gates removed immediately in order to discourage dog owners from bringing their dogs into the area. The long-range plan, prepared by Parks staff, proposes that the entire existing fence be removed and that the grading of the park changed to produce a larger playground area. In order to achieve the grade-change a 3ft. high retaining wall would be installed and new fencing would almost enclose the play area. Marble Hill Park is a comparable site; it has been built with a retaining wall to establish a level playground area. It is located at Hatherley Rd. and Ennerdale Rd. near the north end of Earlscourt Ave.
• Rogers communication tower – Dick Watts and Mike Fodreick reported that Rogers has erected a 54ft. communications tower near the lane behind 1142 Davenport. There has been much petitioning to have it removed. Apparently, by CRTC rules, a building permit was not required prior to installation and Rogers is not offering to remove it. They have offered to build a fence around it. The opposition to this tower has brought much media attention to these structures throughout the city. As a result, Councillor Palacio has a motion before city council to develop a policy that includes community consultation before any future towers can be erected. David Self suggested that other structures such as CB radio towers might also be included in the new policy.
• St. Clair Transit – the Environmental Assessment Report jointly written by the TTC and City is now being reviewed by the Minister of Environment. No response has publicly been made yet. Plans are for construction to begin in July 2005 with Phase One being between Yonge St. and Bathurst St. Construction in our area is expected to begin in the summer of 2006.
• The TTC has been preparing concepts for the newloading ramps, sidewalks, power poles etc.
• Severino Centritto has been attending public consultation meetings that address these urban design concepts. These concepts can be viewed on the web at: http://toronto.ca/wes/techservices/involved/transportation/st-clair_construction/cdcg.htm., go to "workshop 04" then click on "presentation". You will have to download Adobe Reader in order to see the pictures.

Severino explained a problem with proposed future TTC stops at Glenholme and Northcliffe. They will be reduced to one half of what is presently there. Plans are for a westbound stop at Glenholme and an eastbound stop at Northcliffe and the elimination of the eastbound stop at Glenholme and the westbound stop at Northcliffe. He argued that this reduction will adversely affect the TTC users (the disabled, parents with young children, seniors, shoppers) and merchants, as one would have to walk a greater distance before reaching a stop to board the streetcar. To date the TTC has not been open to changing this reduction.

Severino Centritto moved that the RHRA send a letter to the TTC expressing our concerns and requesting that complete stops be installed at Glenholme and Northcliffe. A vote of hands was taken, and the motion was passed. Margaret Smith stated that the design has already been approved by City Council as a functional design and is not open to change unless the Minister of Environment directs that the matter be reconsidered. Margaret moved that RHRA send a letter to the Minister of Environment requesting that the Minister impose a condition on any approval of the EA Report, a condition that would require a full and thorough review of the impacts of alternative configurations of stops and loading platforms at Northcliffe and Glenholme, and the selection of the best alternative. A vote of hands was taken, and the motion was passed.

Coming Events
Dick Watts, Margaret Smith, Caroline Ingvaldsen and Mike Foderick spoke re: the following coming events:

• May 20, 5 pm to 8 pm, free City compost, at No Frills parking lot.
• May 25, 10:30 am, City Hall committee Room 1 (second floor), public meeting to discuss the proposed expansion of the Community Improvement Plan area (now extending from Glenholme to the CN rail) to extend from Bathurst to Runnymede. For more info, contact Mike Foderick.
• May 26, 7 pm, Dufferin/St Clair Library Renovation Public Consultation Meeting at the library.
• June 2, 7 pm, Police Community Partnership regular meeting (first Thursday of each month) at Oakwood Collegiate cafeteria.
• June 25, 9 am to 2 pm, Regal Heights Street Sale
• July 1, 11 am, Regal Heights Canada Day Parade, starts at Oakwood Collegiate.

Finances
Linda DeGeorgio presented the following financial information:

Expenditures during the 2004-2005 season
1. Administration $
-general meetings, flyers, notices, photocopies 250
-website fee, bank fees 97
2. Street Beautification
-plant materials, planters, hoses, sign, etc., 360
3. Special Events
-Carol Sing, Canada Day 110
TOTAL $817

Funds Available at May 17, 2005
1. Bank Balance (including $305 in trust for library murals) 755
2. Petty Cash on hand 119
3. Membership fees paid to-night 490
TOTAL $1364

A message from Councillor Palacio

Mike Foderick spoke on behalf of Councillor Palacio to thank RHRA for all the continued good work done to maintain and beautify the neighbourhood. In recognition of this work a plaque is to be presented to RHRA on May 26 at the meeting on library renovations. The plaque is expected to be "permanently" displayed in the Dufferin / St Clair library.

Appointment of 2005-2006 Executive committee

All executive members are volunteers from the community at large who give of their time and effort to plan and implement the activities of the Association. Executive members were asked to stand and be recognized. David Raymont, Past Chairman, proposed that these same members continue for another year and that others who indicated on their membership applications that they wish to join the executive, be accepted as the new executive for 2005-2006. A vote of hands was taken, and the motion was passed unanimously. Severino suggested that other residents might be more inclined to participate in executive meetings if they were held in a public place versus private homes. This matter will be discussed at the next executive meeting in September.

Closing Remarks were made by Chairman Watts to thank the many guests who attended, the residents who came and supported the Association with their membership renewal and helped promote, organize and manage this meeting, Patsy Agard for hosting the meeting, the caretakers of OCI for setting up the cafeteria space for us, and all those who have helped to set up and take down the displays.

Next regular Executive Meeting : September 20 at Watts' place, 57 Regal Road.