Maurice Boscorelli
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[h=2]Ajax mayor Steve Parish encouraged the town’s bylaw office to reverse an order to dismantle the tiny rink after it had initially threatened its owner with a fine of up to $25,000 for failure to comply with a municipal bylaw[/h]
Steve Russell / Toronto Star file photo
Karen Callery plays on her front yard rink with her 9-year-old daughter, Jamie. Callery has been given a reprieve after being ordered to remove the rink or face a $25,000 fine.
By: Daniel Otis News Reporter, Published on Wed Jan 28 2015
Let the kids skate.
The Town of Ajax has reversed a decision ordering a family to dismantle their front yard skating rink or face a fine of up to $25,000. That reversal came after Ajax’s mayor encouraged the town’s bylaw office to seek a compromise.
“I’m absolutely thrilled,” Karen Callery, who built the tiny rink for her two young children, said on Wednesday. “The kids are so happy that they’ll be able to keep skating!”
Last week, Callery was ordered to tear the rink down after a neighbour filed an anonymous complaint with the town’s bylaw office. Apparently, that neighbour thought that the little rink didn’t quite meet their quiet subdivision’s appearance standard. This was the third year in a row that Callery had built a rink in her front yard.
Callery challenged the town’s initial decision. On Tuesday, she was told that she can keep the rink — for now.
“As a mayor, I’m always reluctant to get involved in law enforcement matters,” Mayor Steve Parish said on Wednesday. “But this had elevated to a level where I just felt that calmer heads had to prevail, and it seemed to me that there was a mutually agreeable resolution that could be arrived at.”
Parish reached out to the town’s bylaw office and encouraged them to find some middle ground. After all, Parish said, it would be difficult to tear down an ice rink that is frozen solid, and the Town of Ajax, he added, is also about to begin a bylaw review process.
On Tuesday, Callery received an email from the town’s bylaw office with the good news.
The town’s decision, the email stated, is contingent on Callery removing the 5-by-6-metre rink’s boards by the end of March Break or during the season’s first significant thaw.
“Please understand that this agreement will have no bearing on the installation of a rink structure in the future,” the email also stated. “It is still the position of the Town that an ice rink with boards that is artificially containing water is a structure.”
A Town of Ajax bylaw prohibits front yard structures such as sheds. Fountains and gardens, however, are excluded from this ban.
On Jan. 22, the Star published a story about the icy issue. That story received hundreds of comments — and so did Callery.
“The responses I got were amazing,” a triumphant Callery said. “Even neighbours that I have never met before have come to my defence.”
The story and also apparently created something of a PR nightmare for the small Durham Region town.
“There had been a lot of negative press about it, and concerns at the time that we’re anti-kids and anti-hockey and anti-skating, which is very, very far from the truth,” Parish said.
“When I first saw the emails about this, I said to myself, ‘this may not be over quickly.’ ”
This summer, the Town of Ajax will begin hosting public meetings to review its bylaws.
“I’m going to make a presentation at one of those meetings,” Callery says. She is already circulating a petition urging Ajax to create a permanent exemption for temporary ice rinks in residential front yards. Although backyard skating rinks are allowed in Ajax, Callery says that her pool and sloping property prohibited her from building one behind her house.
“I need to thank you guys, too,” Callery told the Star on Wednesday. “If you guys hadn’t covered this story, it never would have went anywhere — I would have been pulling my boards down.”
Good too see that the right decision was made in the end.
Karen Callery plays on her front yard rink with her 9-year-old daughter, Jamie. Callery has been given a reprieve after being ordered to remove the rink or face a $25,000 fine.
By: Daniel Otis News Reporter, Published on Wed Jan 28 2015
Let the kids skate.
The Town of Ajax has reversed a decision ordering a family to dismantle their front yard skating rink or face a fine of up to $25,000. That reversal came after Ajax’s mayor encouraged the town’s bylaw office to seek a compromise.
“I’m absolutely thrilled,” Karen Callery, who built the tiny rink for her two young children, said on Wednesday. “The kids are so happy that they’ll be able to keep skating!”
Last week, Callery was ordered to tear the rink down after a neighbour filed an anonymous complaint with the town’s bylaw office. Apparently, that neighbour thought that the little rink didn’t quite meet their quiet subdivision’s appearance standard. This was the third year in a row that Callery had built a rink in her front yard.
Callery challenged the town’s initial decision. On Tuesday, she was told that she can keep the rink — for now.
“As a mayor, I’m always reluctant to get involved in law enforcement matters,” Mayor Steve Parish said on Wednesday. “But this had elevated to a level where I just felt that calmer heads had to prevail, and it seemed to me that there was a mutually agreeable resolution that could be arrived at.”
Parish reached out to the town’s bylaw office and encouraged them to find some middle ground. After all, Parish said, it would be difficult to tear down an ice rink that is frozen solid, and the Town of Ajax, he added, is also about to begin a bylaw review process.
On Tuesday, Callery received an email from the town’s bylaw office with the good news.
The town’s decision, the email stated, is contingent on Callery removing the 5-by-6-metre rink’s boards by the end of March Break or during the season’s first significant thaw.
“Please understand that this agreement will have no bearing on the installation of a rink structure in the future,” the email also stated. “It is still the position of the Town that an ice rink with boards that is artificially containing water is a structure.”
A Town of Ajax bylaw prohibits front yard structures such as sheds. Fountains and gardens, however, are excluded from this ban.
On Jan. 22, the Star published a story about the icy issue. That story received hundreds of comments — and so did Callery.
“The responses I got were amazing,” a triumphant Callery said. “Even neighbours that I have never met before have come to my defence.”
The story and also apparently created something of a PR nightmare for the small Durham Region town.
“There had been a lot of negative press about it, and concerns at the time that we’re anti-kids and anti-hockey and anti-skating, which is very, very far from the truth,” Parish said.
“When I first saw the emails about this, I said to myself, ‘this may not be over quickly.’ ”
This summer, the Town of Ajax will begin hosting public meetings to review its bylaws.
“I’m going to make a presentation at one of those meetings,” Callery says. She is already circulating a petition urging Ajax to create a permanent exemption for temporary ice rinks in residential front yards. Although backyard skating rinks are allowed in Ajax, Callery says that her pool and sloping property prohibited her from building one behind her house.
“I need to thank you guys, too,” Callery told the Star on Wednesday. “If you guys hadn’t covered this story, it never would have went anywhere — I would have been pulling my boards down.”
Good too see that the right decision was made in the end.
