The following op-ed appears in the February 19 edition of the Guelph Mercury:
I continue to be astounded and troubled by the degree and nature of opposition to a Sikh temple proposed for the south end.
A website entitled stop-the-temple has begun, through which its creators are soliciting funds to mount an organized opposition to the proposal from the Guelph Sikh Society.
Nearly 2,500 flyers have been mailed to homes in the area, and the group behind the website hopes to collect 1,000 names on a petition.
Some have warned supporting the temple proposal would be “a career-limiting decision” for councillors who do so.
Tough words indeed. So what is this issue all about?
The Sikh Society has sought to have the parcel of land on Clair Road rezoned to allow the construction of a temple.
Many residents are opposed to the proposal, citing a range of concerns including incompatibility with the neighbourhood, increased traffic, lack of adequate parking and noise resulting from the temple.
These are legitimate concerns which city staff will have to address. But it’s curious they’ve been raised so passionately since the Sikhs’ proposal came forward.
Consider the subject property was not long ago rezoned to allow the construction of a long-term care facility, which would have been much larger than the proposed place of worship, include a similar amount of parking and clearly have staff, residents and visitors coming and going around the clock.
The level of opposition to that proposal? Not a cheep.
No petition. No mass mail-outs. No stop-the-long-term-care-facility website.
No twisting of the facts to prevent all those seniors from moving into the neighbourhood.
Those behind the stop-the-temple movement have developed quite a knack for fear-mongering.
The design of the 18,000-square-foot building will allow for a maximum capacity of about 400 worshippers, city officials have repeated often. This is in keeping with the Sikh Society’s stated intention, which is to have a temple large enough to allow some future growth for their 300-member community.
But opponents allege the temple will have a potential occupancy of 2,000, which makes it easy to claim the 169 parking spots proposed for the site will not be sufficient and the true number of vehicles arriving for services will be at least twice that.
The latest point of attack seems to focus on the potential impact of a temple on the local sewage system.
“The sewers installed were calculated to handle the sewage generated by the existing sites approved,” reads a message on the stop-the-temple.info website. “The occupancy of this building will be equal to 400 homes.”
Besides being terribly misleading — unless it means 400 one-person homes occupied for only a few hours each week — the statement also makes me wonder where these arguments were when this was supposed to be a long-term care facility.
Certainly hundreds of seniors living there full-time would have been a much greater strain on infrastructure than occasional attendees at a temple. Exaggeration aside, I suppose we should be glad opposition is at least focusing on actual planning principles, and not on the racist garbage so prevalent early in this exercise.
But it feels like the race angle has just been intentionally downplayed since it became clear it was undermining the opposition.
The website’s original logo, which depicted a domed temple with a line through it, was recently removed. While I thought a domed temple with a line through it was an entirely appropriate logo for a website aimed at stopping the construction of a domed temple, a posting on the site indicated it was removed to alleviate claims of racism.
But consider another posting on that same website promoting the public information meeting earlier this week.
“Please refrain from any racial comments,” the posting read. “The politicians behind this will use that as an excuse to move forward with their agenda.”
If the opposition was never about race, why the need to ask people to refrain from making racial comments?
The other curious note about that posting is the claim moving the temple forward is part of the agenda of city councillors. This assertion is repeated often on the website, at one point even calling Mayor Karen Farbridge “the driving force” behind the proposal. Rubbish.
The rezoning application came from the Sikh Society, through its lawyers, and is being studied by city staff as would any other such application. The only real involvement from politicians at this point has been receiving the application. The opponents deserve to have their concerns heard. But trying to support these arguments with false claims only clouds the issue.
Scott Tracey is a Mercury staff writer. His Jury of One column appears Fridays. He can be reached at [email protected]