A proposed golf centre development pitting Thornhill residents against one another recently became threatening, according to one local woman. “I had a terrible experience,” said area resident Marlene Gallyot of a recent encounter.
According to Gallyot, who has petitioned in favour of the facility, she was recently “charged,” “threatened” and photographed while on her street by area residents opposed to the planned development. “He said, ‘I know where you live, and I know who you’re working for,’” Gallyot described.
“And I said, ‘What has that got to do with me having a voice as much as you do?’” The proposal, submitted by Within Range Golf Centres Inc., seeks to build an outdoor driving range with chipping and putting areas, a clubhouse with patio and a miniature golf course on leased land at 8111 Leslie St. The property, currently a vacant hydro corridor, owned by the Ontario Realty Corporation, backs onto a residential community on Summerdale Drive.
Joel Starkman, president of the Summerdale Ratepayers Association, said his group’s residents are concerned about the impact the development will have on the neighbourhood. “It’s going to be like a gun being shot every so many seconds,” Starkman said of the expected noise. Facility lighting, increased traffic and a planned three-metre-high berm, to separate the facility from residential properties, are also concerns for the group. A petition with signatures against the development has been collected.
“Anyone backing on to that, you’ve got no vision across the field,” Starkman said, adding that the development would diminish property values. Gallyot has a different view. “A lot of people, even who live on that hydro corridor line, are wanting [the development],” she said. “It’s just a hydro corridor line. It’s not like the Everglades, or something like that.” Gallyot said she had collected more than 90 signatures on her petition.
