Here is an update on the greenspace on Marc Chagall Avenue.
The owners of the Equinoxe apartment buildings have failed to live up to the terms of the lease they signed to use a large greenspace on Marc Chagall Avenue as a parking lot for construction workers for a period of three years.
The understanding was that the company would return that land in the precise form that they found it. Regrettably this has not occurred.
Last fall the company cleared the sand and gravel, but when spring came the grass was not growing. Our legal team had them come do the work a second time and once again it did not take. They made two more tries, including having an employee spend a few days literally picking up every rock he could find and placing them in buckets.
Mayor Mitchell Brownstein and I met with our senior city management on the site on July 13 and we agreed that we must complete the job ourselves. While there is definitely an improvement, it is far from acceptable.
It is too warm to proceed now with removing the entire existing top layer of space, adding a new layer of proper soil and then hydro seeding, adding new sod and watering for two weeks. We will hire our own contractor towards the very end of August or start of September when the weather is most condusive to planting. Our legal team has done an excellent job taking the bull by the horn.
In the interim public Works will cut the existing grass. They have created a small pathway closer to the street with benches. The Mayor and I have asked them to pave the pathway and replace the benches with new ones, as well as add picnic tables like the model we have behind the library with backs on the seats. As well, new trees will be planted on the grounds.
New flowers have been planted on the other small pathway facing the snow dump.
It is regrettable that the original contractors hired by the company did not complete this job properly last fall. We are now taking all legal means available to rectify the situation.
